Yesterday's Gospel reading was a passage detailing the exchange between Jesus and the Canaanite woman.
And Jesus departing thence withdrew into the territories of Tyre and Sidon. And, lo, a woman of Canaan, who had come from those territories, cried saying, Have compassion on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously afflicted by a devil. But he made no reply to her, and his disciples approaching implored him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answering said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answering said, It is not seemly to take the children's bread, and throw it to the dogs. But she said, Certainly, O Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters. Then Jesus answering said to her, O woman, great is thy faith; be it to thee as thou desirest. And her daughter was cured from that time.
--Matthew 15:21-28.
This ties in with what Paul said regarding Christ's earthly ministry.
"For I say that Christ Jesus was minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers."
--Romans 15:8.
And I couldn't help but be reminded of something an Anglican Catholic Universalist (by the name of Andrew Jukes) wrote about this passage.
...God’s purpose, which is hidden from the wise and prudent, is by the election of a first-fruits to save and bless the later-born, who are temporarily shut up in unbelief and judgment, so that His mercy may eventually spill over onto every order of creation. And this explains why the Canaanites, who were to receive no mercy from Israel during the conquest of Canaan, but who receive mercy in the church age, and during Christ's Ministry (in the person of the Canaanite woman and her daughter) are types of the demons who are now the enemies of God and man, but who receive mercy in a future age.
--Jukes, Andrew. The Second Death and the Restitution of All Things. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1867. Chapter 5: "The Way in Which the Restitution is Effected."
Now this brings up questions regarding the conquest of Canaan. Most of which are answered by the fact that (acording to the Bible) the Canaanites themselves practiced infanticide (sacrificing their own children to their demonic gods), and were so perverse that they would have corrupted Israel (and led them into the same abominations) if given the chance (as they were, and eventually did--"Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood"--Psalm 106:37-38.)
And any Canaanite children who died in the conquest of Canaan would be as safe in God's hands as was Abijah, the son of Jeroboam (a king of Israel later corrupted by the Canaanites.)
At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill, and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Go, disguise yourself, so you won’t be recognized as the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the prophet is there—the one who told me I would be king over this people. Take ten loaves of bread with you, some cakes and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.” So Jeroboam’s wife did what he said and went to Ahijah’s house in Shiloh. Now Ahijah could not see; his sight was gone because of his age. But the Lord had told Ahijah, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to ask you about her son, for he is ill, and you are to give her such and such an answer. When she arrives, she will pretend to be someone else.” So when Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps at the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why this pretense? I have bad news for you. Go, tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says..."I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam"...As for you, go back home. When you set foot in your city, the boy will die. All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good.
--1 Kings 14:1-7, 10, 12-13.
But, even knowing this, one question still bothered me.
So (out of curiosity) I asked AI.
[Quote]
Q. If the Israelites had killed all the Canaanites old enough to eat solid food, sparring only suckling infants, could they have cared for those infants?
A. Short answer: No — not practically.
Thousands of suckling infants without mothers would have been almost impossible for an ancient society to keep alive.
Here’s why:
1. The biology problem
"Suckling infants" = babies 0-2 years old who are still nursing.
• They need breastmilk or a substitute every 2-3 hours, day and night.
• No refrigeration, no formula, no bottles. In the ancient Near East, the only substitutes were animal milk or wet-nursing.
2. The logistics problem
If you have "thousands" of infants:
• Wet-nursing: You’d need thousands of lactating women. Lactation only works if a woman is pregnant/has recently given birth. The Israelites themselves were a migrating group in tents — they wouldn’t have had that many extra nursing women.
• Animal milk: Goats, sheep, cows could work, but it spoils fast in the desert/Levant heat. It also causes diarrhea and malnutrition in infants without proper preparation. Infant mortality would be massive.
• Feeding labor: Someone has to feed, burp, change, and hold each baby every few hours. That’s 24/7 work. An army on the move couldn’t do it.
3. The historical context
Ancient Near Eastern warfare accounts often mention sparing women and children for exactly this reason — they could be absorbed as labor, wives, or servants. Total killing of adults while sparing only infants creates a group that can’t feed or defend itself.
Archaeologists and anthropologists who study the period agree: no ancient society had the infrastructure for mass orphan care of infants. Even later Roman foundling wheels and monasteries struggled with infant survival rates.
Bottom line
Without mothers or a massive system of wet-nurses and livestock, most of those infants would not survive. Caring for "thousands" would require the Israelites to stop being a mobile group and instead settle down with a huge support system they didn’t have at that time.
[End Quote]
Of course, God could have performed thousands of preternatural (or supernatural) miracles everyday. He could have sent angels to feed and clean and burp and hold those infants every two hours, and turned Israelites into mere bystanders, doing all the work of the conquest Himself, but that doesn't seem to have been his purpose.
His purpose (I believe) was, as Jukes said "by the election of a first-fruits to save and bless the later-born, who are temporarily shut up in unbelief and judgment, so that His mercy may eventually spill over onto every order of creation."