Why Did God Command Killing?
Is He Not a God of Love?
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"And the Lord sent thee on a journey and said Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites and fight against them until they be consumed." 1 Samuel 15:18
Why was this command given? What kind of a person could follow such a God who advocated this? Is the God of the OT different than the God of the NT? Why the command to exterminate all men, women and children belonging to the seven or eight Cannanite nations? How could God approve of the blanket destruction, at times, of the killing of entire groups of people?
These are all fair questions. Many an objection is raised by unbelievers as to the view that the God of the OT is a God of love and mercy based on such scripture passages as the one above.
I'm not going to tone down or mitigate its stark reality because it would fail from the start. These instructions are quite clear and there are many texts such as the one listed above that speak of destroying whole populations.
In most of the situations as here there is a distinctive OT concept known as herem present and it means "curse," "that which stood under the ban" or "that which was dedicated to destruction." Basically the root of this means to separate. However this is not in a positive sense such as to be "sanctified" which means to be set aside for the service and glory of God. This is more like the opposite side of the coin and means to separate for destruction. In the NT Jesus spoke of the end times when the sheep and the goats would be separate giving us the same idea as to what we see here in the OT.
God dedicated these people, or in some cases individuals, to destruction because they violently and continually impeded or opposed his work usually over a long period of time. God is always slow to act. This act of destruction was not used frequently.
Abraham was given an amazing prediction. He was told his descendants would be exiled and mistreated for over 400 years before God would lead them out. While many may know that , they may not clearly understand the reason for this long delay. Genesis 15:13-16 explains that the "sin of the Amorites had not reached it's full measure. This meant that all the Canaanite tribes in Palestine whose sins God would tolerate until the Israelites came out of Egypt under Moses would evenutally be destroyed in the conquering of Palestine by Joshua..
So God waited for 400 years while the Amalekites and those other Canaanite groups filled up their cups of condemnation by their sinful behavior. God's mercy and grace was such that he waited giving them every opportunity to repent from their plummet into self-destruction. It's always our own behaviors that will get us in the end.
In the meantime the Israelites were not without sin. Deut 9:5 says:
"It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of ther land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations."
These nations were cut off to prevent the corruption of Israel and the rest of the world (Deut 20:16-18). When a nation starts burning children as a gift to the gods (Lev 18:21) and practices sodomy, beastiality and all sorts of nasty vices (Lev 18:25,27-30) the day of God's grace and mercy has begun to run out. I see the same happening eventually to our country as we kill the unborn literally sacrificing them to whatever god we're following.
Just as surgeons do not hesitate to amputate a limb affected by gangrene, taking some healthy flesh with it, God must do the same. This is like removing cancer that would eventually infect all of socieity and destroy the remaining good.
Sin is likened to yeast. Basically what yeast does is corrupt the dough. That's what would happen if sin is left unchecked. It would eventually spread and all would be affected.
Why was God so opposed to the Amalekites? When the Israelites were wandering and struggling thru the wilderness towards the Promised Land the Amalekites picked off the weak, sick and elderly at the end of the line of marchers and brutally murdered these stragglers. You'll see the warning Moses gave in Deut 25:17-18. He said the Amalekites had no fear of God and thought they were invincible.
Some commentators believe that the Amalekites were not merely plundering and disputing who owned the territority but were also attacking God's chosen people to discredit the living God. Some trace this people group's adamant hostility all through the OT, including the most savage butchery of all in Haman's (pre-Hitler) proclaimation that all Jews throughout the Persian Empire could be massacred on a certain day (Esther 3:8-11). Haman was an Amalekite. His actions revealed his nation's deep hatred for God and the people whom God had chosen to bless the world. To this day the Jews celebrate God's protection and delieverance from Haman. Every Spring they have a two day celebration going all the way back to this time.
In Numbers 25 and 31 Israel was also told to conduct a war of extermination against all those in Midian with the exception of the young girls because this people group had led the Israelites into idolatry and immorality. It was very important that the preservation of Israel stay intact. This is the people group that God had chosen not only to be a light to the whole world but to also bring his son into when the time was full.
So here this command was to break Midian's strength by killing all the males and any woman who had slept with a man and who could still become mothers. There are further examples of the principle of herem including the verse in Psalm 106.34. This psalm recounts the sins committed in the land of Canaan by the Israelites including failure to destroy the inhabitants and idolatry. So they also questioned God at times when given these commands sometimes leaving survivors or just not doing what he commanded and they always paid the price for their sin.
