Show Them No Mercy

[Schaeffer]

There are several places in the Old Testament where God commands Israel to kill. In some places, He, effectively, commands genocide. How do we deal with these passages?

Certainly we are not free to dismiss them as anthropocentric intrusions, wishful thinking or projections upon Yahweh of the bloodthirsty xenophobia of the Hebrews. This is what some bible "critics" do, of course.

If we take the Bible seriously, we must admit that God really did command Israel (for example) to kill everyone in Canaan when they went in to possess the land.

And yet, in the New Testament, our Lord tells us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to return mercy for violence, etc.

I have been taught to understand this a certain way and if this gets any response I'll share what I was taught and what I believe here.

For now though, I will be interested to hear your thoughts.

To use as an example, give me your thoughts on the following passage.

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded,

I am thinking about posting something like this in General Theology just to see what "hoi polloi" have to say.

 

[Canuckmom]

An interesting topic indeed!
Deut. 9:4.....for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee....not for they righteousness...

Lev.18:28 That the land spue not you out also when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.

Gen. 15: 16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

We see from these passages that God had patience with the Amorites, but when their "iniquity was full" God used Israel as a feather to tickle the throat of the land of Canaan to spue out the wicked Amorites. They were God's executioners.

That makes me wonder how much longer God will have patience with the wickedness of the western world.

In the NT we are to turn the other cheek but that is for personal affronts. The government is still to bear the sword and we should still have the death penalty for murder.

 

[cygnusx1]

God doesn't change , when we read Revelation those plagues etc are all coming from heaven.