Exodus 23:23

 

In the Old Testament, Yahweh was so supportive of his chosen people, that he promised to and apparently would wipe out enemy peoples at war with the Hebrews. That seems like genocide to some modern people, but I do not know quite how to react to that. If Yahweh the monotheistic deity was seeking to upgrade a people from worship of pagan deities—especially if they were bad or demonic deities, it could be that some people were so evil that they needed to be wiped off the face of the earth, and Yahweh makes that exact case with Noah and the Flood.

 

Or Yahweh would have left them alone if they had not tried to wipe out his chosen people.

 

Or Old Testament judgment and punishment from Yahweh may have been more brutal and harsher that seems godly and just, but with ancient, crude-valued people, perhaps they needed to be hit hard and finally to get them to shape up at all. One could not be real subtle with them or they would not get the message, let alone get it right, and respond appropriately as Yahweh commanded. Who knows?

 

It could be that these enemies of the Hebrews inside the Promised Land, and on its borders, were so perilously menacing that the Hebrews would not have survive without God’s direct, violent intervention.

 

We do not see God and God’s angels today siding with one nation and army against another nation and army to protect the good guys against the bad guys. Why not? Perhaps we are a godless people just too removed from God working with us in the world, so God does not overtly or visibly, audibly work with us on earth anymore.

 

If those enemies of the Hebrews worshiped good if pagan deities, then I would have more of a problem with Yahweh wiping out good people worshiping good deities. It is never easy to judge actions by deities or humans thousands of years ago by today’s standards.

 

Regardless, Yahweh will protect his people if they are true to their covenant with him and worship him. Here is that promise as quoted from my The New American Bible: “My angel will go before you to the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites; and I will wipe them out.”

 

Here is that same passage from the Holy Bible (KJV): “For mine angel shall go before thee, and bring thee unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: I will cut them off.”

 

I was unaware that cutting someone one was synonymous with wiping them out.