Invasions

A hostile incursion into the territory of another tribe or nation, often with the object of its permanent annexation.

The Israelites' invasion of Canaan

Their success had been preordained

Deuteronomy 7:22; Leviticus 20:23–24 See also Exodus 12:25; Leviticus 14:34, Leviticus 23:10; Deuteronomy 6:10–12, Deuteronomy 7:17–24

The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be enabled to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals would multiply around you.

You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I have told you that you will inherit their land, since I will give it to you as an inheritance — a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the peoples.

Moses gave instructions on how to proceed

Deuteronomy 7:1–5, Deuteronomy 20:10–20

Joshua followed Moses in leading the invasion

Joshua 11:23 See also Joshua 6:20, Joshua 8:18–19, Joshua 10:29–43

So Joshua took the entire land, in keeping with all that the LORD had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to the allotments to their tribes. Then the land had rest from war.

The invasion continued under other leaders

Judges 1:4, Judges 4:23–24, Judges 11:21–22, Judges 11:32–33; 2 Kings 3:24; 1 Chronicles 4:41–43

Invasion of the Israelites' land

By the Philistines

Judges 10:6–10; 1 Chronicles 14:9; 2 Chronicles 21:16–17

By other nations

Judges 6:3–5 See also Judges 2:14; 2 Kings 13:20; 2 Chronicles 20:1, 2 Chronicles 24:23

Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them, encamping against them as far as Gaza and destroying the produce of the land. They left Israel with no sustenance, neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys. For the Midianites came with their livestock and their tents like a great swarm of locusts. They and their camels were innumerable, and they entered the land to ravage it.

Israel taken into captivity by Assyrian invaders

2 Kings 17:5–6 parallel 2 Kings 18:9–11

Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried away the Israelites to Assyria, where he settled them in Halah, in Gozan by the Habor River, and in the cities of the Medes.

Judah taken into captivity by Babylonian invaders

2 Kings 25:1 parallel Jeremiah 39:12 Kings 25:10–11 parallels Jeremiah 39:8–9, Jeremiah 52:4

So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it.

And the whole army of the Chaldeans under the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the population.

Invasion of the promised land was a cause of great sadnesss

Psalm 79:1 See also Nehemiah 1:1–4; Lamentations 1:1–3; Daniel 9:4–6

A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.

Examples of non-human invasion

By locusts

Exodus 10:14

The locusts swarmed across the land and settled over the entire territory of Egypt. Never before had there been so many locusts, and never again will there be.

By evil spiritual forces

Matthew 12:43–45 parallel Luke 11:24–26Luke 22:3 See also Mark 9:17–18 parallels Matthew 17:14–16, Luke 9:38–40; Romans 5:12–14; Ephesians 6:12

When an unclean spirit comes out of a man, it passes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ On its return, it finds the house vacant, swept clean, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and dwell there. And the final plight of that man is worse than the first. So will it be with this wicked generation.”

Then Satan entered Judas Iscariot, who was one of the Twelve.