Holy War in the OT

[sotzo]

This is perhaps a better-suited topic for the Apologetics Forum...feel free to move it there.

Critics often charge the OT with condoning unwarranted violence, with God commanding Israel to go to war, not just to win but annihilate. While God is sovereign and does as he pleases, I must admit my own wincing sometimes at passages that seem to indicate God's pleasure at the destruction of nations Israel fights.

Joshua 11:10-25, for example:

"10 At that time Joshua turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword. (Hazor had been the head of all these kingdoms.) 11 Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself.

12 Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded. 13 Yet Israel did not burn any of the cities built on their mounds—except Hazor, which Joshua burned. 14 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. 15 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."

I've heard some well-meaning folks respond that these passages relate to countires that oppressed Israel and so their punishment was deserved. This response seems to gloss over the fact that we today pray for an end to wars and a permanent peace. While a permanent peace can never be achieved this side of heaven, we would still say it is our job to spread peace it Jesus' name rather than war and annihilation.

What is an honest response to this observation of the OT text? Is it simply a matter of that time of redemptive history, where Israel needed to secure the promised land?

 

[Gryphonette]

I remember when I first began to truly read the Bible, one evening I literally was sent reeling out into the living room to where Don was at the computer, squawking, "He's killing everyone! What's up with God killing everyone?"

Darn near made me shut it up and put it away. Who wants to worship someone who kills heaps of people (and animals, to boot) like that? Not I!

Later what I was brought to realize was that those episodes, painful though they are to read about, were intended to drive home forever after the salient fact that the LORD has a people.

And He is "on the side of" His people. Contrary to modern day conventional wisdom, which insists the LORD doesn't favor one person over another and treats everyone equally and there's no difference between people in His eyes, the truth is oh yes, He does favor some people and He doesn't treat everyone equally and there is a difference between being one of His own and not being His.

Remember Krakatoa killed who-knows-how-many people, as did the Black Plague, and come to that, the flu back in 1918, I think it was. When push comes to shove, in the long run it doesn't really matter particularly whether one died because of a volcanic eruption or a bacterium or at the hand of divinely-ordained, marauding army.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

There has only been one time that God commanded such devastation--in the conquest. For his own good purpose, he determined to send the Israelites in as his instrument of judgment. When "the iniquity of the Amorites" was full, God could have sent down fire and brimstone. He did that once before. He could have sent some "hammer" of a nation (of godless) to pulverize Canaan. He did that later, against his own people. God could have opened the ground and swallowed up the whole place. Or he could have sent a flood, or a plague, or a famine, or just dried up all the wombs, or simply killed them all himself in an instant.

Instead, he chose to illustrate his wrath by sending his People of Covenant against them as his choice of weapon, his instrument of judgment. He did it, in part, to illustrate that the Meek inherit the earth, not the proud. He did it as a permanent object lesson, recorded for history, of what will happen to all the unrepentant of the whole earth (not just a corner of the Levant) on Judgment Day. It is not necessary for him to repeat this lesson. The wicked are offended by it even to the present day.

"How dare this God reave even those babes! those sweet innocents! I could never worship that kind of God. What a monster!" Of course, Any Man, unsanctified, and possessed of god-like power, would be a Kali, or a blood-drenched Mezzo-American deity, that is to say the worst of all the unjust gods the heathen ever dreamt up.

God took rebels lives, all of them, even the babes. If you doubt it, you are doubting his character, his truthfulness; doubting him. Did you ever know God to kill an innocent person? "Well I know babies are innocent for sure! and probably most people are pretty innocent too! I know I'm not so bad!" Where does he get all this information regarding the goodness of babies, and people in general? He just made it up, because the alternative is that God is just.

All this history pointed to Christ. Once Christ came, all of the residue is rubbished. His story in the nation is preserved in the sacred history. God is proclaiming his peace to the whole world to this day. There are no more holy wars, no more earthly monarchy, no more national covenant or covenant race. All are gone for good. Only one more act of judgment remains--and that will not be executed by proxy. For there will be no more "object lessons" in store. Only the bar of perfect justice where each individual stands alone to answer to the Judge of all the earth. "Will he not do right?"

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

I would like to add to what Pastor Bruce has said, and make clear that these nations of Caanan worshipped devils, and sacrificed their children to them. Even in the time of Abraham God was waiting for the iniquity of the Amorites of Caanan (standing for all the nations there) to be full (Gen 15:16).

That Israel, God's precious people, not be infected with such demonic influence, was the reason they had to be utterly rid from off the land, even the children, who had been influenced by the evil spirits of their parents. Israel did not utterly devote them to destruction, and paid dearly for it. Before his death Joshua solemnly warned the people not to mingle with those Caananites who were left in the land (Joshua 23:11-13), but they did not listen, and eventually the Israelites worshipped the demons themselves, and offered their children to them as sacrifices (Ps 106:34 ff.; Ezek 16:20 ff.; 2 Chron 11:13-15; Jer 32:31-35).

This is also an object lesson about idolatry (idols of the heart) in the church of the NT; it is infectious.