Why was God so cruel in the old Testament?

[fred_conty]

This passage may help in understanding the transition from the Old to the New law.

St. Catherine of Siena, Dialogue

The old law was the law of fear, that was given by Me to Moses, by which law they who committed sin suffered the penalty of it. The new law is the law of love, given by the Word of My only-begotten Son, and is founded in love alone. The new law does not break the old law, but rather fulfills it, as said My Truth, ‘I come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.’ And He united the law of fear with that of love. Through love was taken away the imperfection of the fear of the penalty, and the perfection of holy fear remained, that is, the fear of offending, not on account of one’s own damnation, but of offending Me, who am Supreme Good. So that the imperfect law was made perfect with the law of love.

To me, this explains what a huge difference there was in living before Christ, and after Christ. For after Christ we are more than mere creatures, but now we are his friends. This is what makes sense since we were not friends with God before Christ. He changed our relationship with God completely…now children of the Father. Before Christ we did not have that special love and life of God, and a very dark time. Living in a time of his generosity and mercy, and only knowing this, we may lose the appreciation of it being different.

 

[anon67074017]

Did he not create all people?

It is true that He created everyone. He chose the Israelites to be the ones who would worship Him though. He was their protector.

 

[odhiambo]

Well, why wouldnt God try to protect people today from the same things, surely he does not want any of his ‘flock’ to mingle and/or follow idolaters?

Maybe we are no longer living as His “flock”.
Remember the punishments the Israelites suffered; the venomous snakes in the desert; the loss in battle in the Promised Land; the Babylonian and other exiles, etc for not living according to the Covenant.

**Mosaic Covenant: **

“And Moses went up to God [on Mt. Horeb], and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”
Exodus 19:3-6

 

[simpleas]

What about the innocents of children? They had no choice who they were born to, yet God wanted them to be killed also…

Life is taught as sacred, every life, but not in some history of the O.T.
Sometimes I think it can not possibly be the same God, God does not change, we humans do.

 

[odhiambo]

What about the innocents of children? They had no choice who they were born to, yet God wanted them to be killed also…

Life is taught as sacred, every life, but not in some history of the O.T.
Sometimes I think it can not possibly be the same God, God does not change, we humans do.

He is God!
His ways are not ours, He tells us that Himself. We cannot apply the same reasoning to Him as we apply to ourselves. Yes all life is sacred I agree; all lives belongs to Him too.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9

 

[ynotzap]

I have been reading the old testament account of the Israelites taking over the promised land. I was surprised to learn that God ordered the Israelites numerous times to kill every man women and child when they would do battle with the enemy.

How can we square that God with Jesus who teaches us to love our enemies? After all Jesus is the same God.

We need to remember that during the events of the Old testament, before the coming of Jesus, that no one had the gift of the Holy Spirit, it was not given until Christ ascended into Heaven and sent His Spirit. The people were governed by the Law, not by grace. To make a point that was crucial to mankind at that time one had to discipline harshly to get the point across. The Israelites were to be the chosen people, from them came our Savior. They represented the truth of “One God” not many as pagans did, and still do. They offended God many times by worshiping false gods in the form of idols, as pagans did. God delivered them from many evils, but the lesson didn’t stick, they were “stiff-necked people”, Jesus even made reference to them as such. They killed prophets sent by God. A hard to handle group of people. With the coming of Christ, we are now not forced by the letter of the law, but by love for the law through the influence of Grace, through Jesus. One needs to know also that there are different kinds of grace, which were active in the Old Testament, but they were not “Sanctifying Grace”, I suspect they were the nature of Charismatic, and Actual graces, which do not sanctify, but are transient, eg. the miracles performed by Moses, and some of the prophets. Many of the great Kings fell, not one of them remained completely faithful, and this is to be expected if they didn’t have sanctifying grace, that truth is implicit in their lives.

 

[Matthew91]

This is a topic that has greatly troubled me in my life of faith and I still can’t seem to connect the dots with the various explanations I have read.

People often equate the killings of these people in the OT with God doing the killing as if to say it’s no different than someone dying from natural causes, that ultimately it was God who consented to their deaths.

But even according to this explanation was it not human beings who carried out these killings against their fellow man? What moral responsibility did the Israelites have?

