The answer to this is both very complex and very simple: We exist. Our living world exists.
Despite all the huffing and puffing of atheists and evolutionists, they are not certain how our solar system came into existence, they are not certain how our planet came into existence, they are not certain how life arose, and they most certainly are not certain how an organism as incredibly complex as a human being—and our minds—came into being. They do not know how DNA, the precise and complex code that it carries, and the amazing machinery needed to read that code and convert it into the proteins and enzymes necessary for life came into being. Selecting among random mutations isn’t even able to find the ballpark, let alone hit a home run.
Yes, they have lots of theories, and all of them are full of holes that you could comfortably steer an aircraft carrier through. And they gleefully indulge in tearing each other’s theories apart when they think that a creationist isn’t listening. And in the end, they have nothing left.
The reality is that all of the laws underlying our universe are ‘finely tuned’, and must be for life to exist. Their best theory of the origin of the universe is the “Big Bang” theory. What what is that? —Nothing exploded and became everything. And the debris from the explosion, instead of collapsing back on itself, as physics requires, instead dispersed and became all the stars and planets of the universe. Against every known law of chemistry, atoms assembled themselves into living, self-replicating cell in a location where it could find food and survive. Miracle upon miracle is required, but they have no one to perform even one miracle for them.—And they have the cheek to call their absurd conjectures science!
In contrast, we have a being of infinite wisdom and power who tells us that He designed and created the universe, earth, life and humans. And He tells us that we are created in His Image.—Like Him, we are creative, can communicate, and enjoy designing and making things. He gives us a summary of what He did, and when He did it, in Genesis chapters one and two. It is the most ‘scientific’ creation account that I know of. And yes, it requires miracles too, but our God is quite capable of performing miracles. The mere fact that we are alive demonstrates His power.
For much more detail on these topics, please read our Books of Moses-Fact or Fiction series. You will surprised at how flawed the materialistic evolutionary fables are that are being constantly promoted in the media as facts.
This question is answered in the first sentence of the Bible. That sentence is “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And so we see that the first thing that God created is the heavens! As you may have been taught as a youth, the Bible says there are several heavens. The first one is a spiritual heaven, which is where God’s Throne is and is the home of the angels, who are spiritual beings. The other heavens are physical. One was designed to become our planet’s atmosphere, a second one to contain our solar system, a third one to contain the rest of our physical universe which is now filled with all of the galaxies and includes the space between them. But when they were first made they were all empty, waiting for Him to fill them. It was after these spaces were made that earth was created in the place that had been set up for it, in the center of the first physical heaven.
In this context, on Day two, and working outward from the now existing surface of the earth, God fills the empty space of the first heaven which He reserved on Day One with our atmosphere, using it to lift up some of the water to form clouds.
This view is confirmed by the events of the fourth day as God continues to work outward from the earth, in vss 14 to 17 of Genesis 1, where God says of the ‘heavenly bodies’ that He “set them in the expanse of the heavens”. He does not say He created the space they were placed in and then put them there all on day four, but only that the sun, moon and stars were created then. He had already made the space for them on day one, so He simply created them in their pre-designed places as He had done for the earth as we saw in Vs 1.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,
Gen 1:2 and the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered on the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning: Day One.
Gen 1:6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”
Gen 1:7 And God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse. And it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning: Second Day.
Gen 1:9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be collected into one region, and let the dry land be seen.” And it was so.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth and the collection of the waters He called Seas, and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:11 And God said, “Let there spring forth on the earth grass, the plant yielding seed after its kind, and the fruit tree making fruit after its kind, in which is its seed, upon the earth.” And it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, the plant yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit in which is its seed after its kind, and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 And there was evening and there was morning: Third Day.
Gen 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 “And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights and the stars: the greater light for ruling the day, and the lesser light for ruling the night.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 And there was evening and there was morning: Fourth Day.
Gen 1:20 Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living souls, and let flying creatures fly above the earth across the face of the expanse of the heavens.”
