COMPLETELY DESTROY THEM??? - (1 Samuel 15)
1 Sam 15:3, 18-19: A chief objection to the view that the God of the Old Testament is a God of love and mercy is the divine command to exterminate all the men, women and children. How could God approve of blanket destruction, of the genocide of an entire group of people? Why did God command such utter destruction? What is going on? Have you ever wondered??
Nothing could justify such an exterminating decree but the absolute authority of God. This was given: all the reasons of it we do not know; but this we know well, The Judge of all the earth doth right. - Adam Clarke
This was done that "this might be an example of God's vengeance against those who deal cruelly with his people." - Geneva Bible
Why did God command such utter destruction? The Amalekites were a band of guerrilla terrorists. They lived by attacking other nations and carrying off their wealth and their families. They were the first to attack the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land, and they continued to raid Israelite camps at every opportunity. God knew that the Israelites could never live peacefully in the Promised Land as long as the Amalekites existed. He also knew that their corrupt, idolatrous religious practices threatened Israel's relationship with him. The only way to protect the Israelites' bodies and souls was to utterly destroy the people of this warlike nation and all their possessions, including their idols. - Life Application Study Bible
God's purpose was to bless the nation of Israel in the land and to use her as a channel of blessing to the world. But this would be greatly hindered if they were infected by the degenerate religion of the Canaanites. Gleason Archer declares, "In view of the corrupting influence of the Canaanite religion, especially with its religious prostitution... and infant sacrifice, it was impossible for pure faith and worship to be maintained in Israel except by the complete elimination of the Canaanites themselves." Sin is desperately contagious. To compromise with evil is dangerous and invites spiritual disaster. - Bible Knowledge Commentary
Exo 23:32 -33: "Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you."
Exo 34:12: "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you."
Deu 7:2, 4: "When the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally… for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods."
Deu 20:17, 18: "Completely destroy them... Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God."
Violence and bloodshed are occasionally mentioned in the record of man's history throughout Scripture, but never with approval. Yet there were specific situations when entire communities (such as Jericho) or entire tribes (such as the Amalekites) were to be exterminated by the Israelites in obedience to God's command. In each case these offenders had gone so far in degeneracy and moral depravity that their continued presence would result in spreading the dreadful cancer of sin among God's covenant people. Just as the wise surgeon removes dangerous cancer from his patient's body by use of the scalpel, so God employed the Israelites to remove such dangerous malignancies from human society. - Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties
God dedicated these things or persons to destruction because they violently and steadfastly impeded or opposed his work over a long period of time. This "dedication to destruction" was not used frequently in the Old Testament. In a most amazing prediction, Abraham was told that his descendants would be exiled and mistreated for four hundred years before God would lead them out of that country. The reason for so long a delay, Gen. 15:13-16 explains, was that "the sin of the Amorites [the Canaanites] has not yet reached its full measure." Thus, God waited for centuries while the Amalekites and those other Canaanite groups slowly filled up their own cups of condemnation by their sinful behavior. God never acted precipitously against them; his grace and mercy waited to see if they would repent and turn from their headlong plummet into self-destruction.
These nations were cut off to prevent the corruption of Israel and the rest of the world (Deu. 20:16-18). When a nation starts burning children as a gift to the gods (Lev. 18:21) and practices sodomy, bestiality and all sorts of loath-some vices (Lev. 18:25, 27-30), the day of God's grace and mercy has begun to run out.
Just as surgeons do not hesitate to amputate a gangrenous limb, even if they cannot help cutting off some healthy flesh, so God must do the same. This is not doing evil that good may come; it is removing the cancer that could infect all of society and eventually destroy the remaining good... If the women and children had been spared in those profane Canaanite nations, how long would it have been before a fresh crop of adults would emerge just like their pagan predecessors? - Hard Sayings of the Bible
The loss of innocent life in the demolition of Jericho was much to be regretted, but we must recognize that there are times that only radical surgery will save the life of a cancer-stricken body. The whole population of the antediluvian civilization had become hopelessly infected with the cancer of moral depravity (Gen 6:5). Had any of them been permitted to live while still in rebellion against God, they might have infected Noah's family as well. The same was true of the detestable inhabitants of Sodom, wholly given over to the depravity of homosexuality and rape, in the days of Abraham and Lot... Much as we regret the terrible loss of life, we must remember that far greater mischief would have resulted had they been permitted to live on in the midst of the Hebrew nation. These incorrigible degenerates of the Canaanite civilization were a sinister threat to the spiritual survival of Abraham's race. The failure to carry through completely the policy of the extermination of the heathen in the Land of Promise later led to the moral and religious downfall of the Twelve Tribes in the days of the Judges. - Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties
Had the women and children been spared, there would soon have been a fresh crop of adult Amalekites, precisely like their predecessors. Or, suppose merely the children had been saved; if left to care for themselves, they must have miserably perished of starvation; if adopted and reared in Israelite families, they might, from their hereditary dispositions and proclivities to evil, have proved a most undesirable and pernicious element in the nation. It was, doubtless, on the whole, the best thing for the world that the Amalekite race should be exterminated. - Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible
The reasons for this severity are the following:
1. The excessive wickedness of these tribes.
2. Their contaminating example.
3. The Israelites were the instruments of divine justice. - Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible
If we are inclined to think that God dealt harshly with the people of Canaan in commanding them to be so utterly destroyed, let us but think what might have been our fate, and the fate of every other nation under heaven, at this hour, had the sword of the Israelites done it’s work more sparingly... The whole earth would have been sunk in darkness; and if Messiah had come He would not have found one single ear prepared to listen... Therefore the nations of Canaan were to be cut off utterly. The Israelites’ sword, in its bloodiest executions, wrought a work of mercy for all the countries of the earth to the very end of the world... The Israelites fought not for themselves only, but for us. - Dr. Thomas Arnold
"The LORD is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy. The LORD is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works." - Psa 145:8-9
'As I live,' says the Lord GOD, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways!' - Ezek. 33:11
"Don't tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead." Return to the LORD your God, for He is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish." - Joel 2:13, NLT
"If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned." - Jer. 18:7-8
"I knew that you are gracious. You are tender and kind. You are slow to get angry. You are full of love. You are a God who takes pity on people. You don't want to destroy them." - Jonah 4:1