I find this hard to square with Catholic teaching. Particularly paragraph 2258 from the Catechism. I have long been under the belief that killing a child is considered intrinsically evil by the Church (is this not the basis for the Church’s pro-life position?), but how could such acts be intrinsically evil if the OT appears to show God expressly commanding the killing of infants? In 1st Samuel 15:2-3 it is written that God commanded Saul to kill infants among others. Not only this but God is said to have reprimanded Saul for not destroying enough in accordance with the command. I just don’t understand how this can be explained in light of either the New Testament or Catholic teaching.

Any help with this specific instance would be appreciated.

 

[ynotzap]

This is a topic that has greatly troubled me in my life of faith and I still can’t seem to connect the dots with the various explanations I have read.

People often equate the killings of these people in the OT with God doing the killing as if to say it’s no different than someone dying from natural causes, that ultimately it was God who consented to their deaths.

But even according to this explanation was it not human beings who carried out these killings against their fellow man? What moral responsibility did the Israelites have?

I find this hard to square with Catholic teaching. Particularly paragraph 2258 from the Catechism. I have long been under the belief that killing a child is considered intrinsically evil by the Church (is this not the basis for the Church’s pro-life position?), but how could such acts be intrinsically evil if the OT appears to show God expressly commanding the killing of infants? In 1st Samuel 15:2-3 it is written that God commanded Saul to kill infants among others. Not only this but God is said to have reprimanded Saul for not destroying enough in accordance with the command. I just don’t understand how this can be explained in light of either the New Testament or Catholic teaching.

Any help with this specific instance would be appreciated.

You are right that ultimately God allows killing, and can even author this by command because He is God. But killing on one’s own judgement is not authored by God, but by man’s own will, not God’s will. For man apart from God’s command, upon man’s authority it becomes intrinsically evil, has no redeeming value. Upon God’s command, it has redeeming value. He is the Ultimate Author of life and death, either by His permissive will, or His direct command. (as I see it) Moses warned the Pharaoh of Egypt about the death of each first born, that the Lord told him, if he didn’t let the Israelites go free, and so it happened. God does not commit evil, or contradict Himself. We can not judge the acts of God, for who has known the mind of God. Then you also have the slaughter of the innocent by Herod. It was prophesied that “A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children…” This was “intinsically evil” and God allowed it.(Mat 2:10) You also have to know that Satan is a reality and has affected all mankind from the fall of Adam, All of these things tie into God’s plan for man’s salvation through His Son, Jesus.

 

[Della]

You are right that ultimately God allows killing, and can even author this by command because He is God. But killing on one’s own judgement is not authored by God, but by man’s own will, not God’s will. For man apart from God’s command, upon man’s authority it becomes intrinsically evil, has no redeeming value. Upon God’s command, it has redeeming value. He is the Ultimate Author of life and death, either by His permissive will, or His direct command. (as I see it) Moses warned the Pharaoh of Egypt about the death of each first born, that the Lord told him, if he didn’t let the Israelites go free, and so it happened. God does not commit evil, or contradict Himself. We can not judge the acts of God, for who has known the mind of God. Then you also have the slaughter of the innocent by Herod. It was prophesied that “A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children…” This was “intinsically evil” and God allowed it.(Mat 2:10) You also have to know that Satan is a reality and has affected all mankind from the fall of Adam, All of these things tie into God’s plan for man’s salvation through His Son, Jesus.

I would add to your great answer, that the OT events took place before the Incarnation, which means before the Age of Grace when God poured his saving grace onto all mankind. Before the Annunciation, the peoples of the OT had devolved into the pagan worship of many gods from the time after Noah when all persons knew there was but one God and that they owed him alone their worship. In their pagan worship they slaughtered their own children to their gods. Even Israel fell into this vile practice from time to time. God’s judgment took those children away from them and back to himself, for all of us belong first to him and then to our parents.

As for Saul, he had taken captives from among the leaders of Israel’s enemies. He did this to get ransom for them from their people, but God has ordered Saul to destroy all, not sparing some nor taking spoils of war. This was why God was angry with Saul, not because of children who had died. War was an all-out affair in ancient times. If whole peoples weren’t destroyed they would rise up again to remake war and more wars. Israel owned the lands those people had encroached on. They were taking back what belonged to them, destroying idol worshipers, and eradicating their influence on Israel–to keep them pure as the people of God.

