Why does God favor Israel and slaughter other nations?

[tito]

Good question, Friendly-Skeptic. The Scriptures establish from right after the Flood the curse on Ham descendants of his son Canaan after Ham saw the nudity of his father Noah. God had promised mankind redemption from the Fall curse and this was carried out via descendants of Shem which was Abram (Abraham) who obeyed God, left his land as ordered, left his father (once he died) and entered the land of Canaan. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. A prophetic verse as to the future judgment of the canaanites (refered to generically as the amorites) is given in Gen. 15:16.
These people were wicked in God’s eyes and marked for judgment. The sense in that verse is that the cup of His indignation was not over the brim yet (they had plenty of time to repent) but God waited the 430y that it took for the descendants of Abraham to be a nation that God used to exert His judgment on the canaanites. The answer is to be found in Deut. 9:4 and again repeated in Deut. 18:12 where God tells the Israelites that the canaanites were driven out because of their abominations in the sight of God not because of partiality. The nation Israel was to be His peculiar people, a vehicle via which God was to accomplish His redemption of mankind (via the Jewish Messah, Jesus).

 

[clannscotia]

Must say I am sorry to read the usual answers given to this question.
In my mind, the answer is that the Israelites used their God’s support as justification for what we would describe today as either genocide, massacre, slaughter, or dare I say it…Holocaust.
From a certain perspective, the Israelites carried out (one of) the first Holocausts in human history.

 

[steve53]

I will answer that if you tell me if you have stopped beating your wife? A simple yes or no response will do.

 

[TimothyH]

Must say I am sorry to read the usual answers given to this question.
In my mind, the answer is that the Israelites used their God’s support as justification for what we would describe today as either genocide, massacre, slaughter, or dare I say it…Holocaust.
From a certain perspective, the Israelites carried out (one of) the first Holocausts in human history.

The people God commanded the Israelites to kill were not just hanging out at the Starbucks sipping coffee and looking at their iPads when the Isralites decided they wanted to take their seats.

These were people who drank human blood as part of their worship and maintained boy prostitutes in their temples. Incest and homosexual gang rape was common. They even sacrificed their own children to the god Molech - a hollow statue which was filled with burning coals into the arms of which they would place infants and children to be seared to death - burned alive.

For truly, the ancient inhabitants of your holy land,
whom you hated for deeds most odious—
works of sorcery and impious sacrifices;
These merciless murderers of children,
devourers of human flesh,
and initiates engaged in a blood ritual,
and parents who took with their own hands defenseless lives,
You willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors,
(Wisdom 12:3-6)

What you call holocaust, God calls cleaning the house. And there is a lesson there for us as well, we who butcher 1.3 million children every year.

-Tim-

 

[cerad2]

I wonder if Christians in general and Catholics in particular truly understand how utterly insane these threads are to outside observers. Justifying genocide because the people were like really really bad and deserved to be slaughtered. The all powerful master of the universe using mercenaries to carry out his plans to bring justice to all. Just plain bizarre.

 

[4Horsemen]

God works through His people to bring righteousness where evil has corrupted even a whole race of people. Of course, He could have destroyed these pagans Himself with a bolt of lightening, and earthquake or any natural disaster, but He allows nature to take its course in the usual sense of Natural Law. However, sometimes He is behind inexplicable things even today in our personal lives as well as in the culture, and we are left to wonder if something comes directly from God or indirectly through other means.

 

[Nate13]

I wonder if Christians in general and Catholics in particular truly understand how utterly insane these threads are to outside observers. Justifying genocide because the people were like really really bad and deserved to be slaughtered. The all powerful master of the universe using mercenaries to carry out his plans to bring justice to all. Just plain bizarre.

Other things that are bizarre:
Infantile sacrifice, cannibalism, rape, incest, and murder. We didn’t bat an eye when we took out Osama Bin Laden. I doubt God batted an eye when he took out these people who committed such acts in a time much different than the 21st century. If you want to talk about the killing of the children and their innocence, I think that is a reasonable discussion, but I don’t see on what grounds your defending those past the age of reason. Maybe its a good thing that you can’t wrap your head around such evil and comprehend it though. If the Israelite’s killed anyone who was truly innocent in God’s eyes I’m sure he took care of their eternal soul. If your going to criticize what God did, may I ask what you would have done?

 

[fisherman_carl]

“Why does God favor Israel and slaughter other nations?”

