Does not address the line, “3 Now go and smite Am′alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling,…”
So we have an obligation to kill “enemy babies”?
Amalek was comprised of the most evil generation at that time. The Amalekites were very hostile and aggressive in their attempts to kill innocent Jews during their tenure in the wilderness. Amalek didn’t just kill any Jew — They specifically targeted the weaker members of the Jews for murder, the ones that trailed behind the rest of the group.
Amalek was a descendant of Esau (Edom), the archenemy of Jacob (Israel), so there is a long history of animosity between Edom and Israel that continues to this very day. The concept of a just war is that you have an obligation to protect and defend yourself against your enemies.
In war, innocent lives are, unfortunately, taken. As history clearly shows, there is no rehabilitation program for evil. A child born to this evil generation would surely be indoctrinated and brainwashed to perpetuate their mass murder of the Jews. (Unfortunately, this sounds all too similar to some other modern day aggressors that have been brainwashed since birth to murder their enemies. Draw your own conclusions.)
If you can logically assume with some certainty that a whole generation will be raised up to continue their murderous, aggressive ways as your enemy, then yes, you do have a right and an obligation to defend yourself, even proactively.
Again, this is about warfare. You are either going to be killed by your enemy, or you are going to kill them. There’s not a whole lot of gray areas when it comes to war. Kill or be killed.
There is another way to look at this too. If a dr told you, you had cancer and the only way to heal you was to cut it all out. Would you want him to take 90% of it where it could and most likely would return or do you want him to get it all and thus give you a complete recovery?
Exactly. If you don’t kill the enemy, the enemy will metastasize and come back worse than it was at first. Christ Himself gives the example of a single demon being removed, and then a multiple of demons come back again a second time to attack the individual. Same concept.
And Christ was not against defending oneself - He actually encouraged his disciples to arm themselves. We might consider what Christ told His disciples in His last hours with them: “. . . But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one” (Lk. 22:36).
Keep in mind that the sword was the finest offensive weapon available to an individual soldier—the equivalent then of a military rifle today.