Gen 1:21 God created great sea dragons and every living soul that moves, which the waters swarmed with, according to their kind, and every winged flying creature according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and become many, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the flying creatures multiply on the earth.”
Gen 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning: Fifth Day.
Gen 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth live souls, each after its kind: livestock and creeping things and its beasts of the earth, each after its kind.” And it was so.
Gen 1:25 So God made the beasts of the earth after their kinds, livestock after their kinds, and everything that creeps on the earth after their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the flying creatures of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth.”
Gen 1:27 So God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the heaven, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Gen 1:29 And God said, “See, I have given to you every plant that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; it shall be for food for you.
Gen 1:30 “Also, to every beast of the earth, to every flying creature of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Gen 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning: The Sixth Day.
Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
Gen 2:2 And by the seventh day God had completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
Gen 2:3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because He rested from all His work in it, which He had created and made.
Our Books of Moses series has much more information on these topics.
The section of scripture included above (Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 CHCoG translation) reveals that animals do have souls. Most translations blur this by translating soul (nephesh) as life here because those translators like to pretend that animals do not have souls. What the Bible really teaches is that all creatures have souls, but only humans are created in the image of God and therefore animals cannot have the Spirit of God placed within them as humans can (vs 26). You can read more on this in our article Animals in the Bible.
The Bible teaches that souls and spirits are separate entities, and each person is a triune being composed of a body, a soul and a spirit. Our soul is in our blood, and our spirit is created by God and comes from heaven. Our article Spirit, Soul and Body explains how all this works.
God can give us everlasting bodies, souls and spirits, but we DO NOT currently have them. Everlasting life is only given to those to repent of their sins, turn to Jeshua as their saviour and begin living righteous lives due to God placing His Holy Spirit within them. Everlasting Life is the Gift of God shows the Bible teaching on this.
Actually, the Bible teaches that Jehovah God will not be torturing people for eternity. However, He will judge sin, and those who refuse to repent and turn from their evil ways will be cast into the Lake of Fire. But they will be rapidly and totally consumed in that fire, and will never exist again. This is a terrible alternative to God’s wonderful offer of everlasting life in Paradise. Eternal torture is not from the Bible, but from Satanic pagan religions. We have two articles on this: Everlasting Life is the Gift of God And The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment
First, let us look at where the Bible says people live to eighty:
Psa 90:8 You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
Psa 90:9 For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh.
Psa 90:10 The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Psa 90:11 Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath.
Psa 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psa 90:13 Return, O Jehovah! How long? And have compassion on Your servants.
Psa 90:14 Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days!
Psa 90:15 Make us glad according to the days of our affliction, and the years we have seen evil.
Psa 90:16 Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children.
This passage is a poem written to God by one of His followers. It is most clearly NOT a statement by God saying that “No one will any longer be allowed to live more than eighty years.” IF it was such a statement, only then could one claim that God is a liar.
It is instead a passage which acknowledges that at that time, probably written about three thousand years ago, almost no one lived beyond eighty years. The writer also acknowledges that life on earth—as it is now—can be a time of affliction and evil. But the writer also wants to transcend that viewpoint, and appeals to Jehovah to lift him up that he “may rejoice and be glad.”
However, there is another statement in which Jehovah does set a limit on human life spans which comes into effect after the flood. And within a couple of generations, there is no longer anyone who exceeds this new time limit. Here is the verse:
Gen 6:3 And Jehovah said, "My Spirit shall not contend with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."
This statement is clearly said by Jehovah God himself. How many people do you know that are over 120? I know none.
This idea is based on a passage in Romans:
Rom 12:4 For just as there are many parts in one body, and all of the parts do not have the same function,
Rom 12:5 so we also, who are many, are one body in the Anointed, and each one of us is a part of each other.
However, the Bible itself reveals that the various denominations began even before the Bible was completed, and that they serve a purpose. That purpose is to reveal those who truly want to follow all of Jehovah God’s Instructions as they are given in the Bible. There is indeed only one true Church, but there are many, many churches which have rejected various parts of the truth, and Satan uses these false churches to try to convince people who are searching for God that “they have the truth” and thus stop them from progressing further into a real relationship with Jehovah through His Son. Here are a few scriptures that show this:
First, remember that Jesus (Jeshua), even before He was murdered, warned us that this would happen:
Mat 24:4 Jeshua answered and said to them: “Beware! Let no one deceive you.
