Ripe in Iniquity

The children of Israel were given this instruction concerning their entrance into the promised land: “When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them.” They were to “destroy the seven nations of Canaan” as the chapter summary describes, and the Lord gave this reason: “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:1-4). Nephi gave us this important information about why the Lord would destroy the people of Canaan: “And now, do ye suppose that the children of this land, who were in the land of promise, who were driven out by our fathers, do ye suppose that they were righteous? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Do ye suppose that our fathers would have been more choice than they if they had been righteous? I say unto you, Nay. Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God. But behold, this people had rejected every word of God, and they were ripe in iniquity; and the fulness of the wrath of God was upon them; and the Lord did curse the land against them, and bless it unto our fathers; yea, he did curse it against them unto their destruction, and he did bless it unto our fathers unto their obtaining power over it” (1 Nephi 17:33-35). The Lord was destroying the people of the land because of their extreme wickedness and their continual rejection of “every word of God”—they were not favored less than the Israelites for any other reason than their wickedness.  

When the Lord promised the land of Canaan to Abraham, He said this: “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.… But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:13, 16). In other words, the Lord could not give them the land of Canaan because the inhabitants were not yet wicked enough for them to be destroyed. But four hundred years later, they were. Moses explained to the people why they were then permitted to take the land: “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee” (Deuteronomy 9:5). Another scripture forbade the Israelites from sexual perversions and then said this: “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.” The Israelites were further warned themselves: “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you” (Leviticus 18:26-28). The people of the land of Canaan were so wicked and involved in such abominable behavior that the land itself “vomiteth out her inhabitants,” and the Israelites were warned that the same would happen to them if they likewise became ripened in iniquity. One Biblical scholar summarized these things in this way: “All Canaanites were devoted to death. The criterion was not enmity to Israel but the law of God…. The people were entrenched in depravity and proud of it. Their iniquity was ‘full’ or total. Accordingly, God sentenced them to death.”     

Perhaps the important message for us in this is the need to cleanse ourselves of all iniquity and impurity. In particular, we must rid ourselves of modern idols that stand in our way to loving and serving the Lord with all our heart. This instruction to the Israelites should inspire us: “Thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:5-6). We must get rid of anything which gets in our way of putting the Lord first in our lives and becoming holy. We must destroy those worldly idols which seek for our attention and devotion and pay them no heed. To be holy we must be willing to follow this figurative counsel of the Savior: “And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9:43). To be the Lord’s covenant people, we must keep our covenant by loving Him and His law above all else.