A couple of weeks ago I finished reading the OT book of Joshua. One major part of the book that (rightly, I think) disturbed me and others who read Joshua is the command from God to utterly wipe out the indigenous people in the promised land. Including the kids.
What do we do with these passages that seem to qualify as genocide? I don't think that there are easy or pat answers, but these are some things that help me as I wrestle through these passages:
1. If historically we've erred on the side of "might makes right," our 21st Century Western sensibilities have swung in the equal and opposite direction: we tend to romanticize indigenous peoples. Or to re-work the above statement: "to have been oppressed makes right."
Some of this is a good and healthy corrective. Clearly the history of western colonization and oppression is something that needs to be repented of. Indigenous people and cultures have been wiped out in arrogance and pride.
But in at least one case, the Hittites, God had spoken in an earlier passage of judgment on them that would be passed when they had fulfilled "the full measure of their sins." In other words, just as Israel was carried off into captivity by the Babylonians as discipline, so too for the Hittites.
Some of these people were doing things like child sacrifices, not just sitting around playing nicely with one another, innocently minding their own business when mean Israelites came and slaughtered them.
This doesn't deal with all our possible questions, we don't know what the other people were like, but it is indicative that there's more going on here than we know.
2. Jonah helps me. Jonah, if you recall from the recesses of your Sunday school class, is an Israelite prophet sent to Ninevah. This is unique in that nearly all the other prophets that we have record for are sent to Israel, not to other peoples.
So what we have is one example of God sending his prophet to non-Yahweh following peoples. This is at least indicative of God's heart for those outside of Israel.
Again, some of this is guesswork, but the reality is that there may have been many more Jonah-types out there, sent by God to other peoples to call them to repentance, just as Jonah was.
What we have in the Scriptures is the story of God's primary work in the world in and through Israel. What other things God was up to in the world, we do not know. We have hints and allegations, enough to know that while Israel is the primary means for God's blessing the world, it's not the only place where he's moving.
Who knows but that the Hittites and all the other people in the promised land didn't have prophets who went before the Israelites, calling the people to repent?
At the very least, the story of Rahab helping the Israelites (and thus being spared) in Joshua helps us to see that God's saving activity was active in at least one of the families in the city.
3. Lastly, I look at Jesus. Do I see, in him, judgment, righteous anger, the stern warnings to repent and the threat of certain destruction and/or death if his warnings are not heeded? Yes, yes, and yes. Jesus talks about hell more than anyone else in the Bible.
So judgment is not foreign to God. Nor is mercy and grace, which triumphs over judgment, seen supremely in Christ.
But this is not a case of "angry God" in the OT and "nice Jesus" in the NT. That's too flat of a charicature that does not do justice to the mercy of God exhibited in the OT or the full picture of Jesus that we get in the gospels.
Like I said, this doesn't answer all our questions, but it helps me to at least grapple with some integrity and honesty before the Lord.
1 comment:
This is a great post - it definately helps me in my understanding of war in the OT.
I think that something that people often miss or find too hard to deal with is that the God who ordered Israel to destroy every Hittie man woman and child, is the same God that died on the cross for our sins (Jesus).
I find people often try to seperate them, but I think that's probably wrong.
Post a Comment