"They did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them; but were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. And they served their idols; which were a snare to them. Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils and shed innocent blood even the blood of their sons and of their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works and went a whoring with their own inventions." Psalm 106:34-39
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Why was this command given? What kind of a person could follow such a God who advocated this? Is the God of the OT different than the God of the NT? Why the command to exterminate all men, women and children belonging to the seven or eight Cannanite nations? How could God approve of the blanket destruction, at times, of the killing of entire groups of people?
These are all fair questions. Many an objection is raised by unbelievers as to the view that the God of the OT is a God of love and mercy based on such scripture passages as the one above.
I'm not going to tone down or mitigate its stark reality because it would fail from the start. These instructions are quite clear and there are many texts such as the one listed above that speak of destroying whole populations.
In most of the situations as here there is a distinctive OT concept known as herem present and it means "curse," "that which stood under the ban" or "that which was dedicated to destruction." Basically the root of this means to separate. However this is not in a positive sense such as to be "sanctified" which means to be set aside for the service and glory of God. This is more like the opposite side of the coin and means to separate for destruction. In the NT Jesus spoke of the end times when the sheep and the goats would be separate giving us the same idea as to what we see here in the OT.
God dedicated these people, or in some cases individuals, to destruction because they violently and continually impeded or opposed his work usually over a long period of time. God is always slow to act. This act of destruction was not used frequently.
Abraham was given an amazing prediction. He was told his descendants would be exiled and mistreated for over 400 years before God would lead them out. While many may know that , they may not clearly understand the reason for this long delay. Genesis 15:13-16 explains that the "sin of the Amorites had not reached it's full measure. This meant that all the Canaanite tribes in Palestine whose sins God would tolerate until the Israelites came out of Egypt under Moses would evenutally be destroyed in the conquering of Palestine by Joshua..
So God waited for 400 years while the Amalekites and those other Canaanite groups filled up their cups of condemnation by their sinful behavior. God's mercy and grace was such that he waited giving them every opportunity to repent from their plummet into self-destruction. It's always our own behaviors that will get us in the end.
In the meantime the Israelites were not without sin. Deut 9:5 says:
"It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of ther land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations."
These nations were cut off to prevent the corruption of Israel and the rest of the world (Deut 20:16-18). When a nation starts burning children as a gift to the gods (Lev 18:21) and practices sodomy, beastiality and all sorts of nasty vices (Lev 18:25,27-30) the day of God's grace and mercy has begun to run out. I see the same happening eventually to our country as we kill the unborn literally sacrificing them to whatever god we're following.
Just as surgeons do not hesitate to amputate a limb affected by gangrene, taking some healthy flesh with it, God must do the same. This is like removing cancer that would eventually infect all of socieity and destroy the remaining good.
Sin is likened to yeast. Basically what yeast does is corrupt the dough. That's what would happen if sin is left unchecked. It would eventually spread and all would be affected.
Why was God so opposed to the Amalekites? When the Israelites were wandering and struggling thru the wilderness towards the Promised Land the Amalekites picked off the weak, sick and elderly at the end of the line of marchers and brutally murdered these stragglers. You'll see the warning Moses gave in Deut 25:17-18. He said the Amalekites had no fear of God and thought they were invincible.
Some commentators believe that the Amalekites were not merely plundering and disputing who owned the territority but were also attacking God's chosen people to discredit the living God. Some trace this people group's adamant hostility all through the OT, including the most savage butchery of all in Haman's (pre-Hitler) proclaimation that all Jews throughout the Persian Empire could be massacred on a certain day (Esther 3:8-11). Haman was an Amalekite. His actions revealed his nation's deep hatred for God and the people whom God had chosen to bless the world. To this day the Jews celebrate God's protection and delieverance from Haman. Every Spring they have a two day celebration going all the way back to this time.
In Numbers 25 and 31 Israel was also told to conduct a war of extermination against all those in Midian with the exception of the young girls because this people group had led the Israelites into idolatry and immorality. It was very important that the preservation of Israel stay intact. This is the people group that God had chosen not only to be a light to the whole world but to also bring his son into when the time was full.
So here this command was to break Midian's strength by killing all the males and any woman who had slept with a man and who could still become mothers. There are further examples of the principle of herem including the verse in Psalm 106.34. This psalm recounts the sins committed in the land of Canaan by the Israelites including failure to destroy the inhabitants and idolatry. So they also questioned God at times when given these commands sometimes leaving survivors or just not doing what he commanded and they always paid the price for their sin.
"They did not destroy the nations concerning whom the Lord commanded them; but were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. And they served their idols; which were a snare to them. Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils and shed innocent blood even the blood of their sons and of their daughters whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with blood. Thus were they defiled with their own works and went a whoring with their own inventions." Psalm 106:34-39
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