Numbers 31:17 - Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.18 - But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Would you liked to have been the person who sliced up kids with swords? Or would you have just liked to be the one who held the little child still while your buddy shoved a sword in his stomach in front of his mother or vice versa?
There could only have been so many designated virgin checkers, so you would have had to be a hacker or a holder more than likely.
What would you have done? This was God's command, you couldn't have opted out..I would have hated to have seen the penalty if you failed to do God's command.
A follow up question..What would you do today if your God gave you the command to kill everyone in your neighboring city? I don't want to hear that "he wouldn't do that", because he has done it before and supposedly God is immutable.
2006-09-22T02:18:52Z
There are many more examples of God commanding people to wipe out multitudes of people, including entire towns. 1 Samuel 15:2-3 Leviticus 32:27 and many more.
I am not asking you to try to apologize for your God ordering this. You won't be able to do it with me because i know that God foreknew these events would take place and ran the plan anyways. And to tell me that God created an entire civilization of people that was so bad that they did all these horrible things to the extent that their children deserved to die horrible deaths.. yeah OK.
Anyways.. That's not my point in this question.
I am asking you what you would have done, or would you do, if God commanded you to do what he command his followers to do in these verses.
No More No Less2006-09-22T01:48:59Z
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I'd do it. He'd only ask me if it was for a good reason.
This is one of the hardest commands in the Old Testament for us to understand (Christian or not). Moses commanded the Israelites: “You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.” This order must be understood within the context of Israel’s call to holiness and the ban (cherem) on the Canaanites.
Why Israel had to totally destroy the Canaanites:
1) The Canaanite civilization was a grossly wicked one and has earned the wrath of God (Deut. 9: 4). In exterminating the Canaanites and wiping out every trace of their awful religions, Israel was acting primarily as God’s agents of retributive justice.
2) Pluralism and tolerance of other religions at this stage of Israel’s national development would be fatal to Israel itself. If allowed to continue, the Canaanites would be a ‘snare’ to the Israelites. Devotion to Yahweh will admit no compromise, no contamination or corruption of any kind.
3) Failure to obey God’s command to destroy Canaanite civilization would jeopardize the success of the conquest of Canaan by putting them in the position of the Canaanites – subject to destruction. An example of this principle of Holy War is the story of Achan, who kept some booty from Jericho and hence defiled himself and his family. To purge the curse from the army of Israel, Achan and his family had to be destroyed.
4) The harsh command to destroy a whole civilization came only once in Israel’s history, when Israel’s future tenure in the land and spiritual progress were at stake. Israel’s war was not a war against individual Canaanites per se, but a war against the pagan civilization of Canaan.
Will God command us today to exterminate a Canaanite-ish nation? The answer is "No." The Church Age has been innaugurated almost 2,000 years ago. The Church has a mission to "Go and make disciples of all nations" - not to kill them.
That was a war against the Midianites. The Lord declared a holy war against the Midianites as one of Moses' last actions before the end of his life. The war was the Lord's vengeance for the Midianites' part in seducing the Israelites to engage in sexual immorality and to worship Baal of Peor. Those mentioned that were killed were killed to protect the inheritance rights of Israel. You have to keep it in context to understand the situation.
Now you're just taking bits and pieces of the bible and manipulating them.
You reap what you sow ... and those people willfully reaped destruction.
God never ordered the killing of innocent people and those who wanted to be saved, Jew or Gentile, were saved (for example Rahab). God is holy and righteous and so he is digusted with sin. Would you honestly tolerate a culture that practiced child sacrifices, incest, brutality, beastiality, cultic prostitution, etc... ???
And also remember .. God is the author of life and only he has the authority to take it, and whether you takes it or not, it's totally his right.
Now imagine you are infected by an organism which is very dangerous. if you are not able to suppress or destroy, it will kill you. what will you do?. This was happened in the past.
Now Jesus came and find a new vaccine called "salvation", by repentance. If you accept you will be saved. Think of that.
Now you need not kill instead develop immunity and love that will fight against it.