What bothers many many readers of the Old Testament is why God, after commanding Israel not to murder, uses their nation as an instrument of genocide to punish.
Why not just destroy the Canaanites the same way He destroyed Sodom and Gomorah and not involve people killing other men, women and children?
From my memory, I think the following reasons can be gleaned from scripture: (1) to test his people's love for Him via testing their trust and obedience to him and (2) to glorify His name such that the other nations would fear the God of Israel
“What bothers many many readers of the Old Testament is why God, after commanding Israel not to murder, uses their nation as an instrument of genocide to punish.
Why not just destroy the Canaanites the same way He destroyed Sodom and Gomorah and not involve people killing other men, women and children?”___SeekAndFind
Yah.
Its a problem.
A Christian Apologist, Paul Copan, wrote a book
in an attempt to reply to that issue. He titled it
“Is God A Moral Monster: Making Sense Of The Old testament God.
Amazon.com keeps it in stock
You can get it cheap now.
It been out awhile.
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