Joshua, Judgment, Genocide and Justice
Gavin Ortlund has a superb YouTube video here on the conquest of Canaan. One of our strongest moral intuitions, he begins, is that killing innocent children is always morally wrong. So how can we accept the goodness of a God who commands Israel to kill (among others) innocent children? His answer is in two main sections, and is a wonderful example of how to approach questions like this carefully and thoughtfully: