Canaanites

Yet the Canaanites, and the neighbouring nations, who had long been sunk into the most depraved superstitions, were not consigned by God to immediate punishment, but were left to fill up the measure of their crimes.

There is no occasion to allege in this place, as an example, the conduct of the Hebrews, who slew the women and children of the Heshbonites, and who were commanded to execute vengeance upon the Canaanites, and upon all, who were involved in the same guilt.

the authority for so doing is founded on the example of God himself, who commanded such offers of peace to be made to the Canaanites, and their neighbours, the most wicked of any people upon the face of the earth, as might spare their lives upon the condition of their becoming tributaries.

For the lawgiver seems not to include every kind of sin, but to forbid specifically the practices of the Egyptians, from whom Israel had departed, and those of the Canaanites, to whom they were being removed.