I really feel scared when i go through these passages/verses in the bible...
Why did God give such command His he truly merciful?? Why not spare the infants??

All these questions keeping springing up in my Head after reading these!

Here are the verses...



Deuteronomy 20:16-17: But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per′izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb′usites, as the Lord your God has commanded.

Joshua 6:21: Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.

1 Samuel 15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

This passages need to be explained pls...it's still confusing.

This is the question that plagues the Bible. Christians know that their "god" killed more people. Anyone familiar with the scriptures will note that this "god" has no reservations about ordering the deaths of heathens. In the Old Testament he is not a God of Peace. Even the Laws of Moses, given to ensure man lives in harmony, includes death sentences for certain violations. The Flood is the most obtrusive example of his mass annihilation tactics for those who have strayed from his direction. The destruction of the cities of the plain is another. Furthermore, god's own actions are far from exemplary. He lies to Adam and Eve regarding the poisonous state of the apple and curses the serpent for telling Eve the truth about the apple. He approves of Noah's animal sacrifice after the flood because the burning flesh has a pleasing smell. He orders Abraham to sacrifice his son on an altar as a test of loyalty (although he stops the sacrifice just before it occurs). Certainly this would place an impact on a father-son relationship. Later in the Bible he torments Job to prove to Satan that Job is loyal to him and won't turn away. This is hardly admirable conduct from a divine being. We always have a way of justifying our misbehavior don't we. What better way to explain our aggressions against others, "its Gods word", or "its Gods will". The Old Testament is filled with admonitions from the God Jehovah to break down the walls of the city, pillage, loot, kill all the men, keep the virgins for yourself and on and on. The amazing thing is that to this very day, people flock to churches and admire the "God" who ordered the raping, looting, genocide and pillaging

You should really be scared because the same God is coming to judge the world and all the sins.

coolcentbigman:

Deuteronomy 20:16-17: But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per′izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb′usites, as the Lord your God has commanded.

Joshua 6:21: Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.

1 Samuel 15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

This passages need to be explained pls...it's still confusing.

There is nothing to explain.

There is no confusion.

Our Lord is an angry, jealous God and a 'consuming fire'!

To love Him is to fear Him.

To fear Him is to love Him.

Escape Hellfire punishment.

Obey today.

Aaronsrod:


There is nothing to explain.

There is no confusion.

Our Lord is an angry, jealous God and a 'consuming fire'!

To love Him is to fear Him.

To fear Him is to love Him.

Escape Hellfire punishment.

Obey today.

I know all this bro, his command stated clearly to kill both the infant children who haven't committed any sin yet which makes him no different from we humans. He should've taken measures as a merciful and supreme being at least spare the Infant children..

If you open your mind and think about these things without preconceptions, you'll realize the portrayal of God in the old testament doesn't make sense.

Wanted to clear people on these verses

God is the same, full of mercy and compassion, slow in anger and minster of Love...So don't stop loving him or doubt his attributes when you come across these passages and that's the reason i brought it up.

There are a couple of easy responses. Some of us merely recoil and condemn God as a moral monster, turning away from Him and losing faith. Some try to wave the passages away as evidence of ancient tribal culture given a veneer of divine sanction, rather than the true word of God. Neither of these is an acceptable response. The God of New and Old Testaments is the same. There's no slithering away from this. Either you take Yahweh and Jesus together, or you take neither.

Old Testament
The main recurring narrative theme of the Old Testament is Israel turning away from God to follow false religions. Modernists like to think all religions are equally valid (or invalid) and thus none is better than any other. History reveals this to be demonstrably untrue, so when we look more deeply into the past shouldn’t be surprised to find barbaric people and belief systems. The Canaanites engaged in a laundry list of awful practices, including child sacrifice, temple prostitution, witchcraft, idol worship, and just about every thing the Lord had ordered the Jews not to do. "Every abominable thing which the Lord hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods." (Deuteronomy 12:31)

(One curious difference with warfare in the Bible is that the Lord forbids Jews to take spoils of war in certain cases. Indeed, the story of Achen's punishment in Joshua 7 is an example of the harsh punishment meted out when someone disobeys this command. Spoils made war more appealing and prosperous, and forbidding them meant people were not fighting simply for financial gain.)

Israel, in fact, didn’t wipe out the Canaanites. They rarely did what God commanded, and they often reaped the whirlwind of this disobedience

The People of God took up the wicked habits of those they had been ordered to conquer, and fell into damnation because of it. God had chosen the Jews to be His people, writing the history of His work in the world through their lives as he slowly ushered them from savagery to salvation. It's hard to read passages like those found in Numbers 31, when Moses orders the destruction of the Midianites: "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man." He wants to extinguish the line of the Midianites so they will no longer threaten the Jews by rising against them or tempting them to follow foreign gods.