Since Christ has redeemed all people, it is now the Age of Grace in which the love of God is available to everyone. God has not changed, but he has changed how he deals with sinners, since sending his Son to satisfy his justice for all mankind.

 

[user1234]

Love this question. I struggled a lot from it for a while until a priest explained it out to me. The ancient gods of different cultures were terribly unjust. According to mythology, they really couldn’t care less about regular people or what happened to them. They murderers and thieves and plain and simple just evil. So, when God revealed himself to man, he revealed himself as the God of Justice. To the Israelite’s, this was like a breath of fresh air! God actually cared what they did and how they were treated. If he had reveille himself as the God of Mercy, the Israelite’s would have laughed in his face. “You aren’t going to protect us from our enemies?? We’re supposed to show mercy to THEM?!” is what they might have said. So God slowly revealed himself, beginning with Justice. Also it’s important to note that many of the Old Testament stories are more like allegories. These stories shouldn’t be read literally, but as stories of sin. Israel was a warring nation, so the authors of these stories wrote them in terms of what the people could understand. Many of these stories are talking about uprooting and destroying sin, rather than specific peoples.

 

[Robert_Sock]

God’s command for the Israelites to slaughter their enemies need not to have been a physical death, but spiritual (mental). Note the Christians get very confused in the NT when Christ tell His followers to let the dead bury the dead. The passage of scripture this is based on can cause great confusion if taken literally. The OT need not be read literally, but figuratively.

 

[kyrie03]

This is a topic that has greatly troubled me in my life of faith and I still can’t seem to connect the dots with the various explanations I have read.

People often equate the killings of these people in the OT with God doing the killing as if to say it’s no different than someone dying from natural causes, that ultimately it was God who consented to their deaths.

But even according to this explanation was it not human beings who carried out these killings against their fellow man? What moral responsibility did the Israelites have?

I find this hard to square with Catholic teaching. Particularly paragraph 2258 from the Catechism. I have long been under the belief that killing a child is considered intrinsically evil by the Church (is this not the basis for the Church’s pro-life position?), but how could such acts be intrinsically evil if the OT appears to show God expressly commanding the killing of infants? In 1st Samuel 15:2-3 it is written that God commanded Saul to kill infants among others. Not only this but God is said to have reprimanded Saul for not destroying enough in accordance with the command. I just don’t understand how this can be explained in light of either the New Testament or Catholic teaching.

Any help with this specific instance would be appreciated.

Yes, the Israelites did carry out these killings as God had commanded them to do and sometimes not as thoroughly as God had ordered. Are you also troubled by the story of Noah and the flood which destroyed all living creatures (man and beast) who were not on the Ark?

Maybe you can attempt to look at it through the lens of salvation? The life of the body doesn’t matter when compared to eternal life. The evil of sin/offense against God, as other posters have expressed, had to be made clear. Is it not reasonable to assume that Almighty God mercifully desired more souls to enjoy eternally the happiness of heaven as well as to prevent souls from meriting further punishment in hell? Cutting lives short certainly prevented more offenses against God, stopped the spread of some immoral practices, and gave those killed a chance to repent. The All-Knowing God would know what would most benefit all mankind, Israelite or Gentile.

And when the fullness of time arrived, God sent His only begotten Son to lay down His life for the world and reopen the gates of heaven. Now we can look at the sufferings and death of Christ to realize how much God loves us and how evil sin is. Now that we have the fullness of Revealation we are commissioned to spread the Good News preaching Christ crucified - abolished the need of God using the sword.

 

[kyrie03]

God’s command for the Israelites to slaughter their enemies need not to have been a physical death, but spiritual (mental). Note the Christians get very confused in the NT when Christ tell His followers to let the dead bury the dead. The passage of scripture this is based on can cause great confusion if taken literally. The OT need not be read literally, but figuratively.