Mat 24:6 “And you are certain to hear of revolutions and rumours of wars. Be careful, but do not be troubled; for it is necessary that all these things happen, but it is not the end yet.
Mat 24:8 “All of these things are the beginning of sorrows.
Mat 24:9 “Then they will deliver you over to tribulation and they will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My Name.
Mat 24:10 “Then many will stumble and will hate one another and will betray one another.
Mat 24:11 “And many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
Mat 24:12 “And because of the growth of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold.
Mat 24:13 “But whoever endures patiently to the end will have life.
The Apostle Paul also warns us:
Act 20:28 “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the congregation of the Messiah which He purchased with His own blood.
Act 20:29 “For I know this, that after I go, powerful wolves will come in among you and they will have no pity on the flock.
Act 20:30 “And some of your own people will rise up, men speaking perversions, to turn the disciples so they come after them.
Act 20:31 “Therefore, you must be vigilant, and remember that for three years I have not been silent, warning every one of you night and day with tears.
—and these men, of course, set up their own denominations.—but they were not the true church, instead each one created their own perversion of it.
Paul even shows an example of the beginnings of this, and takes care to point out that he is not one of those who divide the church:
1Co 1:10 Now I plead with you, my brethren, in the Name of our Anointed Lord Jeshua, that you will all speak as one, and that there will be no divisions among you, but that you will be perfected in one mind and in one conscience.
1Co 1:11 For Chloe’s household have sent to me concerning you, my brothers, that there is contention among you.
1Co 1:13 Has the Anointed been divided? Or was Paul impaled for you? Or were you immersed in the name of Paul?
1Co 1:14 I thank my God that I immersed none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
1Co 1:15 lest anyone would say that I have immersed in my own name.
1Co 1:16 Though I also immersed the household of Stephanas. But I do not know if I immersed any others.
1Co 1:17 For Messiah did not send me to immerse, but to preach the Good News, not with wisdom of words, lest the impalement of the Anointed would be rejected.
1Co 1:18 For the message of the impalement is insanity to the lost, but to us who are being given life it is the power of God.
John also has much to say on this topic, esp vs 4:3:
1Jo 3:22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and we do good before Him.
1Jo 3:23 And this is His commandment: that we believe in the name of His Son Jeshua the Anointed and we love one another, as He commanded us.
1Jo 3:24 Now whoever keeps His commandments is kept by Him and He dwells in him. And by this we know that He dwells in us, from His Spirit whom He gives to us.
1Jo 4:1 Beloved, do not believe all the spirits, but distinguish the spirits, whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1Jo 4:2 The Spirit of God is known by this: Every spirit that confesses that Jeshua the Anointed has come in the flesh is from God,
1Jo 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jeshua has come in the flesh is not from God. And this is from the spirit of the Fake Messiah, which you have heard is coming, and he is already in the world now.
1Jo 4:4 But you are children from God, and you have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
1Jo 4:5 They are from the world. Because they are from the world, they speak and the world listens to them.
1Jo 4:6 But we are from God and he who knows God listens to us. And he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we perceive the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
1Jo 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God,
1Jo 4:8 for God is love, and everyone who does not love does not know God.
1Jo 4:9 In this is the love of God known to us; that God has sent His Only Begotten Son into the world, that it will live through Him.
1Jo 4:10 In this is love; it was not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the Atonement because of our sins.
The Fake Messiah (aka AntiChrist) is someone who claims to serve Christ, but actually opposes Him and works against Him. It is probable that the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church are such beings, as Chiniquy, an ex-priest, makes clear in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.
Paul again warns the Corinthians in his next letter:
2Co 11:12 For what I do, I will also continue to do; to cut off the accusations of those who seek a pretext to be regarded like us in the things of which they boast.
