An example that I have seen cited many times throughout the forum (most recently in the
Islam does not hate christianity thread) regarding God's sense of justice or condoning of murder/genocide is 1 Samuel 15. Since it would be, in all cases I've encountered, off-topic to delve further into it within the existing conversation, I felt that a new thread to discuss it would be appropriate.
1 Samuel 15:1-3 (from the King James Version*) states:
1 Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.
2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
In the above-mentioned thread's
Message 25, Faith states:
So many these days are apparently incapable of discriminating between murder and justice on just about every major issue. To call God's justice genocide is a case of this popular moral reversal. It's very sad. {emphasis added}
...and...
God's judgments are very disturbing. Nobody wants anyone to die, certainly not I, but such incidents were written for people to learn from, about the nature and consequences of sin -- the wages of sin is death.
My question is the very same presented so often in such threads: How is it just to "slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass", even when not all are guilty of the crime they are to be punished for? How is it ever just to punish the innocent for the crimes of those close to them?
Furthermore, how would it be detrimental to the lesson Faith describes if the "infant and suckling" had not been punished, but only those guilty of the original crime? In the one case, one may be punished simply for existing in the wrong place at the wrong time; wouldn't it send a stronger message about the "nature and consequences of sin" if only those actually
guilty of that specific sin were punished - if punishment were a direct result of sinning rather than a possible result of something as uncontrollable as one's heritage?
(Sorry for the vaguery about the nature of the sin... I am unclear - I've heard both argued - as to whether the sin was the attack itself or the failure to repent, the latter of which I believe is used to explain the centuries between the crime and the punishment. In either case, however, many who were innocent of the crime appear to have received punishment; the only difference lies in
how many.)
*From BibleGateway.com's
Passage Lookup feature for this, in case you'd like to see the same passage from another version.
{Edited to slightly - but significantly, in terms of meaning - change the phrasing of one sentence.
This message has been edited by Morte, 02-24-2005 01:26 AM
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