But God didn’t command the Israelites to spiritually kill others (that would be worse than physical death and no one has power to spiritually kill another). They literally killed them, their livestock, as well as destroyed all of their possessions when God so ordered. When Saul allowed his men to keep some alive and take the riches as booty, Saul become possessed by an evil spirit and Samuel the prophet was told to anoint David as the next King.

It is rewarding to teach OT to children. They seem to be able to grasp how wicked man can become when he strays from living the Commandments and what grave consequences he deserves. They don’t logically jump to conclusion that killing of wicked people is justified today because they know that Christ took sin upon Himself and died in our stead. What love! And we are all called to be like Christ. If people learn the story, they can convert. As Christ told Peter, “Those who live by the sword, perish by the sword.” Matt 26:52.

 

[kyrie03]

What about the innocents of children? They had no choice who they were born to, yet God wanted them to be killed also…

Life is taught as sacred, every life, but not in some history of the O.T.
Sometimes I think it can not possibly be the same God, God does not change, we humans do.

Eternal life is what is most important. Yes, even though the “fathers eat sour grapes, the teeth of the children are set on edge.” (See Ezechial 18:2) Continued…“As I live, says the Lord God, this parable shall be no more in Israel. Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of a father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins: the same shall die.” The word of the Lord through Ezechiel makes it clear that life eternal is most important.

Children who died in their innocence had not offended God. And their deaths imprinted on the minds of the Israelites how grievous it is to stray from the ways of the Lord.

Unjustified killing was and always is evil. God justified it for certain people before the Incarnation.

 

[clem456]

Eternal life is what is most important. Yes, even though the “fathers eat sour grapes, the teeth of the children are set on edge.” (See Ezechial 18:2) Continued…“As I live, says the Lord God, this parable shall be no more in Israel. Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of a father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins: the same shall die.” The word of the Lord through Ezechiel makes it clear that life eternal is most important.

Children who died in their innocence had not offended God. And their deaths imprinted on the minds of the Israelites how grievous it is to stray from the ways of the Lord.

Unjustified killing was and always is evil. God justified it for certain people before the Incarnation.

God himself is the author of life and he sustains us in this world as he wills. Any one of us may be taken from this world according to God’s holy will. Anytime, anywhere.

However, God has never willed, or condoned, or justified, one human being taking the innocent life of another human being.

There are not two Gods, one of the OT and one of the NT. That is a heresy settled long ago.
There is only one God. And he is an unchangeable and unchanging God. His nature is what it is.
His fullest and final revelation is Jesus Christ. If a passage of scripture seems to be incompatible with God’s nature, it’s on us, not him.

God has “logos”. He is reason-able. Jesus Christ is the logos of God. We have seen his face. Jesus has revealed the Father to us, we can know how he acts, to the best of our ability. The authors of the OT did not have this full revelation.
For more on this see Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Address, where he distinguishes between the capricious, contradictory, and unreasonable God that some Muslims believe in, and the Logos which God is:
w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html

If a scripture interpretation is incompatible with Jesus Christ, it is incompatible with the faith, **because the fullness of our faith is Jesus Christ the person, not the written word alone. **
The Catholic Church does not read the scriptures with the literalist fundamentalists, who are trapped in the literal words of scripture as they are interpreted in today’s language and culture. That type of interpretation robs the scriptures of inspiration.
We read the scriptures in deference to the community we are part of, always keeping in mind the context and culture the original authors wrote it in. It is a very modern thing to take a scripture passage and read it in literalist fashion, demanding it conform to our modern and individualist ways of thinking.

Again Pope Benedict in Verbum Domini:
w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html

The “dark” passages of the Bible

1. In discussing the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments, the Synod also considered those passages in the Bible which, due to the violence and immorality they occasionally contain, prove obscure and difficult. Here it must be remembered first and foremost that biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history. God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance. God chose a people and patiently worked to guide and educate them. Revelation is suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times and thus describes facts and customs, such as cheating and trickery, and acts of violence and massacre, without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things. This can be explained by the historical context, yet it can cause the modern reader to be taken aback, especially if he or she fails to take account of the many “dark” deeds carried out down the centuries, and also in our own day. In the Old Testament, the preaching of the prophets vigorously challenged every kind of injustice and violence, whether collective or individual, and thus became God’s way of training his people in preparation for the Gospel. So it would be a mistake to neglect those passages of Scripture that strike us as problematic. Rather, we should be aware that the correct interpretation of these passages requires a degree of expertise, acquired through a training that interprets the texts in their historical-literary context and within the Christian perspective which has as its ultimate hermeneutical key “the Gospel and the new commandment of Jesus Christ brought about in the paschal mystery”.[140] I encourage scholars and pastors to help all the faithful to approach these passages through an interpretation which enables their meaning to emerge in the light of the mystery of Christ.

