The "Cruelty" of God!
Throughout the ages, people have questioned why God seemed so cruel and merciless in His dealing with the pagan Gentile nations. More than once He ordered the complete, total destruction of every man, woman, child and at times, even the live stock. To the average reader of the Scriptures, even Christians, this may seem like "cruel and unusual" punishment for those who were not believers in Jehovah as the Jews were.
The taking of Jericho is an excellent example of this kind of destruction. We find the story in Joshua Chapter 6.
6 "And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD.
7 And he said unto the people, Pass on, and compass the city, and let him that is armed pass on before the ark of the LORD.
8 And it came to pass, when Joshua had spoken unto the people, that the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams' horns passed on before the LORD, and blew with the trumpets: and the ark of the covenant of the LORD followed them.
9 And the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the (rearward) came after the ark, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets.
10 And Joshua had commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout.
11 So the ark of the LORD compassed the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp.
12 And Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the LORD.
13 And seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark of the LORD went on continually, and blew with the trumpets: and the armed men went before them; but the (rearward) came after the ark of the LORD, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets.
14 And the second day they compassed the city once, and returned into the camp: so they did six days".
(Can you imagine what the inhabitants of the city must have been wondering:
"What in the world are these loonies up to? Why don't they attack? Talk about your "psychological warfare"....)
15 "And it came to pass on the seventh day, that they rose early about the dawning of the day, and compassed the city after the same manner seven times: only on that day they compassed the city seven times.
16 And it came to pass at the seventh time, when the priests blew with the trumpets, Joshua said unto the people, Shout; for the LORD hath given you the city.
17 And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.
18 And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.
19 But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.
20 So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
24 And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.
We find some really strange things going on here that God ordered. First, the priests were not supposed to go to war according to Jewish law. Second, the Ark of the Covenant was not supposed to be present at a battle site. Third, Jewish Law commanded six days of work, the seventh day was to be a day of rest. Here we find Joshua and his army circling the city of Jericho once each day for six days, then seven times on the Sabbath, I.E. doing seven times the work that they did the previous six days.
We also see the Priests involved, and the ark present. (Verse 8)
The main point, however, is verses 21 and 24. In verse 21 they totally wiped out every living thing, man, woman, child, ox, sheep, etc. On the surface, this does seem to be "overkill" on God's part. But, He had a reason.
To get a better glimpse of why God did what He did, we have to have a little more insight as to exactly what kind of people with which Joshua was dealing.
We have no concept of the kind of evil that permeated the land and the Gentile nations of Canaan. Today we have the Holy Spirit "constricting" the work of Satan and his demons. As evil and perverse as the world is today, scholars believe that in Old Testament times, when the Holy Spirit "came and went" as He chose, and then only to believers, people living in those days were very corrupt and evil.
From archaeological discoveries in the past one hundred years of Jericho and other sites, we now know that these people were Baal* worshipers.
(Another name for "Baal" is believed by many to be Mars. We know that ancient civilizations worshipped and were terrified of Mars); along with Moloch*, and Ashtoreth*. These Idols were demonic in origin, giving rise to the practice of human sacrifice, burning alive, (passing children through the fire: Deut. 12:31); and self-mutilation (1Kings 18:28).
Ruins of Jericho have been discovered dating back as far as 7,000 B.C.
King Ahaz, years later, would sacrifice his own son to the Idols of the pagans.
Sex played a major part in the practices of the idol worshippers. The "Ashtoreth" poles were in fact phallic symbols. The pagan temples hosted both female and male prostitutes. Some sort of plague destroyed 24,000 people in Moab (Numbers 25) and it is thought the plague may have been an AIDS type virus. The cause...."Then Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Ball of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel. (Numbers 25: 1-3)
When you read of the "burning of the groves", it is believed these were groups of Ashtoreth poles that were used in their idol worship. The Lord commanded the Israelites not to build the alters on the "High Places" for this was where the pagans had their idols.
Any association with the Canaanites by the Israelites had to be prevented at all costs, to keep the blood line pure for the future coming of Messiah. Satan has tried his best to corrupt this blood line, thereby preventing the Son of God's appearance.
To show how far God will go to protect this blood line, consider the Flood of Noah.
The Nephilim
Genesis 6 indicates that the "sons of God" (Hebrew: ben Elohim) took human wives (the "daughters of men,") and from this union gave birth to the "Nephilim."
6:1 "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. ( This is speaking of the time left before God destroys mankind with the flood. Many have thought this referred to the "life span" of man).
