headinhands Sat 05-Apr-14 15:20:27
And the LORD said unto Moses, 'Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.'" (Numbers 25:3-4)
Context, people, context!
The book of Numbers was written by Moses primarily 1444-1405 B.C.
The chapter 25 quoted here refers to a time when the Israelites were in a shaky position spiritually and had hardened themselves against God, choosing to rebel and go directly against God, worshipping idols instead. As always, such behavior brought with it a list of sins as long as your arm. The ringleaders were publically punished by death, not “all the heads of the people” like you described. It was the leaders. How many leaders were there? 10? 5? Or 2? We aren’t told. But it isn’t the masses like you’ve implied.
Where have we seen such pubic executions in modern times? The hanging of Saddam Hussein springs to mind. Why is his death ok but not that of other leaders who brought destruction to their people? Was it how he died? Was it because we decided he should pay the penalty rather than God? And what of people who die on death row. That’s not even for religious reasons, yet I don’t see everyone complaining about it on MN.
headinhands Sat 05-Apr-14 15:23:01
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (I Samuel 15:2-3)
The background to this (for context) is that God’s people had just escaped from Egypt, warn and weary, probably with very little hope, and were ambushed and attacked without mercy for no good reason by the Amalakites, The Kenites however, showed mercy towards the Isralites and helped them in their distress, so they could recover. AS a result, in verse 6, we see the instruction was to warn the Kenites to flee, so they were not destroyed with the Amalakites.
Remember that, even though God is merciful, He also is a God of judgment. That is why He bothered to inform everyone in the bible, so everyone has a fair chance to escape judgment because they are trusting in Him and not their own ‘works’ for eternal life.
headinhands Sat 05-Apr-14 15:25:48
"Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished." (Isaiah 13:15-16)?By the way, ravished doesn't mean kissed passionately in this passage.
Yes I realise what ravishing means. However, again, if you look at the context you will see that the Babylonian warfare was exceptionally brutal and part of a battle involved raping women and then killing the enemy (of all ages) indiscriminately with swords as par for the course.
Does this mean rape is ok with God? Of course not. Does that mean killing each other is ok with God? Of course not. But He deals with us in a human way. There is a massive difference between punishing evil people and genocide.
Would you have orphaned children unable to fend for themselves, dying of sickness and starvation? We even offer to euthanise people to escape suffering these days, why is it such an alien concept just because it was decided by God and not the person suffering? The innocent, like babies, go straight to heaven when they die. We all have to die some day and death is not very pleasant at the best of times. I can't say why God has different lifespans for different people, and one person may live to be 7 and someone else 77. And of course, as I pointed out earlier, God, who is a God of mercy, takes no delight in the death of the unrighteous.
This account in Isaiah is prophetic (described in verse 1 as an “oracle” where these things are ‘seen”) and telling the bloodthirsty Babylonians that there is a war coming that is very real and that they need to be very afraid of, described in the same way that they understood war to be. Interestingly warfare today isn’t always all that much different. We haven’t progressed much as a species, have we?
headinhands Sat 05-Apr-14 15:27:37
"The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psalms 58:10)
Again, this is a prophetic prayer of David. I’d like to pose a question to you about this one. This thread started about how Christian’s are perceived to be not held accountable and so ‘get away with everything’, and people think this shouldn’t be the case. Obviously I agree to some extent as I recognise God holds people accountable (though am also glad for God’s mercy), but one theme that seemed to run through was that christians shouldn’t ‘get away with it’. There seemed to be a strong sense of justice where they are avenged by God rather than let off scott-free. How do you see this subject: the case for forgiveness or the case for vengeance?
Would you have a serial killer roam free? I know that if someone killed my beautiful children I would want to see them avenged. To some degree our legal system is a type of vengeance. If you murder you will get imprisoned, or in some countries killed. And in the case of those who are killed, whose blood is on whose hands?
headinhands Sat 05-Apr-14 15:30:04
He's a bit barbaric your god. isn't he? He very much reminds me of the sort of barbaric and bloodthirsty human characters you got a few thousand years ago.
The intent of many who make such claims is to make God look evil, in attempt to justify their position of rejecting Him. But if God didn’t exist then there would be no basis to say there is evil or good and therefore brutality would also be neither good nor evil.
I disagree that God is barbaric. If you look up the word Barbaric you will see it says:
bar·bar·ic [bahr-bar-ik] Show IPA
adjective
1.without civilizing influences; uncivilized;
But God is far from being without civilizing influences. You can’t get more civilizing influence than a Holy God who is more merciful and loving than you or I could ever be.
BigDorrit Sat 05-Apr-14 15:31:26
Oh, but that's only the old testament, apparently that doesn't count anymore.??Although their Jesus character said that it still does...
Of course the OT counts. However, we are told in the NT that the old has gone and then new has come. The coming of the Messiah shifted from the dispensation of law to the dispensation of Grace.
headinhands Sat 05-Apr-14 15:37:37
'But that's the Old Testament' is up there with 'I'm not racist but' and 'she knows how to make me angry'
As I said, the OT counts. However, we are told in the NT that the old has gone and then new has come. The coming of the Messiah shifted from the dispensation of law to the dispensation of Grace and how God dealt with us also altered. Instead of looking ahead to the Messiah and saying to God “I trust in you and the Messiah you WILL send to pay the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, we are now looking back and saying to God “ I trust in you because of the Messiah you DID send to pay the penalty in full”.
We don’t follow the old testament laws because that was under the dispensation of Law. A sacrifice of blood had to be given as a token of faith to the blood that was due to be shed for our sins by the coming Messiah.
Once Jesus had died the dispensation of Grace changed all of that, and the need for blood sacrifices was removed, along with other parts from the dispensation of Law from the old testament. However, the OT is still important because it demonstrates much about God and His interactions with humankind, and weaves a theme that links beautifully consistently with the NT.