2Co 11:13 But they are false apostles and treacherous workers, and they portray themselves as apostles of the Anointed.
2Co 11:14 And do not wonder at this! For if he who is Satan can imitate an angel of light,
2Co 11:15 it is no great thing if his servants also imitate servants of righteousness, and their end will be according to their works.
And John, in his last letter, recounts this horror:
3Jo 1:9 I tried to write to the congregation, but he who loves to have the preeminence among them, Diotrephes, will not receive us.
3Jo 1:10 Therefore, if it be that I come, I will recall his works which he does. He slandered us with wicked words. And when that was not enough for him, he does not receive the brethren; and he forbids those who would receive them, and throws them out of the congregation.
3Jo 1:11 Our beloved, do not imitate the evil, but the good. The one who does good is from God, the one who does evil has not seen God.
Diotrephes even went beyond setting up his own denomination: he took over an existing congregation and threw out everyone who still wanted to follow the Way of Christ and was even preaching against the remaining Apostles. The same thing happened to the Church in Rome and in many other places, driving the true church underground and into the wilderness.
Why are you surprised that there are so many denominations today, who all claim to follow Christ, and urge you to send in your money to help their “good works”?
God gave us His Bible and preserved it so we would be able to tell who are the imposters, and who are His real servants. Pray for wisdom and read your Bible!!
This question is more complex to answer.
First, we need to acknowledge that God is not the “Super Santa Claus” that many Protestant churches portray Him as:
Mic 2:1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Mic 2:2 They covet fields and take them by violence, also houses, and seize them. So they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.
Mic 2:3 Therefore thus says Jehovah: “Behold, I am devising evil against this family, from which you cannot remove your necks; nor shall you walk haughtily, for this is an evil time.
God is reasonable. He clearly gives us the correct way to live in His Word. Those who choose to walk in His Instructions will avoid all manner of disasters. But if we refuse to listen to Him, as these people spoken of in Micah who relish their disobedience, God says that He will bring punishment (evil) on those who break His Laws and hurt others. And in this case He punishes the entire family, as they all consented to their injustice and were willing to remain in that family and benefit from their evil. Jehovah also shows that He will punish entire nations if they allow their rulers to lead them into unrighteousness:
Mic 3:1 And I said: “Hear now, O heads of Jacob, and you rulers of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know justice?
Mic 3:2 You who hate good and love evil; who strip the skin from My people, and the flesh from their bones;
Mic 3:3 Who also eat the flesh of My people, flay their skin from them, break their bones, and chop them in pieces like meat for the pot, like flesh in the caldron.”
Mic 3:4 Then they will cry to Jehovah, but He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, because they have been evil in their deeds.
And so God also reveals that He will not even listen to the prayers of those who walk in evil, let alone grant their requests. But note that this changes if they are truly willing to turn away from their evil ways:
Exo 34:6 And Jehovah passed before him and proclaimed, “Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,
Exo 34:7 “keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
Is God evil because He enforces His Laws? Is it not the truth that He would be gutless if He allowed people to sin and took no action against them? As our Creator, He has every right to decree what we should do and to decide what the punishment will be for transgression and when He will apply that punishment. And He has made absolutely sure that His Word has been preserved down through the generations, so we cannot plead it was not possible for us to know his Instructions. It is not surprising that He punishes sin. What is amazing is His patience and that He has put in place a system that allows Him to forgive our sins. And it is a system that cost Him the life of His only true Son.
Though many people do not believe in Satan, God makes it clear that Satan does exist, and that when Eve and Adam decided to obey Satan instead of God, He placed this world under the control of Satan until Jeshua returns as King. Jeshua tells us that Satan (aka the Devil) is a liar and murderer:
His greatest joy is to destroy anyone who has been made in the Image of God, as he has already failed to usurp God, but hopes to hurt God (and us) in this way. And anyone who refuses to even believe Satan exists is totally defenceless before him.
