“Why believe in a God that supports genocide and killing infants.
And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. (Deuteronomy 2:33)
And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. (Deuteronomy 2:34)
I don't remember my bible all that well, but I'm pretty sure one of the ten commandments was "Kill Not". Maybe that doesn't apply to killing kids.
But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. (Deuteronomy 20:16)
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. (Deuteronomy 20:17)
Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. (1 Samuel 15:2)
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
(1 Samuel 15:2-3)”
Let me simplify the question: “How can you believe in a God that condones and actively participates in the killing or genocide of innocent men, women, and children?” The answer is quite simple: I don’t. I don’t believe in a God who actively participates in the killing or genocide of innocent men, women, and children. I believe in a God of Love and Justice. Let me explain.
God’s Law
When talking about situations in the Old Testament, you have to remember the obvious fact that Jesus Christ had not come yet. Therefore, every person was directly responsible for his or her sin because Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice had not yet taken place. The understanding of why this is comes from studying God’s Law and what breaking it entails. If you’re going to make accusations about a certain worldview, you must remember to look at the accusations from the light of the actual worldview.
In the Christian worldview, God has established a law over the entire Earth (Psalm 119:4). He demands obedience to that law (and rightfully so seeing as He is the world’s Creator). He also commands obedience to whatever He commands period. This isn’t wrong as God never commands anything bad for us (see 1 John 5:3). From day one (almost literally), God has said there is only one punishment for breaking His commands: death (see Genesis 2:16-17). “Sin” is the alternate term for breaking God’s law (1 John 3:4).
So what we have so far is that God has established a law for His Creation, and the punishment for breaking it is death. Every single passage that was listed in the question was God’s judgment of a nation or people that had been disobedient to God.
Deuteronomy 2:33-34
Deuteronomy 2:33-34 records God’s judgment on King Sihon for attacking Israel. You must be very careful when calling something “genocide”. That term means “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group” (Merriam-Webster). That definitely not what’s going on here. Sihon attacked Israel simply because they asked if they could pass through their land! This is recorded in Numbers 21:18b-25.
Numbers 21:18b-25 (NIV), “Then they went from the wilderness to Mattanah, from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth, 20 and from Bamoth to the valley in Moab where the top of Pisgah overlooks the wasteland. 21 Israel sent messengers to say to Sihon king of the Amorites: 22 “Let us pass through your country. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.” 23 But Sihon would not let Israel pass through his territory. He mustered his entire army and marched out into the wilderness against Israel. When he reached Jahaz, he fought with Israel. 24 Israel, however, put him to the sword and took over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified. 25 Israel captured all the cities of the Amorites and occupied them, including Heshbon and all its surrounding settlements.”
Sihon attacked Israel and accordingly Israel defended itself and took over Sihon’s kingdom. That isn’t genocide, that’s just war. Further, God’s people didn’t initiate the war—King Sihon did.
Deuteronomy 2:33-34 therefore is not genocide or erratic killing, but merely a plain old war (where God’s people were not even the cause).
Deuteronomy 20:16-17
For this passage, we must go back to my explanation of God’s punishment for disobedience. I would call attention to the verse immediately after what was quoted:
Deuteronomy 20:18, “That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.”
All the nations mentioned in verse 16 (Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites) had committed idolatry—which is against God’s law (Exodus 20:1-6). It is therefore punishable by death as already stated (see Ezekiel 18:4, 18:20). God was just doing what He said He would if you disobeyed His commands. We will revisit this to see if this is just or not in a moment.
1 Samuel 15:2-3
This I think is the passage that really prompts the question of why God “promotes genocide.” This passages records God’s command to Saul to wipe out the Amalekites—men, women, and children. Contrary to what you think might be humanly possible, I believe that in this situation quite literally every adult Amalekite was guilty before God in that every single Amalekite was disobedient. We will talk about the children later.
To understand what I mean, we must divert for a moment and consider two other passages of Scripture.
Joshua 6:15-17 (KJV), “15And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times. 16And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city. 17And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.”
Jonah 3:5-10 (KJV), “5So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. 6For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: 8But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”
Twice we see God going to destroy someone (Rahab) or something (Nineveh) and not doing it after they repented. This shows a principle of God: if you will repent He will not bring evil upon you. Now you may say I cannot prove this holds true to God all of the time, but consider the following passage.
Jeremiah 18:5-10 (NIV):
“5 Then the word of the LORD came to me. 6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”
This reinforces the idea that this is a principle of God—with Rahab and Ninevah being specific examples (also consider Ezekiel 18:25-32). I will now add a third example: 1 Samuel 14:2-3. With the character of God in place, He must have offered them time to repent and they would not. If He did it without offering them the chance to turn from their ways, God would be contradicting His own nature. I therefore assert that the Amalekites did not repent when God offered them the chance, and He therefore judged them for the idolatry. The fault was that of each and every Amalekite, not God’s.
A good example is the police force. If there is a gang of 10 men, and that gang murders 25 people—the police will arrest all of them and prosecute all of them by consigning them to death row. That’s what God did with the Amalekites.
To accuse God of being unjust for kill them is also to accuse the police of being unjust for consigning the 10-person gang to death row. Is that what not is due those men? So it is for the Amalekites in God’s economy.
Also, remember that the Amalekites were always attacking Israel—just like King Sihon. As Norman L. Geisler (Ph.D) said, “the Amalekites…were from innocent. Far from it. These were not nice people. In fact, their missions was to destroy Isarael. In other words, to commit genocide. As if that weren’t evil enough, think what was hanging in the balance. The Israelites were the chosen people through whom God would bring salvation to the entire world through Jesus Christ.”
Children/Infants
I did not forget the children. I will agree with you up front that infants are innocent and too young to make rational choices of right and wrong. Therefore they are innocent entirely. The reason they perished in 1 Samuel 14:2-3 is not because they “suffered for the sins of their fathers” per se, but because of the sin of their parents there was no other recourse. Galatians 6:7-8 (KJV) states, “7Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” The parents of the Amalekites sowed disobedience against God and it demanded punishment. In the ultimate course of time it ended in the absolute destruction of their nation. The evil that was sowed reaped destruction of their people.
Also, remember the impact of death. Life matters because of where it puts you in the afterlife. There is no reason to assume the children of the Amalekites who were killed went to Hell. For the reasoning behind this, see my colleague Wesley Freeland’s post entitled “What happens to the unreached in death?” In that publication, he explains the relationship between childhood death and the afterlife and shows there is no reason to believe children go to hell when they die.
Credibility Note
I just read a book that came to the exact same conclusions about the Amalekites—even down to the children. It’s located in a book called The Case for Faith by Lee Strobal. The opinions I put forth are backed by the man I quoted earlier: Norman L. Geisler. He has a Ph.D in philosophy from Loyola University, has written, coauthored, or edited more than 50 books, and has memberships in the American Philosophical Society, the American Scientific Association, and the American Academy of Religion.
Conclusion
What we see today is that God isn’t a God who mindlessly kills innocent people. God is just and righteous God who in His mercy has not judged all those that currently refuse Him. So, I say, to the contrary! As 2 Peter3:9 (KJV) states, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
God bless,
Robert A. Rowlett