Why did God command for children to be "dashed to death" when he could just make them magically vanish?

Where in the Bible does it say this? I'm being serious. I'm curious.

Your question needs to have the reference to it. What is said here is probably from the book of Isaiah, which I happen to be studying presently, Your lack of reference here should be in Isaiah 13: verse16. The subject matter here has to do with the "woe to Babylon, and the residents there who have not turned to Him, as their lifestyle has been one of Idolatry which is an abomination to Him. If you will allow me here to say, in verse 11 of this same chpt. it is as follows " Thus I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; I wil also put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless." These 'children' as such were not Jews, not His people but those of Babylon, and if you will read in Revelations you will see a lot more written about Babylon and what it has done and why this verse that you have quoted out of context has so many people misunderstanding the verse itself. God knows what man has to learn, if the evil just vanished as all would like to see, then we would not know the Greatness of His power to transform lives that were once evil . Though He will indeed remove evil when all of His children are in Heaven that time is yet to come. That bad example you ask is not with understanding of His Word, do read it in context and then ask Him to help you to understand what He says here .

God is not COMMANDING this to happen, He is stating that because the people sinned and would not repent of their sins, that their enemies would come and attack them. The surrounding nations around Israel at that time were evil people - they would come and attack, kill children, kill pregnant women, rape, plunder, etc.

God was warning the Israelites that if they did not repent, then the other nations would come and attack them - the evil people would be the ones bashing the children against the rocks and killing the pregnant women.

"God sacrificed his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their own sins might make some Christians love Jesus, but is an obscene picture of God.

It is almost heavenly child abuse, and may infect out imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us." (page 145-146) and

"Actually, the fact that we have four gospels lies at the very heart of our problem. Because we read particular parables or sayings or stories in several different versions, we can't miss the disagreements between them" (page 3-4),

From "Who is Jesus" by John Dominic Crossan (35 years of searching for the historical Jesus and former Catholic priest)

It was kind of like a father who says I am going to beat you to death. There is no record that it was ever done. So it was an idle threat, that was not carried out.

But parents didn't know if it would be and so disciplined their children and there fore probably had better children.

Because bullies are cowards underneath. It's part of the brainwashing that you get your servants to do the dirty work.

Because god is a filthy, bloody-fisted monster without a shred of morality.

actually it wasn't god that wanted the children killed, it was the people who wrote it that wanted it done or needed a justification for why it was done.

Maybe he removed their spirit just before they were dashed?

god never commanded children to be dashed to death

i wish people would learn to read

god told israel what would happen to their children by foreign invaders

He stated it would happen, He didn't command it. It was consequential for generations of unrepentant sin by people who were sacrificing babies to demons.