The Big Questions About the Bibleናሙና

Is There Genocide in the Bible?

My daughter loves babies. After all, she is a midwife! She’s a follower of Jesus. However, the other day she came to me and said, “Dad, how is it that God told people to kill babies in the Bible?” Naturally, she couldn’t put together the idea that God is loving and that he would ask people to kill innocent babies.

The idea that God ordered genocide is popular but without any real basis in the reality of the Bible story.

In the Bible, we find God trying to defend his people, so the knowledge of the true God wouldn’t die out on earth so the promised Messiah could be born at the right time, in the right place from the right people. In the Old Testament, we see God trying to do this in a barbaric time when everything seems to be working against his plan.

Most people don’t realize that a lot of the language used in the Old Testament referring to warfare is the usual metaphors and war propaganda commonly used in those ancient cultures.

What I mean is this - let’s say you follow Premier League Football, and you see the headline, “Manchester United Annihilate Liverpool.” No one would think it means that every member of the Liverpool football team was killed on the pitch during the match. Everybody knows it’s a sporting metaphor – an exaggeration.

So, when the Bible talks about things like “killing every man, woman, and child,” these are simply the metaphors used to refer to warfare at that time. It merely means they were meant to win a decisive victory, that’s all.

However, there is indeed a lot of killing and sex in the Bible. The Bible reflects the reality of life here on earth, with its ups and downs, including its suffering and pain.

How does God work in a world like this, with all of its mess? The answer is that God works through it and not apart from it. If God works through it, through human choices, then despite how loving he may be, it’s going to be messy.

I’d be faking it if I were to give you easy answers, and I didn’t give my daughter easy answers either. Here are some key points I told my daughter:

First, God is God, and we are not; that means he knows stuff we cannot know about what to us are seemingly impossible situations.

Second, God has promised to make all things right; and by that, he means everything.

Third, God has proved his love absolutely and ultimately through what Jesus did on the Cross.

Fourth, God has promised that in the end, when we understand everything that went on behind the scenes, we will all agree God was right and loving after all in every situation we can question today.

All of this tells me I can trust in God’s goodness, no matter how chaotic everything around me might seem. So, when I see things I don’t fully understand, even in the Bible, I reserve my judgment and trust God.

– Eliezer Gonzalez