In answer to the OP’s question, it’s good to keep in mind the ways in which the ancient cultures understood God’s action and will in the world. And pray over the scriptures, listen to the Church, to discern what God intends to communicate to us in the particular passage.

 

[Robert_Sock]

But God didn’t command the Israelites to spiritually kill others (that would be worse than physical death and no one has power to spiritually kill another). They literally killed them, their livestock, as well as destroyed all of their possessions when God so ordered. When Saul allowed his men to keep some alive and take the riches as booty, Saul become possessed by an evil spirit and Samuel the prophet was told to anoint David as the next King.

It is rewarding to teach OT to children. They seem to be able to grasp how wicked man can become when he strays from living the Commandments and what grave consequences he deserves. They don’t logically jump to conclusion that killing of wicked people is justified today because they know that Christ took sin upon Himself and died in our stead. What love! And we are all called to be like Christ. If people learn the story, they can convert. As Christ told Peter, “Those who live by the sword, perish by the sword.” Matt 26:52.

OK, but how would you explain Christ telling His disciples to let the dead bury the dead? I have always thought it meant that they were dead spirituality.

For the body is called (9) a “small city.” [The two souls, in relation to one’s body, are just] as two kings who wage war over a city, which each wishes to capture [and dominate even against its will] and to rule [with the consent of the populace]; that is to say, [each king wishes] to direct its inhabitants according to his will, so that they obey him in all that he decrees upon them.
–The Tanya, the collective books with Chabad is based

The above quote is an example of how Jews often use figurative speech. Taken literally, we think that two kings are fighting each other to take over a small city, but the real interpretation is that the animal soul within us is fighting with the divine soul to rule over the individual body. This type of figurative thinking run throughout Judaism. In reading the OT, much relates to each and every Jewish individual’s fight to obtain righteousness, which frees him or her from the mental slavery. Don’t ever think that God ordered the slaughter of innocent men, women, children and animals! God is good, not evil.

 

[kyrie03]

Simple explanation as to why God ordered the slaughter of innocents -they weren’t innocent. God did order the annihilation of the certain peoples as we can read in the OT. The Church has always understood this to be factual and has taught it as factual. The multiple children’s Bible History books I own all state the truth of Saul being ordered to kill all the Amalekites and destroy their possessions.
“Just because we can’t seem to solve a problem or understand something or because it seems contradictory to us does not means it is unsolvable or not true. The slaughter of Israel’s enemies at the command of God may seem inconsistent with a loving God, but it was really an act of love for Israel and others due to the moral condition of these nations which included child sacrifice as archaeology has clearly shown. The degradation of these people was horrible. Further, God, who knows the hearts of men and what they will and will not do, was acting on the basis of that knowledge. Thus, God ordered their judgment in order to protect Israel and their development as a nation, for it was through them that God would give the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. Further, God had waited some 400 years before ordering their destruction until their iniquity became complete.” Read who explanation bible.org/question/how-could-loving-god-tell-israelites-kill-their-enemies-even-children

Unjustified killing of innocent people is always evil. God allowed JUSTIFIED killing of guilty people as is told in the OT. My statement earlier was misleading. Thanks for the correction, Clem!

 

[kyrie03]

OK, but how would you explain Christ telling His disciples to let the dead bury the dead? I have always thought it meant that they were dead spirituality.

The above quote is an example of how Jews often use figurative speech. Taken literally, we think that two kings are fighting each other to take over a small city, but the real interpretation is that the animal soul within us is fighting with the divine soul to rule over the individual body. This type of figurative thinking run throughout Judaism. In reading the OT, much relates to each and every Jewish individual’s fight to obtain righteousness, which frees him or her from the mental slavery. Don’t ever think that God ordered the slaughter of innocent men, women, children and animals! God is good, not evil.

