Drive Out: Part 3

What follows is a standard definition of 'genocide': The term 'drive out' as used in the Hebrew Scripture (though not necessarily as translated) absolutely does not mean genocide.

The crime of genocide is defined in international law in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. 

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

The Genocide Convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. More than 130 nations have ratified the Genocide Convention and over 70 nations have made provisions for the punishment of genocide in domestic criminal law. The text of Article II of the Genocide Convention was included as a crime in Article 6 of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Drive Out: Part 2

In the verses of Part One, ‘drive out’ absolutely does not mean to kill.  What is very evident is the possession by the ‘driver’ of an authourity that will accomplish the ‘driving out’.  There is NO hint of bloodshed, and the identical word is used in the following verses. Keep this in mind.                                                                                           

I will send hornets ahead of you so that they will drive out (expatriate, expel, drive out from a possession) the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. Exodus 23:28

In any event, it is not the Israelites who will do the driving out; it is the ‘hornets’ who will accomplish this. This is confirmed after the fact:

Then I (God) sent the hornet before you and it (the ‘hornet’) drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, not by your sword or your bow. Joshua 24:12

Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you and perish. Deuteronomy 7:20

This verse is not usually rendered as a faithful translation of the Hebrew, which more literally says ‘God will send the ‘stinger’ against them (notice it is God doing this, not the Israelites), you will not see any who remain because they will all wander away (be like Cain in Genesis 4:14).

Drive Out : Part 1

This phrase appears often in the Hebrew Scriptures.


Garash Strong’s Concordance #H1644: to thrust out, cast away, expel, to drive out from a possession, to expatriate or divorce, dislodge

So He drove out (expel, drive out from a possession) the man…Gen 3:24

Behold, You have driven (expel, drive out from a possession) me this day from the face of the earth; and from Your face I will be hidden. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth… Genesis 4:14

Notice it doesn’t mean Cain will be killed.

So she said to Abraham, “Banish (drive out, divorce, expel) that slave woman and her son, for the son of that slave woman will not be an heir along with my son Isaac!” Gen 21:10

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out (expel, thrust out) of his land.” Exodus 6:1 
  
Not so! Go now, the men among you, and serve the LORD, for that is what you desire.” So they were driven out (thrust out, expelled) from Pharaoh’s presence. Exodus 10:11  

They baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become  leavened, since they were driven out (expel, drive out from a possession,expatriate) of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. Exodus 12:39

Again, none of these people were killed. Was it possible that they might have died or have an increased risk of death because they were driven out?  Certainly.  We read in Genesis 4:14 that Cain feared someone might kill him because he was a homeless wanderer; and in Genesis 21, Hagar and Ishmael appear to be near death because of their banishment.  In both these cases it’s important to note that they were not in a group, they were alone, and it’s their ‘aloneness’ that’s a factor in the increased risk.