How can a loving God tell Moses or Joshua to commit genocide?
These were the descendants of Canaan. Genesis 10 15 Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn and of the Hittites,16 Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, 18 Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites. These were all Canaanites and worshiped several detestable idols. Moloch, Baal, Asherah and dagon.
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~thoqh49081/StudentPapers/canaanite.html Moloch is always associated with child sacrifice.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moloch-ancient-god Everything I have read from scholars to news letters to OP ED pieces from any credible source all say the same thing. Baal and Asherah were both deities involved in fertility worship, animal, and many times human sacrifices. To make matters worse they were related deities, some claiming they were mother and son, while others claim brother and sister, and yet had an elicit incestuous relationship in both cases. This led to incestual pregnancies among the Canaanites as an act of supreme adoration for these gods. The outcome of this would have been genetic disorders, STDs rampant, and eventually would have dramatic effect on the population. The Unwanted children or the deformed were burned alive or used as sexual objects until dead. Temple prostitution was also ritualized and rape was very common. Several tell of women being forced to sacrifice their children or be raped until dead as an act of submission to the deities. This is recorded not only in the bible but in tablets found in Israel written by Canaanites themselves. Much of what we understand comes from these tablets.
Gregorio Del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion: According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit, 2004.
One part of the text has been translated as "an incantation text, designed to cure the effects of the evil eye, to be interpreted as a description of a goddess’s cannibalistic orgy."http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/030206/ugarit.shtml There are parts that deal with human sacrifices of malformed children during lunar cycles. The list goes on and on. Much of this depends on translation of a very difficult language however if we only attribute the practices that we know occurred we are left with a very grim picture stil. Thus we arrive at why God commanded the destruction of these people. They were inflamed with sexually transmitted disease, they were abusive and murdering the children, the genetic inbreeding and insest were producing malformed offspring. Given the time period there is only one option here. They all must be removed from the land of the living. The reason is the consequences if these persons are allowed to live. If these genetic mutations were to enter into the rest of the population to a large extent then the entire gene pool of the middle east would be compromised. The same would occur if the std's were not removed and stopped from spreading. This is all the more evident when you find that in some cases only virgins were to be kept alive. as in Numbers 31 "15“Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16“They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man," "16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God. "Seems to be the fulfillment of the curse Noah laid on Canaan for seeing him naked and spreading the rumor instead of being honorable. The Canaanites were worshiping Dagon at this time and this involved child sacrifice.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dagan time placement Here we see that Dagon and Baal or Beelzebub is the same deity. https://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/phc/phc10.htm https://www.str.org/w/the-canaanites-genocide-or-judgment- These are all Canaanites and all were the most vile and wretched peoples imaginable. The deities they worshiped required incestual relationships, child sacrifices in the worst way imaginable, and It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but only account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore, there is no attempt to establish a tacit or real moral superiority for Israel; the text informs us to the contrary in its explicit statements and narratives. The call of Yahweh cannot be traced to Israel's superiority in righteousness or numbers, "but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers." (Deut. 7:6-8).http://www.theology.edu/canaan.htm