Dr. Mike Jones

Q: Dr. Mike, Can You Explain Why God Commanded The Israelites To Kill Every Man, Woman, and Child In The Promised Land of Canaan?

Q: Dr. Mike, can YOU explain why God commanded the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child in the Promised Land of Canaan?

A:[Now] that is a good question! Some stories in the Bible make us uncomfortable, because we don’t understand why God would record an incident in scripture that you and I would call deplorable! So to help God maintain his Holiness, we simply put it out of our minds, and keep on reading. I’m constantly telling believers, that where the word of God makes us uncomfortable is precisely where we need to slow down, to see what our Heavenly Father is trying to teach us in the story.

Turn to 1 Samuel 15:2-3, This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.³ Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroyall that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” [WOW!] God commanded that every living person and livestock in Canaan should be put to death as His people conquer the land. We see no mercy being given to women and children, regardless of their age: and God’s directive was as clear as it was‘brutal’.

Many outside of Christendom try extra hard to use Biblical incidents, such as this one to argue that our God is immoral, and therefore puts him on the same plain as gods of other extreme religions.

Let’s look at why Holly God commanded the Israelites to do this deed. First, and foremost, to protect them: remember, [in Numbers 33:55] God told Moses and the people to drive them out of the Promise Land or they will become a ‘Thorn in your side,’ in terms of temptations, that would turn the people from His worship and His law.

Joshua, during his reign, didn’t complete the job, and just as God had said, the few people that were spared became a snare to God’s people and soon, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

Secondly, the word of God declares in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” And by overlooking this important fact, sinful man is blind to the fact that everyone is a sinner, guilty of death, because Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” There’s none righteous, no not one.

[Today] because we sin but are covered by God’s GRACE, we often lose sight of the true justice of God. So, when we read various accounts in sacred scripture about Holy God ordering the executing every man, woman, child, and beast of the field, we ought not ask, “How could a righteous and just God do such a thing?” but we should be saying, “By the grace and mercy of Holy God, here stand I,” one that’s also deserving of death!” Oh…praise God for the shed Blood of Christ Jesus on Calvary, that forgives mankind of sin!.

Note: When you hear people speak of these types of incidents in the Bible, it’s obvious their hearts find the most difficult part of these commands from God, is the order to kill the children and infants as well as the adults. Why would God order the death of innocent children? Well Biblically speaking, there are a few reasons that come to mind: (1) Children are not innocent as we suppose; in Psalm 51:5, the Bible says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. And in Psalm 58:3, the Bible says, “Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.” (2) Children normally take on the sinful attributes of their parents. In Numbers 14:18, the Bible says, “The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” And (3) We conclude that by ending their lives as children, and being in a “State of Innocence,” therein lies the possibly of them being covered by God’s grace and mercy, through the Blood of Jesus, enabling them to have access into Heaven. In 2 Samuel 12:22-23, King David said of his son, “ And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”