God’s Commission to Kill the Midianites (Part 2)

The second response Torrey gives is:
  1. God’s command to wipe out the Canaanites/Midianites entirely was one of mercy and love. He then responds to questions related to the incident.
a)      What about the women? Could they not have been spared?
Ø  Women were the prime source of contamination among the people (Numbers 31: 15-16).
b)      What about the children?
Ø  Vices bred in ancestry over generations appears in the children. It was an act of mercy towards the children as their lives would have been far worse had they lived.

My View:
Firstly, how could a good God permit this holocaust? Torrey says that God in his kindness blotted out the Canaanites/Midianites through the Israelites. Can such an act be called kindness!? I think not. Is God partial towards other nations? The Old Testament may give us this impression.


Secondly, women are condemned as being the source of vice among the people. This is a simplistic statement. Isn’t sexual activity a two-way street? Are the women the only one’s to blame? Perhaps there were some women or many women who behaved in unbecoming fashion, but is that enough ground to order a wholesale massacre of all women who have slept with a man? Are people commodities to be done away with as one fancies? Therefore, the reason given by Torrey is insufficient and unacceptable. The same goes for the children. Whose right is it to decide whether the children ought to live or die? Or who can tell whether they will turn out to be as bad as or worse than the preceding generation? Is it not possible that they could choose otherwise and live God-fearing lives? Though there are many children who follow in their parents footsteps, there are so many more who discern what is good and choose to live by what is right. I don’t think that anyone can pass a metaphysical judgement on anyone else. 

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