Many Christians will say that when God ordered humans to kill, it was justified. Here are a list of
times in the Bible when God ordered humans to kill — not times
he killed, but killings he told others to do. See if
you think there is any way to justify them. Try to convince me in the comments.
This is the well-known story of God commanding Abraham to kill his second son Isaac (though God
refers to him as “your only son”) and “sacrifice him there as a burnt
offering”. At the last second, after Abraham showed himself willing, God called it off.
(This is supposed to be a moral lesson about not keeping anything from God. Yet clearly the most moral
response would have been to refuse to kill his son.)
Because they made a statue in the shape of a calf and bowed down to it, the
Lord decided to kill all the Israelites. Moses
appealed to God’s vanity and calmed him down a bit, but God still ordered the Levites to get
their swords and “go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing
his brother and friend and neighbor.” The Levites killed 3,000 people in that funfest. On
top of it, God sent a plague, though it’s not clear whether this plague killed anyone.
After the Israelites attacked the Midianites and “killed every man”, they burned all
the towns and camps, and captured the women and children, animals and goods. Moses was angry that
the soldiers had allowed the women to live. He ordered them: “Now kill all the boys. And kill
every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with
a man.” It doesn’t explicitly say the Lord
gave this command, but he certainly wasn’t upset by it.
God gave the Israelites instructions on how to conduct future warfare in distant cities, saying
to first make an offer of peace. If the people in the city accept, they must be forced into labor.
If they refuse, the Israelites are to “put to the sword all the men in it.” (The women
and children are allowed to live, as “plunder”.)
For cities within the area the Lord is giving to
Israel, it’s much worse. “do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely
destroy them.” God’s excuse is that leaving anyone alive might tempt the Israelites
to worship other gods.
A man named Achan took some of the “devoted things” (“a beautiful robe from
Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels”) and hid
them in the ground inside his tent. The Lord told
Joshua that this theft was the reason for military failure, and “whoever is caught with the
devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him.” So when Achan
admitted to his crime, Joshua and “all of Israel” obeyed the
Lord. They took Achan, the stolen items, “his
sons and daughters, his cattle, donkey and sheep, his tent and all that he had” and stoned
them all to death, burned them, and heaped up a large pile of rocks to cover the evidence. Because
of this violent obedience, “the Lord turned
from his fierce anger.”
“So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western
foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally
destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded.”
“The Israelites carried off for themselves all the plunder and livestock of these cities,
but all the people they put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone
that breathed. As the Lord commanded his servant
Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that the
Lord commanded Moses. ... For it was the
Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war
against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the
Lord had commanded Moses.”
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will
punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from
Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare
them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and
donkeys.’ ”
“ ‘Attack the land of Merathaim and those who live in Pekod. Pursue, kill and
completely destroy them’, declares the Lord.”
(The reason provided earlier in the chapter for God’s anger against Babylon is “because
you rejoice and are glad... because you frolic like a heifer threshing grain and neigh like
stallions”.)
The Lord instructs a man to go throughout Jerusalem,
putting a mark on those “who grieve and lament over all the detestable things”. Then he
tells others to follow the first man “through the city and kill, without showing pity or
compassion. Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not
touch anyone who has the mark.”
(Note: this was apparently part of a vision that Ezekiel had, and does not purport to be about
actual events. However, the vision is said to be from the
Lord and so it shows his character, his willingness
to slaughter children.)
Attempted Justification
One preacher (William Lane Craig) offers
this justification for
God’s orders to slaughter during the conquest of Canaan:
“Since our moral duties are determined by God’s commands, it is commanding someone to do
something which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been murder. The act was morally
obligatory for the Israeli soldiers in virtue of God’s command, even though, had they undertaken
it on their on initiative, it would have been wrong.”
The scary part of this, is that Craig admits committing such an act “would be” murder
(immoral, unjustifiable killing), and then goes on to say it’s okay if God tells you to do
something that is normally immoral or unjustified. He goes on to explain that God was simply
carrying out his own judgment on the Canaanites, which he had promised generations earlier; the
Hebrew soldiers were merely instruments of God’s judgment.
The implications of this are horrific. “Sorry, little kid, but I’m going to kill you
and your parents now, since God told me to.” I wonder how many modern Christians agree with
Craig’s justification here. This was one of those questions that eventually led me to begin
questioning my religion. My only fault is that I didn’t see it sooner.
As for the killing of children, Craig explains:
“If we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as
small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to
an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this
earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their
lives.”
First, I can’t find anywhere in the Bible that says little children go to Heaven automatically.
But even if we stipulate such a doctrine, this too has horrific implications. If letting a child grow
to adulthood gives him an ever-increasing chance of turning away and being punished eternally in
Hell, then the moral thing to do (by Craig’s reasoning) is to murder them now. God’s
okay with that, he says.
I’m sure not all modern Christians agree with Craig’s defense of an immoral God. If
there is some other explanation, I haven’t heard it in all my years of belief and study,
including my years in Bible college.
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• Edit, 2018.09.24: Added Exodus 32. Added link to original version of
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