I have no problems with God judging the Canaanites for their wickedness... What I have trouble with is why he uses His people, the very ones He commanded not to murder, to kill.
Why didn’t God just destroy them Himself?
God was longsuffering with the those who lived in Canaan before the Jews were allowed to conquer the land.
This land had been promised to Abraham and his descendants.
See Gen 15:15,16:
15”As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. 16”Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
“You” in verse 15 is Abraham.
God was allowing more time for the Canaanites to change their ways. When He removed the Jews from Egypt their task was to cleanse the land of Canann and take it for their own. Their disbelief in the desert casued a forty year delay in that action until Joshua took them across the Jordan after the death of Moses.
The Lord continually told of the destruction that was coming to the inhabitants of Canaan, especially to Moses and Joshua.
The Jewish people were warned no to intermarry because of the Canaanites false gods, their worship of idols, their worship orgies, and their sacrifice of their children to Moloch and Baal by fire.
Although initially the Jews adhered to such direction, they continually backslid until the northern 10 tribes(Israel) were deported to Ninevah by the Assyrians in 722 BC; and then the southern two tribes deported to Babylon in 606 BC/597 BC and 586 BC.
Remember God was willing to relent and not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah(and Admah and Zeboiim) if there were 10 righteous people.
Only Lot, his wife and two daughters were removed by the avenging angels(Lot’s wife disobeyed and looked back, turning into a pillar of salt).
As far as the Bible goes, it is true—every word.
And it tells an amazing story.