I would have to say that it has to do with faith and obedience to God’s will. Abraham obeyed God and he became the Father of Israel. But, it goes even before that. For the seed of the woman in Gen 1 would overcome the devil. The fall of mankind brought about the necessity for mankind’s salvation. This savior that was from the seed of the woman is what is traced through the decedents of Abraham. Abraham is not just the father of his natural descendants but of all those who would believe in that seed, namely Christ.

The other nations that were ‘slaughtered’ had turned their back on God and were worshiping false gods. And, some were even sacrificing their children to false Gods (Molech). They were warned to turn away but did not listen. They were judged for their hardheartedness. Throughout the bible God treats sin like its a disease. He even calls himself a doctor. But, it is the incurable, those who refuse to take the treatment and spit in the doctors face, that reap their own spiritual and natural consequences.

If you break the law of gravity you will reap the consequences. Walk of a cliff and you will find out what those consequences are. The spiritual laws also have consequences. Both the natural and spiritual laws were created by God. We were designed to follow them. Just like we might design a car to run on gasoline. You wouldn’t put water in your engine without consequence. And, you won’t break God’s laws like 'though shall not kill" without consequences either.

The other thing is if God can’t judge us who can? God is the supreme good in the universe. He created everything. It is by his will we exist. His definition of the universe that we live by. His standard that is truth and everything else is judged by that standard. He sustains our very existence. For we come from nothing. Nothing sustains nothing. But God sustains everything.

What you propose is a weak God, one that can’t stand up for truth, punish the wicked and reward the good. Such a god would not be supremely good, but only a shadow.

But, notice that many of the Israelites themselves turned against God and went after the false idols. And, they were also judged by God, many killed and many sent into exile. They were in fact exiled twice. The temple was destroyed and rebuilt later. But, those who saw the new temple wept at seeing it for it was only a shadow of what it was before with Solomon’s temple.

 

[clannscotia]

Someone asked if I still beat my wife?
Don’t quite get that - perhaps mistakenly put into this thread, or got the wrong end of the stick.
Anyway, there is no yes or no answer, there is a third option, namely, ‘never did’.

Still frustrated to read responses trying to justify the unjustifiable. On the one hand, some are trying to say the ‘natives’ in that region were pretty bad people, e.g. sacrificing children and so on, yet don’t see the irony in the follow-on that the Israelites were justified in sacrificing the ‘natives’ to the will of their own God.
It is either worng to slaughter/sacrifice children in the name of one’s God, or it is not?
If the Baal worshippers did it - they were wrong. When the Israelites did it, they were wrong too, yes?
Besides, when it comes to maltreatment of children, what remains of the Israelites, the tribe of Judah, still tear flesh from their offspring in obedience to what they see as their God’s will, with circumcision - no different to what goes on in various African tribes today, with both boys and girls circumcised to appease the will of their god(s).
I still say that the Israelites carried out one of the first recorded genocides (‘Holocaust’), with the slaughter of an entire ethnic group based on their race/ethnicity/religious beliefs - no different to what the Nazis did thousands of years later. Indeed there are various similarities between the Nazis and the Israelites, including their justification for mass slaughter.
Remember the words on the German belt buckle? Gott mit Aus (excuse the spelling) - ‘God (is) with us’.

 

[cerad2]

If your going to criticize what God did, may I ask what you would have done?

Ok. So here I am the most powerful being in (and out of) the universe able to not only leap mountains in a single bound but to create them as well. Can I possibly come up with a way to make people behave without slaughtering them all? Hey I know. Each time someone tries to sacrifice a child I’ll appear, stop the sacrifice and tell them not to do that any more. That should work.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Ok. So here I am the most powerful being in (and out of) the universe able to not only leap mountains in a single bound but to create them as well. Can I possibly come up with a way to make people behave without slaughtering them all? Hey I know. Each time someone tries to sacrifice a child I’ll appear, stop the sacrifice and tell them not to do that any more. That should work.

In many cases the Israelites were told to kill all of the enemy. But they did not listen. The result was that they let them live with them. And, this ultimately caused their own downfall because they were corrupted by them, turning eventually to false idols. The lesson here is that a little leaven works through the entire dough. To have unleavened dough you can not add any leaven. God wanted a people to be holy unto him and knew they would be corrupted by the Canaanites who were sacrificing their children in the fire. The Israelites who also had been idol worshipers in the land of Egypt were being weened from their harmful addiction. They had to eat a lamb on Passover, the same lamb that Egyptians worshiped.

