God's Commands

[lumenjesuchrist]

Why did God command the jews to kill non-believers in the Old Testament? I know "we are not jewish" is not an answer because our God created JUdaism. So why did he command them to do such things?

[R_C]

Originally Posted by lumenjesuchrist

Why did God command the jews to kill non-believers in the Old Testament?

Could you be more specific? What scripture are you referring to? Everything has a context in the Bible...and the question as such is rather vague...God commanded not to kill, and He established the death penalty for some very specific reasons.

[Todd Easton]

In those instances, the Israelite army was simply acting as God's instrument to execute judgment upon sinners, in much the way that He used the waters of the Flood in the time of Noah and a rain of fire and brimstone in the time of Lot and the plagues in the time of Moses.

[jschutzm]

I agree, it is hard to reconcile it sometimes. I'd be curious what others have to say.

From what I've heard.. most often, the points are:

1) Land was promised to the Jews

2) The other cultures were VERY wicked, we tend to whitewash it and make them the innocent victims, but particularly the followers of Molech, would sacrifice babies in a very brutal method. ONE method was heating up a clay statue of Molech until it was glowing hot. Then place babies on the statues outstretched arms, literally cooking them in the process. These were some of the wicked cultures that the Jews fought. Not the 'innocent pagans minding their own business" that we sometimes think they were.

3) In some cases the Jews gave them a chance to leave peacefully. They stayed and fought. Since God had promised that land to the Jews.. the Pagans who stayed, lost.

4) The Jewish history is one of struggling to follow Christ while surrounded by other cultures. Often times, the Jewish tribes would adopt the beliefs and customs of the people's around them. It was necessary to completely eliminate the other people or else the Jews would have merged culturally and religiously with those groups. -- this STILL happened later, despite God 'preparing the area" for them.

5) There were no 'internment camps' or 'prisons' back then to house POWs. So killing WAS how you took care of the remaining soldiers back then. This may sound harsh or brutal, but it was the practice back then. If you didn't kill them, then you took them as slaves and people often had children with their slaves, meaning that the cultures would blend together. God needed the Jewish people to remain pure (something they still could not do) so that the Messiah could come from them. So merging cultures with violent pagans was not an option.

6) If they allowed the defeated cultures to exist in their land, then they would have had even MORE civil unrest then they did. They would have rebel factions raising up armies against them and the next generation of Caninites or Hitites growing up hating the Israelites and waging war on them. To have ANY peace, the Israelites had to be merciless when dealing with the other tribes around them.


Now these are the points I've heard made. It is still hard to swallow. And I'm hoping there are better apologetics out there then I've just listed.

[chosen people]

Originally Posted by lumenjesuchrist

Why did God command the jews to kill non-believers in the Old Testament? I know "we are not jewish" is not an answer because our God created JUdaism. So why did he command them to do such things?

God did not command in the Jewish scriptures to kill anyone merely because they were not Jewish. If we read the book of Jonah (where a Pagan city finds redemption) we see that we are all God's children and redemption is open to all. In fact, Judaism teaches that it is easier for the Gentile than for the Jew to get to the world to come as they have only to follow the seven Noahide commandments. In this respect, Judaism teaches a universality which is lacking in those religions that claim only people who accept their specific beliefs may find redemption.

The problem I believe for the Christian reader is in the Christian concept of their god. The relationship of the Christian to their god is that of the relationship of a loving father to his young child. No matter how bad the child has behaved, the father does not stop loving the child and if the child is truly sorry and repentant, will always be forgiven by the father. To take an extreme example, some Catholic posters have written that if Hitler was truly repentant in the moments before his death and truly accepted the Christian leader into his heart, than he may be in the Catholic version of the world to come.

In Judaism God is both all powerful and absolutely just. In the same manner that we must accept that God has the absolute power and discretion to forgive, we must accept that God may come to the just decision that a person or persons are beyond redemption, that justice and the benefit of mankind requires that these people are no longer able to continue spreading their evil.

A good example of the effect of evil is the story of Lot. In the beginning we read that Lot pitched his tents until Sodom. Later we read that he resides in Sodom. He gets into trouble and Abraham comes to his aid. We see how Abraham refuses to take the bounty he is entitled to lest he has anything to do with the people of Sodom. Finally, we read that Lot is sitting at the gate of Sodom, a right reserved only for elders of the city. Lot finds himself in the most horrible dilemma, forced between his Torah values and the evil of Sodom, which God destroys.

[TimothyH]

Originally Posted by lumenjesuchrist

Why did God command the jews to kill non-believers in the Old Testament? I know "we are not jewish" is not an answer because our God created JUdaism. So why did he command them to do such things?

The people God commanded the Israelites to kill were not just sitting around at Starbucks sipping latte.

These people ate their children - they killed them, roasted them and ate them. They were homosexual gang rapists, engaged in incest and had relations with animals. They sold their own children to be prostitutes in pagan temples. They lied under oath, murdered and committed adultery.

For while they practice either child sacrifices or occult mysteries,
or frenzied carousing in exotic rites,
They no longer respect either lives or purity of marriage;
but they either waylay and kill each other, or aggrieve each other by adultery.
(Wisdom 15:23-24)

They sacrificed their chidren to the god Molech. Molech was a hollow statue of a beast with outstretched arms which would be filled with burning coals until it glowed red-hot. They would place infants into the arms of the statue, burning the children alive, searing their flesh while they were alive.

The LORD said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites: Anyone, whether an Israelite or an alien residing in Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech shall be put to death. Let his fellow citizens stone him. I myself will turn against such a man and cut him off from the body of his people; for in giving his offspring to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. (Leviticus 20:1-3)

And they had seen what God did for Isreal, parting the sea, drowning the Egyptians, crushing the walls of a city with a trumpet blast and they still did not fear God.

The people which God commanded the Israelites to kill were not innocent bystanders on the stage of salvation history, but evil people who engaged in the worst kinds of practices, things which turn our stomach


-Tim-.