Q: Why does the OT God order the killing of inhabitants in the promised land?

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[First posted in 2017.  We addressed this in the INTRODUCTION to a post where such commands to annihilate man, woman, child, were issued by the God of Israel.  The commands even included beasts!  Why?  We will simply paste our original answer here, but if you wish to read other opinions in the commentaries we feature in this website, please go directly to the Torah Chapter, here’s the link:

Numbers/Bamidbar 31: “. . .Seek-vengeance, the vengeance of the Children of Israel from the Midyanites”

As the caption to the image pasted here questioned:  “The entry of Israel into the Promised Land, the land promised by the Lord.   Divine genocide?” —Admin 1]

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War waged by Israel against their enemy upon orders of their God is one of the issues raised by agnostics/atheists as to why they refuse to believe in the God of the Old Testament as He describes Himself:

“The LORD, the LORD God,

compassionate and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 

forgiving iniquity and transgression . . . .

As my agnostic brother observes, the biblical God is “the greatest terrorist of all”;  this, from ‘the mouth of babes’,  a biblical ignoramus who hasn’t read the bible but whose association with the biblical God is most likely based on biblical narratives on film, being a movie-buff.  But never mind him and his ilk, what about those who do read and study the Bible, what do they conclude?  Do readers fail–or forget or refuse to read further–to complete the self-description of this God Who reveals His Name as YHWH:

. . . He will by no means clear the guilty,

visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children

to the third and the fourth generations.’

This OT image of a genocidal deity is likewise used by Christians as an argument for their NT version of God, who is full of grace and mercy, so unlike the angry, vengeful OT God.

As the Jewish commentators themselves confess in the introduction to this chapter,

“We are no longer acquainted

with the circumstances

that justified the ruthlessness

with which it was waged,

and therefore we cannot satisfactorily meet

the various objections

that have been raised in that connection.”

From one Christian apologist (Robert M. Bowman, Jr.) who probably well represents the Christian perspective on this topic, here’s a thorough discussion:

https://www.namb.net/apologetics/joshua-s-conquest-was-it-justified

What about us, Sinaites, what do we think?  We have agreed not to question Israel’s battles fought in defense during their wilderness wandering, nor in offense during the conquest of the Promised Land.

We never experienced the perversities and abominations oft-mentioned in these biblical historical narratives.

Suffice it to say that we do watch in horror how Hollywood presents the brutality of warring factions in its historical films, whether it be among Vikings, Crusades, Islamic terrorists, Vietnamese, Germans, Japanese, or the American Civil War.  But never mind film reproductions, we are now virtual witnesses to the ‘new normal’ in our times— very graphic images presented on daily news, of horrific acts against humanity perpetrated by yet another terroristic sect issuing from a ‘religion of peace’, perhaps the latest challenge to our incredulity at what else man is possibly capable of doing to those of his own kind? ‘Could it possibly get any worse than this’ is a question that has been answered by every generation including ours:  ‘Unbelievably and unfortunately and sadly, yes, it could and history has attested that it has.’

Man’s inhumanity to fellowman perceived as the enemy is forever etched in the memories of the vanquished and the victims.  And even in the absence of war, just look at what is happening in civilized societies, in urban centers, horrific crimes perpetrated against people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Have we occasionally or often wished if not prayed for the total annihilation of such evil people victimizing the innocents?  Would that not be biblical justice?

Israel was no more or less different from the nations in defense or offense, though we tend to think it should be,  since it supposedly operates on higher moral ground and according to standards as dictated by no less than its Divine Commander-in-Chief.

Here’s a comprehensive study written by Sinaite BAN correcting the negative perception of the ‘OT God’:

• Is our God a “jealous, wrathful, and a vengeful God”?

    NSB@S6K