God kills and makes alive

1 Samuel 2:6 “The LORD kills and makes alive;
He brings down to the grave and brings up.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

At least God's a balanced God.

Solomon has his brother murdered

1 Kings 2:24-25 Now therefore, as the LORD lives, who has confirmed me and set me on the throne of David my father, and who has established a house[a] for me, as He promised, Adonijah shall be put to death today!” So King Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he struck him down, and he died.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Solomon is famous for being a wise man.

Why couldn't God combat iron chariots?

Judges 1:19 The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Why were the men of Judah not able to drive out the people from the plains with iron chariots if the Lord was with them?

Adoni-Bezek's thumbs and big toes cut off

Judges 1:6 Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

A bit violent don't you think?

10,000 killed

Judges 1:4-5 When Judah attacked, the LORD gave the Canaanites and Perizzites into their hands and they struck down ten thousand men at Bezek. It was there that they found Adoni-Bezek and fought against him, putting to rout the Canaanites and Perizzites.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

At least there were no women and children killed here.

Is God good and holy or jealous, unforgiving, and a terrorist?

Joshua 24:19-20 Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you."

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Sometimes it gets confusing if God is good and holy or jealous, unforgiving, and a terrorist.

Kill the prophet whose proclamation does not come true

Deuteronomy 18:20-22 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death."

You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?" If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Care to start compiling the list of preachers that should be put to death?

Kill the man who shows contempt for a priest

Deuteronomy 17:12 The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

This helps those pastors who are also control freaks!

Genocide at Jericho (well almost)

Joshua 6:20-21 When the trumpets sounded, the people shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the people gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

I still can't comprehend God directing the killing of babies. BTW, Rehab and her family were spared.

God is a consuming fire. He will destroy and help you annihilate.

Deuteronomy 9:3 But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a consuming fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

God is a consuming fire is a much quoted attribute of God. However, do we think of it in terms of destruction and annihilation of people?

Strange Rituals

Numbers 19:1-10 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: "This is a requirement of the law that the LORD has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke. Give it to Eleazar the priest; it is to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. Then Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting.

While he watches, the heifer is to be burned—its hide, flesh, blood and offal. The priest is to take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool and throw them onto the burning heifer.

After that, the priest must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. He may then come into the camp, but he will be ceremonially unclean till evening. The man who burns it must also wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he too will be unclean till evening.

"A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They shall be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin. The man who gathers up the ashes of the heifer must also wash his clothes, and he too will be unclean till evening. This will be a lasting ordinance both for the Israelites and for the aliens living among them.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

The Bible has many of these strange rituals. Why does an omnipotent, omniscient, infinite God need these types of rituals to interact with his creation?

God sends venomous snakes to bite and kill his people for complaining

Numbers 21:4-9 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"

Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.

The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

If this story was in any other religious book than the Bible, we would think it very cultic.

Killed for bringing a bad report

Numbers 14:36-37 So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it- these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

The bad report:

Number 13:26-29,31-33 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan."

But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Get married, bear children, and keep house!

1 Timothy 5:14 Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach;

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Younger widows: Get married, bear children, and keep house!

Eating Flesh and Drinking Blood

John 6:53-60,66 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

..From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Put yourself in the shoes of these disciples. Would you leave also?

Happy Easter!

Stoned to death for cursing during a fight

Leviticus 24:10-16,23 Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) They put him in custody until the will of the LORD should be made clear to them.

Then the LORD said to Moses: "Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. Say to the Israelites: 'If anyone curses his God, he will be held responsible; anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.

Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the LORD commanded Moses.

An eye for eye, tooth for tooth

Leviticus 24:19-20 If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

This is one of the laws Jesus modified. Can you imagine being in charge of enforcing this law?

God's view of slavery

Leviticus 25:44-46 Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may acquire slaves. You may also acquire some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Why was God ever pro-slavery?

Kill those who work on the Sabbath

Exodus 35:1-3 Moses assembled the whole Israelite community and said to them, "These are the things the LORD has commanded you to do: For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day."

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Why does it seem like "death" is always the punishment from a loving God?

God kills all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians

Exodus:12:29-30 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Previously we read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart then threatens to kill his firstborn son. Here we see God carrying out the threat. However, he not only killed Pharaoh's firstborn son, he killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt. To add to it, he also killed the firstborn of all the livestock.

Wait a minute! Exodus 9:6 states "And the next day the LORD did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died." If God already killed all the livestock, how were there firstborn livestock?