New testament

After 2000 years under the New Law of Christ, this kind of cruelty is unthinkable to us. Good. The world moved on, guided by Jesus, who speaks with the same voice as Yahweh. The entire approach to the wicked was flipped on its head. No longer were they to be wiped out. Now, the People of God had to be willing to die rather than to kill. We were commissioned to go into all the nations of the world and preach the good news, even if it meant our deaths, as it often did. “Do not spare them” was changed to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Temptation is no longer fought with the edge of the sword, but in the heart of man.

God does not change, but man does, and history is the story of his rough progression. The God who tried to shelter his beloved people from the corruption of wicked nations is the same God who ordered his followers to humble themselves even unto death in order to spread the word of His saving love.

One passage doesn’t make sense without the other. You have to look at the entire Bible and consider it as a single message from a single God. This is why heresies like Marcionism, Gnosticism, Manicheanism, and others that rejected the Old Testament were rejected so firmly by the Church Fathers. The accounts of Israel’s God and Jesus of Nazareth tell one story with one consistent meaning. It is the story of man being drawn, kicking and screaming, from the depths of sin to the Kingdom of God. It was never going to be easy.

Horus:
The Old Testament is filled with admonitions from the God Jehovah to break down the walls of the city, pillage, loot, kill all the men, keep the virgins for yourself and on and on. The amazing thing is that to this very day, people flock to churches and admire the "God" who ordered the raping, looting, genocide and pillaging

Calm down bro, God is a faithful God and his reasons are all justified... I don't want people to continue with such Idealogy about God because he is indeed awesome. The jews disobeyed God and that's why they always go back to Sin. God is a jealous God and knows the people of canaan will lure his people back to sin which later happened because his ordered were not actually carried out by the jews then instead of destroying mankind he offered his Son(Jesus)

It's God not god bro.
Pls take note.

coolcentbigman:
I really feel scared when i go through these passages/verses in the bible...
Why did God give such command His he truly merciful?? Why not spare the infants??

All these questions keeping springing up in my Head after reading these!

Here are the verses...



Deuteronomy 20:16-17: But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per′izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb′usites, as the Lord your God has commanded.

Joshua 6:21: Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.

1 Samuel 15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

This passages need to be explained pls...it's still confusing.

Beyond the sins of those nations against their creator by idolatory. The plague of demonic invasion was all over . Idolatry is beyond an action it is a sell over to demonization from parents to children . There was no revelation of casting out devils then . The hosts have to be eliminated to stop their multiplication . It’s about saving the world just like the days of Noah when evil demonic activities overan the earth . Only one family was uncontammated . God had to preserve that family line by destroying the plagued earth

petra1:



Beyond the sins of those nations against their creator by idolatory. The plague of demonic invasion was all over . Idolatry is beyond an action it is a sell over to demonization from parents to children . There was no revelation of casting out devils then . The hosts have to be eliminated to stop their multiplication . It’s about saving the world just like the days of Noah when evil demonic activities overan the earth . Only one family was uncontammated . God had to preserve that family line by destroying the plagued earth

What's the point of Noah's flood if man will continue with his wickedness? Because the flood was pointless since men went back to being wicked and ungodly after a while. I'll think if God wants to purge the earth of wickedness, he'll do a perfect job. Noah's flood was a failure.

petra1:



Beyond the sins of those nations against their creator by idolatory. The plague of demonic invasion was all over . Idolatry is beyond an action it is a sell over to demonization from parents to children . There was no revelation of casting out devils then . The hosts have to be eliminated to stop their multiplication . It’s about saving the world just like the days of Noah when evil demonic activities overan the earth . Only one family was uncontammated . God had to preserve that family line by destroying the plagued earth

Answer the question above.

Jesus will do worse in his second coming

[s]

Image123:
You should really be scared because the same God is coming to judge the world and all the sins.

[/s]

CosmicPhoenix:
[s][/s]

Luk 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

coolcentbigman:
I really feel scared when i go through these passages/verses in the bible...
Why did God give such command His he truly merciful?? Why not spare the infants??

All these questions keeping springing up in my Head after reading these!

Here are the verses...



Deuteronomy 20:16-17: But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per′izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb′usites, as the Lord your God has commanded.

Joshua 6:21: Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sword.

1 Samuel 15:3: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

This passages need to be explained pls...it's still confusing.

