Why was the invasion of Canaan called God's Holy War?

As we know on Exodus 20; 1-7 that God told Moses "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me, You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."

 God promised to Abraham that He will create a great nation from him(Gin12;2) and so God Himself set His commandments with Moses in the mount of the Sinai for all of Abraham’s nations what He promised to him, and his sons Isaac and his Son Jacob. When God rescue this generation (Israelites) from Egypt than He gave His ten commandments to Moses and his followers. Because that time only the Israelites used to know about True God who revealed Himself with them. Other people, they were all idol worshipers. They used to worship different type of gods and goddess.

God warned this nation (Israelites) not to bow down to any idol or worship them. That is why whenever these Israelites disobeyed God. God punished them and always used this nation to destroy the other nations who don’t know about God, those who worship another gods and goddess. God destroyed them through this nation on their way to Canaan from Egypt. Therefore this war called the Holy War of God. (In the Holy Bible , “the Land of Canaan” extends from Lebanon southward across Gaza to the Brook of Egypt, and east ward to the Jordan river valley, thus including modern Israel and the Palestinian territories).

 That time all the Canaanites used to worship Baal. We have brief idea of worship of Baal of Peor in the Book of Numbers and the tribe of Simeon primarily being a leader in this involvement with women of Moab. The worship of Baal was a combination of sexual activity and human sacrifice. Inhabitancies of this area of this world are agrarian (relating to cultivated land) by occupation and cattle keepers. As a result of their income and lively hood was depend on the land whether Canaanites or Israelites.

 So important thing of these inhabitancies, was fertility. They wanted the land to be fertile, they wanted their sheep and cattle to be fertile and they also wanted their wives to be fertile. To the Canaanites fertility is the key issue and his worship system revolves around fertility. We examined this from that time priors, we can see that the human figures which are design for idolater worship are design in such a way as to promote fertility.

 Baal therefore means lord (evil way) and Balaam means lords. Baal was the god of storm, god of fertility and one of the primary Baal’s on the land was Hittites. The storm god and he was seen riding on a bull which was one of the Canaanites symbol for fertility and the Canaanites offered their children as a sacrifice to make their Baal idol happy. The children will be offer without any display of emotion and should a display of emotion be made then the sacrifice would be worthless.

 In the Baal temples, there were male cult prostitutes and female cult prostitutes. These were priest and female cult prostitutes were also called female priest of their Baal. If a man want to worship Baal he would go up and join himself to a female priest (female prostitute) and a woman wants to worship the Baal, she would join herself to a priest (male prostitute).

 Through the sexual relation with these male and female priests, the worshipers were saying just as fertility is taking place during this act may Baal make my crops fertile, may Baal make my cattle fertile and may my Baal make my spouse fertile.

 So all of the out wards physical manifestations are fertility were worship. Rain, storm, fire, famine, drought, good crops or bad crops were seen as the result of Baal’s blessing or judgement on the earth. How evil practise it was! The complete system was sinful and that is why God destroyed these Moabites and also destroyed those Israelites who joined with Moabites and worshipped Baal.

 It is for this reason that throughout the balance of the Old Testament, we noticed that when God encounters this false worship system through His Prophets that this various physical contact are involved or used to demonstrate to the inhabitancies of the land that God the Jehovah is the one who provide fertility and it is God who is responsible for rain, good crops and cattle reproduction.

 God causing crops not to grow, God causing flood, famine and draught. Only one God and that is our heavenly Father the Almighty God is responsible for all these things not the idol or Baal.

 Because of this corrupt system, that God is offended to the point to where He wants to totally exterminate the inhabitancies of the land of Canaan and in His Holy war, the Israelites will function as the military and because of this we can look with assurance on the fact that had the Israelites behaved in such a way that they were totally obedient to God command and ordinances then they could have fought all of the battle in the land of the Canaan they could completely occupied the land and never lost a man.

 Deuteronomy 23; 17-18 where God says, “No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine-prostitute. You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the Lord your God to pay any vow, because the Lord your God detests them both.”

 Because of the corrupt worship system of Baal, God is offended to the point to where He wants to totally exterminate the inhabitancies of the land of Canaan and in His Holy war Israelites will function as the military. God give them assurance if they are totally obedient to God commands & ordinances then they could have fought all of the battle in (The Holy War) land of Canaan, they could completely occupy the land and never lost a man. The Books of Numbers 31; 48-49 recorded, “Then the officers who were over the units of the army-the commanders of thousands and  commanders of hundreds-went to Moses and said to him, ‘Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one is missing.’”

 This was God’s war and He was not going to suffer the loose of His armies if the war has been fought according to His ordinances and His commandments. We know in the Book of Joshua that this exactly the case. God wants them to give the pure land where they will settle and worship only the Lord the God, not the other gods or goddess and it was His Holy War to destroy the other nation who doesn’t worship only the Lord the God.

 As the Book of Jeremiah 18;1-4 recorded, “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord; ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”