A murderer is sometimes given the death penalty. This acts as a deterrent to other would be murderers. The scripture itself said that these things in the OT were done as a warning for us against falling away.

Yes God could have done it a different way but he gave us free will. And what comes with free will is consequences due to the choices we make. God could have also chosen to not make gravity also, to keep people from falling to their deaths, but then we couldn’t have the universe.

There is a reason for everything that God does. We may not understand it completely. There is much we don’t know about those cultures and times. We do know that the Israelites were at war with those people. Abraham had at one time lived in that land. So they have a long history in the area. War is never a pretty thing. But, in those days, that is how nations expanded and conquered an area.

Israel is telling the story from their point of view. And, they are doing it in such a way as to serve as a warning against falling away from God and worshiping idols. The killing of the body is nothing compared to eternity in hell.

“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

• Mt 10:28

 

[fisherman_carl]

Under the New Testament things are different than under the Old. In the OT people’s hearts were hard. That’s why, Jesus said, divorce was permitted (Mt 19). These people were affected by the neighbouring nations and thus, they had to be set apart and live apart from them. But, under the NT, we are no longer under law but under grace. What protects NT people is different than what protected OT people.

Jesus scolded the Pharisees for observing the letter of the law but their hearts were far from God. How could Jesus do this when he told them to be separate in the OT. In the NT we have grace. In the OT they did not have grace. Instead of being overcome by its environment grace is like a mustard seed that when planted grows into a large tree. That is why Saints influence their environment for the good rather than being influenced for the bad.

Jesus spent time with sinners and were not like the Pharisees who had a legalistic righteousness, but were not truly righteous on the inside. Grace changes a man’s heart and makes him immune to the same sins that he was once held captive. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.

It was through Christ’s death and Resurrection that makes God’s grace possible to us. Prior to that we were cut off from God, under sin and death. We could not keep the law. We needed a savior. Instead of being separated from sinners, we now keep their company in order to help them find the savior too. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.

So the answer to your question is that yes, God did think of something besides genocide. He gave his only Son, so that we would have grace, Eternal Life.

 

[cerad2]

Yes God could have done it a different way but he gave us free will. And what comes with free will is consequences due to the choices we make. God could have also chosen to not make gravity also, to keep people from falling to their deaths, but then we couldn’t have the universe.

Ah yes the ever popular free will defense of genocide. So those infants chose to be cast into fire? God could have saved them but then they would have turned into robots? Yep. That makes sense.

 

[TimothyH]

Ah yes the ever popular free will defense of genocide. So those infants chose to be cast into fire? God could have saved them but then they would have turned into robots? Yep. That makes sense.

God doesn’t make people do anything. He asks them. You can’t force people to love you.

And you are going to die some day too. You are going to be run over by a bus or have a stroke and die in a nurshing home in the middle of the night as you choke on your own spit, or maybe you will die quickly of a bullet or slowly and in pain from a brain tumor. And maybe, if you are very, very lucky, you will die peacefully, surrounded by family that love you… maybe.

Does that make sense to you?

-Tim-

 

[cerad2]

God doesn’t make people do anything. He asks them. You can’t force people to love you.

And you are going to die some day too. You are going to be run over by a bus or have a stroke and die in a nurshing home in the middle of the night as you choke on your own spit, or maybe you will die quickly of a bullet or slowly and in pain from a brain tumor. And maybe, if you are very, very lucky, you will die peacefully, surrounded by family that love you… maybe.

Does that make sense to you?

-Tim-

That I will die one day? Sure. That God asked these babies if they wanted to be sacrificed? Nope.

 

[NotWorthy]

Ok. So here I am the most powerful being in (and out of) the universe able to not only leap mountains in a single bound but to create them as well. Can I possibly come up with a way to make people behave without slaughtering them all? Hey I know. Each time someone tries to sacrifice a child I’ll appear, stop the sacrifice and tell them not to do that any more. That should work.

You believed because you have seen, Tomas? Blessed are they who have not seen and still believe!

Think about it.

 

[NotWorthy]

God doesn’t make people do anything. He asks them. You can’t force people to love you.

And you are going to die some day too. You are going to be run over by a bus or have a stroke and die in a nurshing home in the middle of the night as you choke on your own spit, or maybe you will die quickly of a bullet or slowly and in pain from a brain tumor. And maybe, if you are very, very lucky, you will die peacefully, surrounded by family that love you… maybe.

Does that make sense to you?

