“The only time God did not forgive Israel in the Old Testament was when they were sacrificing their children”
When was that? I thought God told Abraham to sacrifice his son. I realize he stopped him but he did command him to do so and expected him to obey.
God did not have the mens rea!
When was that? I thought God told Abraham to sacrifice his son. I realize he stopped him but he did command him to do so and expected him to obey.
Genesis 19:30-38 (NIV, © 2011) (after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) 30 Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. 31 One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. 32 Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.” 33 That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 34 The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” 35 So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. 36 So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab[g]; he is the father of the Moabites of today. 38 The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi[h]; he is the father of the Ammonites[i] of today.
Ammonites, Moabites, Israelites and Phoenicians undoubtedly achieved their own cultural identities, and yet ethnically they were all Canaanites, the same people who settled in farming villages in the region in the 8th millennium BC.
Genesis 22 (NIV, © 2011) (Abraham is tested (near sacrifice of Isaac))
Exodus 22:29-30 (NIV, © 2011) 29 “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. “You must give me the firstborn of your sons. 30 Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day.
Some biblical scholars think that the 2 passages above suggest that child sacrifice was practiced among the earliest Hebrews.
Leviticus 18:21 (NIV, © 2011) 21 “‘Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.
Leviticus 20:2-5 (NIV, © 2011) 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. 3 I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Molek, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death, 5 I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek.
Deuteronomy 12:30-31 (NIV, © 2011) 30 and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” 31 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
Deuteronomy 18:10 (NIV, © 2011) 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft,
2 Kings 17:17 (NIV, © 2011) 17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.
2 Chronicles 28:3 (NIV, © 2011) 3 He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his children in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.
Tophet/ Gehenna was a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom,1 of the 2 principal valleys surrounding the Old City. In the Hebrew Bible, the site was initially where apostate Israelites and followers of various Ba'als and Caananite gods, including Molech, sacrificed their children by fire.
Ahaz was king of Judah, and the son and successor of Jotham. He offered his son by fire to Moloch. Manasseh was a king of the Kingdom of Judah. Manasseh was the 1st king of Judah who would not have had a direct experience with the Kingdom of Israel, which had been destroyed by the Assyrians in c. 720 BC and much of its population deported. He re-instituted pagan worship and reversed the religious reforms made by his father Hezekiah; for which he was condemned.
2 Chronicles 33:6 (NIV, © 2011) 6 He sacrificed his children in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced divination and witchcraft, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger.
Jeremiah 7:31 (NIV, © 2011) 31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.
Cross references:Jeremiah 7:31 : S 2Ki 23:10Jeremiah 7:31 : S Jos 15:8; 2Ch 33:6Jeremiah 7:31 : S Lev 18:21; Eze 16:20Jeremiah 7:31 : Jer 19:5; 32:35; Eze 20:31; Mic 6:7
Jeremiah 19:2-6 (NIV, © 2011) 2 and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, 3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. 6 So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
Ezekiel 20:25-26 (NIV, © 2011) 25 So I gave them other statutes that were not good and laws through which they could not live; 26 I defiled them through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the Lord.’
Amos 1:13 (NIV, © 2011) 13 This is what the Lord says: “For three sins of Ammon, even for four, I will not relent. Because he ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to extend his borders,
To "enlarge one's borders" is a biblical metaphor applied not just to land, but to extend the boundaries of acceptable human conduct.
Micah 6:7-8 (NIV, © 2011) 7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
Do you think God liked ordering His Only Son to die for us?
“However, the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath with which His anger burned against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked Him. And the LORD said, “I will remove Judah also from My sight, as I have removed Israel. And I will cast off Jerusalem, this city which I have chosen, and the temple (house) of which I said, ‘My name shall be there’.”
“Surely at the command (mouth) of the LORD it came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; AND THE LORD WOULD NOT FORGIVE.” (All caps mine) 2 Kings 23: 26 & 27 and 24: 3 & 4