As ancient narrative and as history, this story of conquest is certainly the least remarkable part of the Bible, and a very modest event as conquests go, the gradual claiming of an enclave in a territory that would be utterly negligible by the lights of real conquerors such as Alexander the Great or Augustus Caesar or even Ashurbanipal. The suggestion that God was behind it maybe makes it worse than the campaigns of self-aggrandizement that destroyed many larger cities though it is not clear to me that it should. A consequence which follows from God's role in the conquest of Canaan, asserted with terrible emphasis in Leviticus and elsewhere, is that God will deal with the Israelites exactly as he has dealt with the Canaanites, casting them out of the land in their turn if they cease to deserve it. Abraham is told in a dream that possession of the promised land will be delayed an astonishing four hundred years until, in effect, the Amorites (that is Canaanites) have lost their right to it. We Anglo-European invaders do not know yet if we will have four hundred years in this land.
Marilynne Robinson, The Fate of Ideas: Moses
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