Why did God order Israel to kill men, women and children?
In the Old Testament there are a number of instances of God telling Israel to completely wipe out the peoples who inhabited the land called Palestine (e.g. Deuteronomy 7:1-4, 16, 24). Doesn’t that make the God of the Old Testament a harsh and unjust God, completely different from the God of love portrayed in the New Testament? Answer: If we are to adequately answer this we will have to give careful consideration to what the Bible says. To understand this apparent situation we need to understand: a) the nature of God b) the nation of Israel and the surrounding nations c) the options of the inhabitants. a) The Nature of God The Bible’s descriptions of God are not at variance between Old and New Testaments. For example in the Old Testament we find God saying, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezek 18:5) In the New Testament, we find the apostle, Paul, writing “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). However, in the Old Testament we also find God declaring, “I take no pleasure i
