God tells them to terrorize the current occupants of the land they are about to steal. The entire world will fear, tremble, and anguish at the very thought of them.Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. Deuteronomy 2:24
This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee. Deuteronomy 2:25The Israelites begin by lying about their true intentions. They send messengers to King Sihon asking to pass through his land, promising to pay for food and water along the way.
And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, Let me pass through thy land: I will go along by the high way, I will neither turn unto the right hand nor to the left. Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only I will pass through on my feet. Deuteronomy 2:26-28But then God runs into a bit of a problem. What if King Sihon agrees to let the Israelites pass through his land? Then the Israelites wouldn't get to kill all of his people and God would be sad. So God has a brilliant idea: he'll harden King Sihon's heart so that he won't let them pass. (It worked so well with the Pharaoh that God thought he'd try it again here.)
But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the LORD thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand. Deuteronomy 2:30And God's plan worked perfectly. After God hardened King Sihon's heart, he refused to let the Israelites pass and fought to protect his land. Which gave God and the Israelites all the excuse they needed to kill the king along with every man, woman, and child in every city in the kingdom.
And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. Deuteronomy 2:33
And we took all his cities at that time, Deuteronomy 2:33
and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. Deuteronomy 2:33Sometimes God has to harden a heart in order to kill thousands of people.
A note on the number of victims.
Since everyone in every city was killed, I guessed 3000.
God's next killing: All the men, women, and children in 60 cities
9 comments:
What an awesome god! He's not about to take 'no' for an answer to a good killing.
This is one of those plain sick stories why, even if somehow it'd be exist, I'd never-ever worship this god.
Damn, I'd try anything to destroy it, even in the most hopeless circumstances. Hey, it worked for Dr. Doom in the first Secret War!
If anyone ever builds a time machine, please go back and kill Abraham.
We'll get three burdensome cults finally off our backs.
I mean, what's up with hardening someone's heart, anyhow?
If that isn't predestined doom . . .
Steve,
In your counts, do we assume that none of God's soldiers get killed in the battles?
I shall refrain from treating fictional characters as if they were real - but if Yahweh were real I'd call him a prick for taking credit for giving free will & then taking it away just as an excuse to slaughter people.
To think that all of the nice Jewish people in the world believe in this hideous account (and similar others) is beyond me... and I have Jewish friends! Fortunately, they're not too religious.
Uruk, I assume the whole God hardening hearts thing was used because it solves two problems
* It's a way to try to explain away why there would be people standing in the way of the chosen people. An all-powerful God could easily poof away any peoples standing in the way, but he doesn't. Why? Well, he told them to resist so that the Israelites and their God would seem so powerful!
* It explains why it was okay for the Israelites to commit mass slaughter and/or genocide. God served these people up on a silver platter and told the Israelites to have at 'em, so they had to do it!
Otherwise, if it wasn't God who told them to do it as part of his great mysterious plan, it might seem like the leaders of the Israelites were bloodthirsty and immoral for leading them to such horrible violence and destruction...
I AM:
Good points, and well said.
Seems that in their attempts to justify their blood-thirst, they forgot that it made God look rather bloodthirsty. God is using people as tools to "get glory". Even if that means hardening someone's heart to destroy them. What a way to go! I sure would hate to live a day in the life of an Old Testament character!!
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