And Satan has an army of demons, who are fallen angels that relish doing his dirty work for him. Again, you need to understand that these demons are over six thousand years old, and they are very competent in the spirit realm. They have been deceiving, manipulating and tormenting humans for almost that entire time. Without the intervention of Jeshua, God’s Son, we have almost no hope against them. But with Jeshua, we have authority over them, as He says:
Luk 10:16 “Whoever hears you hears Me, whoever rejects you rejects Me, and whoever rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”
Luk 10:17 Then the seventy He had sent returned with great joy, and said to Him, “Our Lord, even the demons are subject to us by Your Name.”
Luk 10:18 And He said to them, “I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven.
Luk 10:19 “Behold, I give authority to you to trample on serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you.
Luk 10:20 “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the demons are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
It is my belief that Jehovah God created time, and He therefore exists outside of time. This means that He can see the end results of every action that every one of us takes. But unlike Him, we are trapped in the present moment, and we move along with it from second to second. We can only guess what the future holds. God explains this:
Isa 46:8 “Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, O you transgressors.
Isa 46:9 Remember the former things of eternity, for I am God, and there is no other God. There is none like Me,
Isa 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning, and from the past things which were not yet done, saying, ‘My purpose shall stand, and I will do all My desire,’
Isa 46:11 calling a bird of prey from the sunrise, from a far land the man to do My purpose. Yes, I have spoken it. Yes, I will bring it to pass. I have formed it. Yes, I will do it.
Isa 46:12 “Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness:
Isa 46:13 I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory.
We do not know even the end result of just one of our own actions, let alone every action of everyone else. But God does know. I am convinced that God has examined every possible path that life in our universe could take, and has selected the way that will result in the maximum number of people accepting Him as their God and their Father through Jeshua as their Saviour, and thereby be resurrected and become His children and be allowed to spend eternity in Paradise with Them:
1Co 15:41 And there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of a star; and one star is greater than another star in glory.
1Co 15:42 So also is life for those who die. They are sown in corruption, they are raised without corruption.
1Co 15:43 They are sown in dishonour, they are raised with glory. They are sown in weakness, they are raised in power.
1Co 15:44 They are sown as the physical body, it is raised as the spiritual body. For there is a physical body, and there is a spiritual body.
1Co 15:46 But the spiritual was not first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.
1Co 15:48 So just as he was a being from dust, so also are those of dust; and just as He is a being from heaven, so also are the heavenly.
1Co 15:49 And as we have worn the image of him from the dust, thus we shall also wear the image of Him from heaven.
1Co 15:50 Now this I say, my brethren, flesh and blood are not able to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven; nor can corruption inherit indestructibility.
1Co 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: Not all of us shall sleep, but we shall all be transformed;
1Co 15:52 suddenly, like the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For it will sound, and the dead will rise without corruption, and we shall all be transformed.
1Co 15:53 For this destructible is going to wear indestructibility, and this mortal will wear immortality.
1Co 15:56 For the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Instructions.
1Co 15:57 But thank God, who gives us the victory through our Anointed Lord Jeshua.
And so it is that I live in hope of a wonderful future.
I believe that despite all of the horrors that we see in this world, He has chosen the most merciful path that is possible to achieve this outcome, and He is constantly monitoring and adjusting things to ensure that everything stays on track. In all of this, God first teaches us what we should do. If we refuse to listen, then He practises tough love, for He knows that we then need to learn from our mistakes. And I also believe that He will demonstrate all of this to us once we are Spirit-based beings in His Kingdom and become able to process the massive amount of data that will be required to understand why He did things the way He did.
Jehovah says “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isa 55:8 & 9
If you do not truly know the end result of anything you do, how can you possibly know that what God is doing is needlessly cruel? He assures us that what He is doing is far better than anything we could ever do. We need to trust Him.
By the way, in contrast to the mere seven thousand years that God is taking to work out His plan, evolution teaches that living beings have endured many hundreds of millions of years of sickness, pain and death. According to evolutionary theory, each one of us lives out our short lives and die, with no meaning for our lives and no hope for any future. Eventually our planet will become unable to support life, and it will all come to nothing. Surely evolution is the really cruel and totally pointless system. This is discussed in more detail in our Books of Moses-Fact or Fiction series.