4 There were giants ( Hebrew: Nephilim ) in the earth in those days; *and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
The word Nephilim is a "transliteration" of a Hebrew word related to the verb, naphal "to fall," and is often interpreted as "aborted ones." The King James Version translates Nephilim as "giants."
*The Nephilim were on the earth both before and after the sons of God married the daughters of men (Gen. 6:4). We know this from passages such as Numbers 13:33 where we find the spies that Moses sent to Canaan for the purpose of investigating the land, feared the Nephilim, who were giants. They came back complaining that they were as "grasshoppers" compared to the inhabitants of the land. The bed of Og, one of the giants mentioned by name, was thirteen feet long, and six feet wide: (Deut. 3:11)
Many of the old myths told of Greek "titans", giants who were half Earthly, half celestial, probably stemmed from the times before the flood. The Greek word for "titan" is linked to the Chaldean word "sheitan", which is linked to the Hebrew word "satan": literally, attacker, or adversary.
For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits (13' ) was the length thereof, and four cubits (6") the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.
Another Hebrew term - raphah - is translated "giants" more often than naphal.
How they appeared after the flood is unknown. Since God wiped out all human life, and since we know that Noah was not contaminated by the corrupt blood line, then Satan had to have brought the Nephilim back into existence sometime later.
These "fallen ones" were Satan's attempt at corrupting the blood line thus preventing Messiah from having a "pure" line from which to be brought into the world, through Mary's ancestors.
After about the fourth century, the "Church" regarded these "fallen ones" as the offspring of the line of Seth, (supposedly a Godly line), with the "un-godly" daughters of men. This "Sethite theory" held it's own into the Medieval Church, and is still held as doctrine by some even today.
There are some severe problems with this theory, however. One, there is no indication that the sons of Seth remained "Godly". In fact, it was Seth's son, Enosh who brought apostasy into the world.
The reason for this misunderstanding is the mis-translation of a passage in Genesis 4:26, which is rendered in the KJV: And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name (Enosh): then began men to call (Hebrew - chalal - to wound, to profane) upon the name of the LORD.
Also, even if this were true, the off-spring of a Godly man and an ungodly woman, or vice-versa, don't create "giants", or demonic children. The children born from this union were definitely weird. They did happen to be giants, but that wasn't the only problem. It is believed the "sons of God" were fallen angels who were later put in chains and cast into darkness. These are the angels that "kept not their first estate" spoken of in Jude 6: And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
(For more on "Angels" Click Here)
These strange events of Genesis Chapter 6 are also referred to in the New Testament. Peter refers to events preceding the flood of Noah in 2 Peter 2:4:
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment..."
(Peter uses the term tartarus, here translated as hell. This was a Greek term for "the dark abode of woe, the pit of darkness in the unseen world."
Notice the last seven words of Jude 6: "unto the judgment of the great day. "Great day" is a Jewish euphemism for the last days, or what we would call the Tribulation period. Apparently God is going to release the "fallen ones" to once again spread evil over the world. These possibly are the beings in the shape of "locusts" referred to in Revelation 9.
5 "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
It appears this episode was an attempt by Satan to corrupt the line of Adam to prevent the coming of Messiah. Noah was "found perfect in his generations" (Genesis 6:9).
Out of the estimated one billion alive on earth at this time, only Noah and his family were saved from the deluge.
God's "Cruelty"? Or God's great plan for the salvation of mankind?
Jehovah God has made a way for salvation through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. Down through the ages, He has had to take certain steps to prevent Satan from interfering. The judgment to come upon Israel and the rest of the nations after the Rapture will be the worse this world has ever experienced, and it's all due to unbelief.
The world was wiped out from the flood because of unbelief; civilizations were destroyed due to unbelief; The Great Tribulation must take place because of unbelief; and the unbeliever must spend eternity in hell because of.....unbelief.
Time is short. Prophecies are coming to pass before our eyes. Israel is now a nation. Plans are in the works for the Temple to be built. Priests are being trained in Israel to perform the sacrifices. Tools and implements are being manufactured for use by the priests. All eyes are upon Israel and what She intends to do concerning the problems with the Arabs, and Jerusalem. Israel needs our prayers, and we are to bless the Jews, and their country.
God never promised that Christians wouldn't see persecution. Christ told His disciples they would face persecution as He did. But God has always saved His people from Great Persecution, and right now, the Church, which consists of all believers, Jew and Gentile alike, are His People. Are you one of His Chosen?
The Choice is yours!
Return to General Topics