There've been some really good answers already but just to give a basic overview of the type of language used in these passages and the context in which they are written,I believe this really short video on the book of Joshua would help out... It's also quite easy to follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqJlFF_eU

You can check out their channel("the bible project" on YouTube) for other videos on other biblical books and themes. Their videos were quite an immense help to me personally when I first began to understand the bible in context and on its own merit. Hope it helps u out too...

The bible is largely analogical book with many symbols used to further encode the messages. The sword for example is synonymous with the combating word of God. That is the verses we war with.
We know we war not against flesh and blood but principalities and power. We also understand we are Israelites or God's own people as born again. In fact those gory murders are symbols and analogy of how we should war spiritually.
A lot of us still kill with the sword or try to kill with it when we pray for vengeance. Most people just don't know it. As born again or Israelites, our sword is the word of God.

I know this will reach front page on Sunday,only those that have deep insight will understand what I mean. Believe what you wanna believe,live your life peacefully,do things with modesty, be your brothers keeper.

CodeTemplar:
The bible is largely analogical book with many symbols used to further encode the messages. The sword for example is synonymous with the combating word of God. That is the verses we war with.
We know we war not against flesh and blood but principalities and power. We also understand we are Israelites or God's own people as born again. In fact those gory murders are symbols and analogy of how we should war spiritually.
A lot of us still kill with the sword or try to kill with it when we pray for vengeance. Most people just don't know it. As born again or Israelites, our sword is the word of God.

Isthat so

MARCIONISM


Marcionism was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around the year 144.[

Marcion believed that Jesus was the savior sent by God, and Paul the Apostle was his chief apostle, but he rejected the Hebrew Bible and the God of Israel. Marcionists believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.

Marcionism, similar to Gnosticism, depicted the God of the Old Testament as a tyrant or demiurge (see also God as the Devil). Marcion was the son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus. About the middle of the second century (140–155) he traveled to Rome, where he joined the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo.

Marcion's canon, possibly the first Christian canon ever compiled, consisted of eleven books: a gospel consisting of ten sections drawn from the Gospel of Luke; and ten Pauline epistles.Marcion's canon rejected the entire Old Testament, along with all other epistles and gospels of what would become the 27-book New Testament canon, which during his life had yet to be compiled. Paul's epistles enjoy a prominent position in the Marcionite canon, since Paul was considered by Marcion to be Christ's only true apostle.

Marcionism was denounced by its opponents as heresy and written against – notably by Tertullian in a five-book treatise, Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion), in about 208. Marcion's writings are lost, though they were widely read and numerous manuscripts must have existed. Even so, many scholars claim it is possible to reconstruct and deduce a large part of ancient Marcionism through what later critics, especially Tertullian, said concerning Marcion.

GNOSTCISM


All matter is evil, and the non-material, spirit-realm is good.
There is an unknowable God, who gave rise to many lesser spirit beings called Aeons.
The creator of the (material) universe is not the supreme god, but an inferior spirit (the Demiurge).
Gnosticism does not deal with "sin," only ignorance.
To achieve salvation, one needs gnosis (knowledge).

omokoladejames:

There've been some really good answers already but just to give a basic overview of the type of language used in these passages and the context in which they are written,I believe this really short video on the book of Joshua would help out... It's also quite easy to follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqOqJlFF_eU

You can check out their channel("the bible project" on YouTube) for other videos on other biblical books and themes. Their videos were quite an immense help to me personally when I first began to understand the bible in context and on its own merit. Hope it helps u out too...

Thanks.

coolcentbigman:


Thanks.

U welcome boss

Funaki:


What's the point of Noah's flood if man will continue with his wickedness? Because the flood was pointless since men went back to being wicked and ungodly after a while. I'll think if God wants to purge the earth of wickedness, he'll do a perfect job. Noah's flood was a failure.

The truth is that Noah flood story was a tale or fiction any one you called it! they are many things in the bible that depicted God in a cruel way and if you study the bible very well you will discovered that most stories are fabricated in order to enslaved the people of their time! and still, they hide their atrocities under guise of God.

jcross19:
The truth is that Noah flood story was a tale or fiction any one you called it! they are many things in the bible that depicted God in a cruel way and if you study the bible very well you will discovered that most stories are fabricated in order to enslaved the people of their time! and still, they hide their atrocities under guise of God.

i'm sure you were there.

Image123:


i'm sure you were there.

The most elites people in the bible were those hide under canopy of deities deceiving the gullible ones! The type of God Jesus introduced to us is quite different from what Happened in the old and most people perpetrated evil and hung it on God.

jcross19:
The most elites people in the bible were those hide under canopy of deities deceiving the gullible ones! The type of God Jesus introduced to us is quite different from what Happened in the old and most people perpetrated evil and hung it on God.

No need for story, just tell us you were there in Noah's time.