Challenging question posed in our home group. Would appreciate some direction/feedback:

God commands us in the Old Testament not to kill. How could He instruct His people, the Israelites, to go into a city and kill every man, woman, child and animal?

Because of such a question, we have a new Christian (ex-Muslim) in our group who is particularly struggling with the veracity of the Bible as being THE Word of God (in its entirety), as compared to just CONTAINING the Word of God. She fully believes in Jesus but has many struggles with God as depicted in the Old Testament. This was just one of her questions. Any assistance much appreciated.

Most translations translate this verse “Thou shalt not murder”. In other words, one should not have such disregard of human life they take no thought of killing another for no particular reason. It can also mean an act of premeditated murder. God does, however, allow one to kill another for specific reasons, such as in time of war or as an act of self-defense. Jesus even makes reference to this in defending one’s home. I hope this helps – I did not have time to look up the references.

Only in a very few instances did God command every individual in a city to be killed. Honestly, I believe this question might be best unanswered.

I hope and pray God blesses your study.

Chelki

Exodus 34:6

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;"

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" -- Jesus, the Messiah!, our salvation.

[This message was edited by Chelki on March 02, 2004 at 07:43 PM.]

mlee
We are not to murder of course because that is God's judgement weather someone lives or not and not our judgement to make. In the old testament, God had many resasons for ordering his people to kill all the inhabitants of the lands that He had promised to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob and their decendants. The inhabatants of these cities were very wicked in God's judgements and He wanted to destroy them and give those cities to His own people. There was idolatry to false gods, even gods that required the people to burn their own babies and children in the fire to sacrifice to them. There was instances of widespread sexually transmitted diseases because of their immorality. Likely the children would be like their parents if allowed to grow and likely they would war with the Isrealites when they were grown. Also God had to eliminate anything that would try to stop the savior Jesus from being born, so God in His plan likely had to bring about the right ancestors of Jesus. Mainly I think that God knew that if His people lived amoung the wicked heathen that they would be influenced by them and adopt their idolatry and evil ways.

It is great that your muslim friend is a new christian and asking questions. That's how we learn.

We don't always understand God's ways but His word teaches that He is just and good and knows everything. He is righteous and true. We just have to trust Him because He cannot lie. He said He is righteous, just and holy and true.

I will pray for that friend and your study group

mlee,
the commandment should read "thou shall not commit murder" NOT kill. YHVH ordered the Israelites to kill under specific conditions, MOST of which concerned THEIR worship of pagan gods and how likely it was to lead Israel into their practices. However, it should be noted that He gave specific orders when that was to happen (His judgement). The law DID include capital punishment for various "sins" and one of them was for murderers, but there WERE arrangments made for those who killed by accident (if you push someone and they hit their head and die but that wasn't your intent for example), you would then go to one of the cities of refuge. Murderers, if they confessed without coertion or if there were 2 eye witnesses (not 1 but 2) HAD to be put to death according to YHVH's own law. He was giving directions for living peacefully in a community situation to a people who had no law of their own and He didn't want them living according to the laws of the pagans. He doesn't want US to either, altho Yashua did state that the ordinances of the area took precedence when they conflicted with YHVH's as long as it wasn't conflicting with worship. (render unto caeser what is his). so....the laws regarding worship (other than the sacrifice which ended with Yashua's own sacrifice and will be reinstated for His millenial reign) are still intact, the civil laws only apply when there is NO local law covering the subject.
hope this helps.
kat

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Kat>,

I know of one instance where God said to kill everyone & I heard a preaching about it that I will share. In 1 Sam Chapter 15 there is a story about the people called the Amelekites - now these people I was told were very ruthless; they would kill the weak, stragglers & the elderly of the children of Isreal while they were wandering in the wilderness. God said to take them out but Saul the king of the Jews saved Agag the king of the Amelekites alive & was torturing him. Samuel busted Saul's chops with one of my favorite passages in the 22 & 23 verse - "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice & to hearken then the fat of rams, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft & stubborness is as iniquity & idolatry" Well most likely Agag had a kid while in captivity because later on in the book of Esther (Did I spell that right?) well the main villian in that book (who was almost responsible for the destruction of every jew in the known world) was a decendant of Agag, an Agagite - so the lesson I was taught was when God says kill em all, it is probably for a good reason.

As far what Kat said "Yashua did state that the ordinances of the area took precedence when they conflicted with YHVH's as long as it wasn't conflicting with worship. (render unto caeser what is his)" I think you got that a little backwards We do the law of the land amen but the law of God always takes precedence - look at the mark of the beast, now that has nothing to do with worship, but it has everything to do with your bank account, well it says quite clearly in the scripture that the mark of the beast is bad for us but nobody will be worshiping that mark just using it to get groceries from the store. My point is that we should always obey God first & the laws of the land second.

As far as the beginning of this post try & remind the people that don't get it that God's ways are higher than our ways & his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, because God is the creator, and beyond time, he sees the big picture wheras we cannot. I heard that when God said to kill them all he was acting like a surgeon taking out a cancer from the earth that he knew nothing good would come from it. I would love to see some more of the hard questions posed by your bible study group, perhaps I may be of assistance.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Slade,