If you research what the Fathers of the Church taught about Bible passages that are confusing, you won’t be led astray. In Matthew 8:22 when Christ tells the young man to “Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead,” he is telling the man to stop using excuses as to why he can’t follow Jesus. The Haydock Bible explains: The first words “let the dead bury their dead” cannot mean those that were dead by corporal death; and therefore must needs be understood of those who were spiritually dead in sin. It goes on to explain what St John Chrysostom taught about this passage: “God will not suffer us to go and bury a deceased parent when he calls us to other employment.”

Jesus did speak in parables not always understood even by the disciples. We are not at liberty to decide for ourselves which passages are literal and which are figurative. We have to look at how the Church has interpreted them.

And again, you are correct. God did not order the slaughter of innocent men, women, children, and animals. The following explains in more detail how God had foretold to Abraham the total destruction of the Amalekites, how Balaam was ordered by the Amalekites to curse the Israelites but instead, inspired by God, he blessed the Israelites and cursed the Amalekites, and how King Saul was negligent in carrying out God’s order to utterly destroy these people and their possessions. bible.org/seriespage/12-saul-and-amalekites-1-samuel-151-35

 

[clem456]

Simple explanation as to why God ordered the slaughter of innocents -they weren’t innocent. God did order the annihilation of the certain peoples as we can read in the OT. The Church has always understood this to be factual and has taught it as factual. The multiple children’s Bible History books I own all state the truth of Saul being ordered to kill all the Amalekites and destroy their possessions.
“Just because we can’t seem to solve a problem or understand something or because it seems contradictory to us does not means it is unsolvable or not true. The slaughter of Israel’s enemies at the command of God may seem inconsistent with a loving God, but it was really an act of love for Israel and others due to the moral condition of these nations which included child sacrifice as archaeology has clearly shown. The degradation of these people was horrible. Further, God, who knows the hearts of men and what they will and will not do, was acting on the basis of that knowledge. Thus, God ordered their judgment in order to protect Israel and their development as a nation, for it was through them that God would give the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. Further, God had waited some 400 years before ordering their destruction until their iniquity became complete.” Read who explanation bible.org/question/how-could-loving-god-tell-israelites-kill-their-enemies-even-children

Unjustified killing of innocent people is always evil. God allowed JUSTIFIED killing of guilty people as is told in the OT. My statement earlier was misleading. Thanks for the correction, Clem!

If I understand you correctly, you are claiming the Amalekite women, children, and non-combatants were not innocent, and therefore the killing was justified as God’s will as literally interpreted. If that is the case, I am wondering who could be considered innocent.

That would seem to be problematic judging by the guidance given by Pope Benedict and many other Catholics. Although I have heard the “not innocent” take on the passage plenty of times.

 

[kyrie03]

If I understand you correctly, you are claiming the Amalekite women, children, and non-combatants were not innocent, and therefore the killing was justified as God’s will as literally interpreted. If that is the case, I am wondering who could be considered innocent.

That would seem to be problematic judging by the guidance given by Pope Benedict and many other Catholics. Although I have heard the “not innocent” take on the passage plenty of times.

From 1Kings 15:3 "Now therefore go, and smite Amalec, and utterly destroy all that he hath: spare him not, nor covet anything that is his: but slay both man and woman, child and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and *." Footnote in Haydock Bible says: The great master of life and death (who cuts off one half of mankind whilst they are children) has been pleased sometimes to ordain that children should be put to the sword, in detestation of the crimes of their parents, and that they might not live to follow the same wicked ways. But without such ordinance of God, it is not allowable in any wars, how just soever, to kill children.

See link bible.org/seriespage/12-saul-and-amalekites-1-samuel-151-35 to see that Genisis, Numbers, Judges, Joshua, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, etc… in OT that this command of God was not an isolated incident. God at other times gave a similar command.

To interpret Scriptures in a way other than has always been taught by the Church has been condemned by Pope St Pius X w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html
The heresy of Modernism and those infected by it has been attempting to make Scripture evolve and conform to a modern understanding. I find nothing in Pope Benedict XVI writings that contradict what the Church has always taught.