OT XXIX [C] Ex 17:8-13, II Tm 3:14–4:2, Lk 18:1-8

 

The first reading today is about Moses commanding Joshua to attack the Amalekites and while Moses prayed with raised hands the Israelites were winning; when his hands were going down they were losing. Persevering prayer is one of the key themes of all the readings today. But I would like to focus on something different. Why would God ask Moses to attack Amalekites, and later them and some other countries, to exterminate totally?

God commands us to love and forgive one another, even our enemies. And one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to kill (Ex 20:13). So, is what God commanded against the Canaanites and Amalekites a contradiction?

In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God commanded Saul and the Israelites, “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. The Amalekites were a source of constant woe to Israel. Shortly after the Israelites left Egypt, the Amalekites attacked the weary people, slaughtering the weak and elderly (Deut 25:18). The Amalekites and Canaanites, among other nations, practiced child burning, torture as public entertainment, and sexual immorality as sports.
Therefore, God said, go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them (Deut 2:34; 3:6; 20:16-18). Why would God have the Israelites exterminate an entire group of people, women and children included?

We do not fully understand why God would command such a thing, but we trust God that He is just – and we recognize that we are incapable of fully understanding a sovereign, infinite, and eternal God. As we look at difficult issues such as this one, we must remember what God says, “My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts..”( Is 55:9; Rom 11:33-36). We have to be willing to trust God and have faith in Him even when we do not understand His ways.

Unlike us, God knows the future. God knew what the results would be if Israel did not completely eradicate the Amalekites. If Israel did not carry out God’s orders, the Amalekites would come back to trouble the Israelites in the future. King Saul was commanded to exterminate the Amalekites. He claimed to have killed everyone except the Amalekite king Agag (1 Sam 15:20). He brought some animals to sacrifice to God, as if doing a big favor to God. God told him, I desire obedience to sacrifice. Israel was then later plagued with continuous Amalekite raids (Ex 17; 1 Sam 15:2; Num 14:45) as a result of Saul’s not obeying God. Just a couple of decades later, there were enough Amalekites to take David and his men’s families captive (1 Sam 30:1-2). After David and his men attacked the Amalekites and rescued their families, 400 Amalekites escaped. If Saul had fulfilled what God had commanded him, this never would have occurred. Several hundred years later, a descendant of Agag, Haman, tried to have the entire Jewish people exterminated (book of Esther). So, Saul’s incomplete obedience almost resulted in Israel’s destruction. God knew this would occur, so He ordered the extermination of the Amalekites ahead of time.

 It’s helpful to keep in mind that nations like the Canaanites and Amalekites engaged in human sacrifice, even offering their children to devil gods. (Deut 12:31). God did not order the extermination of these people to be cruel, but to prevent even greater evil from occurring in the future.

Often infected cattle or poultry are destroyed for the purpose of stopping an epidemic and saving vastly more livestock. Likewise, left unchecked, these nations would have plagued the world with such depravity that they simply were not redeemable. Not many people have issues with God destroying the whole world with flood because the whole world was corrupt except Noah and his family. We have problem when God using instruments like king Saul or Joshua.

Not only did God use Israel’s might to punish evil nations like these, He used the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian kings to punish Israel. When the Assyrian city of Ninevah was willing to repent hearing Jonah’s preaching he abstained from punishing them. God will often use human forces to mete out His discipline. Sometimes a more wicked nation is used as instrument to punish a less wicked nation.

The Amalekites are viewed as an existential threat, not simply to Israel, but to the covenant promises of God; that he will bless the whole world through his chosen people as promised to Abraham.  The Amalekites are not simply a threatening people with their determination to wipe out Israel, but they are a threat to the salvation plan of God for all other nations.  As descendants of Esau they had despised the covenant themselves and now were determined that none others could have access to what they had rejected.  

 

The promise to Abraham wouldn’t be fulfilled until the “fourth generation” because “the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (Gen. 15:16). God knew that the people of the land of Canaan would continue in their sin, but he was not yet going to exercise judgment on them because their sin had not reached the level to which He was ready to administer judgment. There is a lot of mystery here, but I think we must understand that God never commanded the Israelites to attack any peoples whom he had not considered it morally right to judge because of the pure evil of their actions. We have to trust God in this.

The Canaanite Conquest was unique. This was a Yahweh War. These were not just enemies of Israel, but enemies of God. God was the “commander-in-chief,” and he decided how the people and the spoils of war were to be dealt with because it was his own war accomplished through human agents (in this case, Saul and his army). These wars were limited and are in no way meant to be a model for the people of God after they settled in the Promised Land or for God’s New Testament people.

Probably the most difficult part of these commands from God is that God ordered the death of children and infants as well. Why would God order the death of innocent children?

These children would have likely grown up as adherents to the evil religions and practices of their parents and these children would naturally have grown up resentful of the Israelites and later sought to avenge the “unjust” treatment of their parents.

Many skeptics use it as a weapon to discourage belief. They say, “I wouldn’t do anything like that, so God shouldn’t either.” But the framework of the Bible is that God is indeed sovereign, just, and competent, which is exactly why writers left the story in. God wasn’t hiding, and He’s hoping people come to Him for the answer.

Paul is advising Timothy in the second reading “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work. Therefore, scripture even when we do not fully understand, keep seeking to know it. As God inspired the writers of the scripture will continue inspiring us too.