The passage itself gives us some idea of why God has commanded this, and of the particular situation when He commands genocide. Note carefully that it is very specific, and the principles that God gives are very different for the two types of battle. Verses 10 to 15 deal with normal battles:
Deu 20:10 “When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it.
Deu 20:11 “And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you.
Deu 20:12 “Now if the city will not make peace with you, but would make war against you, then you shall besiege it.
Deu 20:13 “And when Jehovah your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the mouth of the sword.
Deu 20:14 “But the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall eat the enemies’ plunder which Jehovah your God gives you.
Deu 20:15 “Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.
So, they are not to kill anyone unless they refuse to surrender and insist on having a war. And if they insist on a war and lose, then the Israelites are to totally destroy all the adult men, thereby killing everyone who was responsible for instigating and continuing the war. All the women and children are to be left alive and absorbed into the nation of Israel. The male children and non-virgin women are among those left alive. In a generation, they will be fully assimilated into one of the most remarkable nations on earth; and there will be no further wars with the people from that city.
And if all the adult males are killed in this city, what is likely to happen at the next city and the next? Would this not be a powerful incentive for them to surrender? So the overall result should be far less destruction and death than was normal during war in those times.
But now we come to the second situation. Verses 16 to 18 deal only with the people occupying the land which Jehovah is giving to Israel:
Deu 20:16 “But of the cities of these peoples which Jehovah your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive,
Deu 20:17 “but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as Jehovah your God has commanded you,
Deu 20:18 “lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against Jehovah your God.
God had already warned them about these dangers:
Deu 12:29 “When Jehovah your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land,
Deu 12:30 “take heed to yourself lest you are snared and follow them after they are destroyed from before you; and lest you inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I, even I, will do so too.’
Deu 12:31 “You shall not do this to Jehovah your God; for everything Jehovah hates and which He detests they have done unto their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
Deu 12:32 “All the things I command you, be careful to observe; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.
Gen 15:13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in land that is not theirs for four hundred years, and will serve them, and they will afflict them….
Gen 15:16 “But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Please grasp this: the Israelites suffered as slaves in Egypt for most of four hundred years while God gave the nations occupying the future land of Israel time to repent. But instead, they grew more and more corrupt, until they were all so toxic—even their children—that only Rachab, a prostitute (who became King David’s great-great-grandmother), was able to be redeemed, somewhat like Noah before the Great Flood (Jeh chapter 2, Gen chapters 6 to 8).
And in all of this, Jehovah God is taking a hands-on approach to Instructing and guiding the Israelites. He has not abandoned them and gone off to contemplate his navel, or lack thereof...
Sadly, the Israelites did not fully follow God’s Instructions, and the consequences were horrendous. The Israelites repeatedly adopted the corrupt religious practices of the Cannanites, even sacrificing their own children. And there was no end to the wars between them. Indeed, the Middle East is still a battleground today. If the Israelites had done what Jehovah God told them to do, far fewer people would have died than what we have now.
Please contact us if you have other questions...
Central Highlands Congregation of God
2020
Published by
CENTRAL HIGHLANDS CHRISTIAN PUBLICATIONS
PO Box 236, Creswick, Vic 3363 Australia
Email info@chcpublications.net
Web Page http://www.chcpublications.net
Endnotes
1 Literally Ena na msheecha אֵנׇא א֗נׇא משׁׅיחׇא I AM, I am the Messiah from the Aramaic, meaning they are claiming to be the Anointed Son of God. Also see Jer 29:8.
2 Psa 18:1-13, Rev 6:12
3 Cepha כּׅאפָֿא is Aramaic for Rock, and is commonly translated as Peter.
4 Gen 3:1-13
5 Gen 2:7
6 Gen 3:19 & 3:23
7 Isaiah 25:8
8 Hos 13:14
9 And even so, it is possible that some of these people, especially their young children, may be given an opportunity to repent and receive everlasting life when they are resurrected.