-Tim-

The luck doesn’t come from how you die. The luck comes from how you live after you die! That’s far more important than how you die.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Ah yes the ever popular free will defense of genocide. So those infants chose to be cast into fire? God could have saved them but then they would have turned into robots? Yep. That makes sense.

You misunderstood what I said. I did not say that free will justifies genocide. There is a couple of things wrong with that assertion. First, we are not talking about genocide but about war. Genocide is the holocaust durng WWII where innocent people were rounded up and murdered for being a certain race. War is where 2 countries or tribes fight each other, usually for goods or resources. In the case of the Israelites conquering the Canaanites there were cases where villages surrendered and did not fight and these were spared. In cases where they did fight there was war.

The directive to wipe out the inhabitants of those who fought was not motivated out of racial hatred but to drive out the inhabitants from the land so that Israel could occupy tue land for God’s kingdom. A land that previously inhabitated by people who morally corrupt. And to keep this corruption out of Israel it was necessary to drve them out. And, it also means that if your enemy is completly wiped out then you dont have to keep fighting them as they recover and regroup. So there is a military tactical advantage.

What does this do? It creates fear in the hearts and minds of the enemies of Israel. And it brings great reverance to the name of God among all the Canaanites in the land. Who is this God who drives out the enemy of his people. Nothing can stand before him and live.

Israel had the ark of the covenant before them in battle. It was because of the Lord that they could defeat them. When they sinned against the Lord they would lose until they repented.

In those times war was a reality of life, not a freak occurrence. To equate the war brtween Israel and their enemies with genocide shows a lack of understanding.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

The people God commanded the Israelites to kill were not just hanging out at the Starbucks sipping coffee and looking at their iPads when the Isralites decided they wanted to take their seats.

These were people who drank human blood as part of their worship and maintained boy prostitutes in their temples. Incest and homosexual gang rape was common. They even sacrificed their own children to the god Molech - a hollow statue which was filled with burning coals into the arms of which they would place infants and children to be seared to death - burned alive.

For truly, the ancient inhabitants of your holy land,
whom you hated for deeds most odious—
works of sorcery and impious sacrifices;
These merciless murderers of children,
devourers of human flesh,
and initiates engaged in a blood ritual,
and parents who took with their own hands defenseless lives,
You willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors,
(Wisdom 12:3-6)

What you call holocaust, God calls cleaning the house. And there is a lesson there for us as well, we who butcher 1.3 million children every year.

-Tim-

The archaeological evidence of wide-scale sacrifice of children by the Canaanites, their relatives the Carthaginians, and other non-Jewish tribes in the middle-east suggests that the Canaanites, who sacrificed their infants in the hopes of material prosperity practiced evils of such a horrible nature that God would quite probably have cause to eradicate them. This was conducted at a level that even horrified the Romans (including Plutarch, Tertullian, Orosius, Diodorus Siculus and Philo), who were no slouches themselves at infanticide. The descendents of the Carthaginians are trying to whitewash the evidence of infanticide:

post-gazette.com/pg/05146/510878.stm

But the evidence seems pretty good for a satanic death-cult centered around the murder of babies throughout the middle-eastern crescent, whether that be through worship of Moloch, Tanit, Ba’al, or Cronus, in which babies were burnt alive, often in a metal statue of one of the gods or goddesses, as archaeological excavations of the mass graves of the children have proven.

If that kind of thing doesn’t deserve intervention, what does?

 

[TimothyH]

That I will die one day? Sure. That God asked these babies if they wanted to be sacrificed? Nope.

He doesn’t have to ask. He made them and gave them life and can take it back whenever he wants. He doesn’t have to ask you if you want to die or not. He can take your life any time he wants and by any means he sees fit.

Who asked 50 million infants in the USA since 1970 if they wanted to be sacrificed? Who asked them if they wanted to be cut apart with wires and vacuumed into jars, their body parts hauled off to infectious waste facilities to be burned, so that their mothers and fathers would be inconvenienced. Before we start blaming God for genocide, we had better look in the mirror.

post-gazette.com/pg/05146/510878.stm

If that kind of thing doesn’t deserve intervention, what does?

Thanks for the link Mike. See my comment above re abortion. Interesting that they thought they were sacrificing children for material gain. “Primitive mechanism of population control” and “sporadic activity connected to spring fertility rights” indeed! Sound all to familiar to me. It’s the same thing our “Modern” and “compassionate” society is doing today as far I’m concerned.

-Tim-