Expert: Todd Tyszka - 9/26/2009

Question
Hello,

I had come across some passages in the Judges and I started thinking about why God allows the people of Israel to kill people of other nations. In Judges 1:8, the bible says:    

Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.

I know that God is love and righteous, but why should he accepts, allows and grants the Israel to kill the people living in Canaan.

In many parts of the Old testament, we see many parts showing that Israel always killed people in the name of God. Why does God allow them to do so? Aren't the lives of Israel better than the lives of Canaan? In Egypt, Israel was being the slaves but they turned people in Canaan to be slaves after they left the Egypt. I don't know why God allows Israel to commit such things because God is righteous, love and fair. People in Israel can actually live in many places without having conflicts with other nations.Why did God make them flighting with others?  
Thank you for your help!

Answer
Hi Dennis! Thank you for the question and I'm glad to hear you are reading the Old Testament. Naturally things were very different in the Old Testament than the New Testament. As far as war, God chose to use the people of Israel to kill groups of people who were enemies of God, and God wanted Israel to see the power of God working through them when they won against all odds, and yet Israel also saw what happens when they try to battle without God's support. Israel failed to lay claim to the promised land as God directed and was rebellious in the centuries after Joshua's death around 1390 B.C., and as a result, were punished. Israel did not permanently control Jerusalem until David captured it in 1000 B.C. (2 Sam 5:6-10). We do not know why God chose certain groups (or even Israel). An analogy, albeit a poor one, would be if you created little creatures like ants and you chose to favor a small group of, lets say, orange ants, and yet kill all of the stinging red ants because they constantly bit you and didn't like you. For some reason we do not know, God chose to favor Israel, and work through them. God often said entire groups of people were evil, which is hard to imagine, and their evil, in a sense, infected their entire bloodline, requiring the entire group to be killed. Keeping in mind that God is perfectly holy, it makes more sense that He would want the entire bloodline killed, yet it's amazing He didn't kill someone like Hitler, or doesn't kill you and I as well! Thanks be to Jesus for taking upon Himself all of our sin and allowing God's grace to be extended to us!

I hope this helps and if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask!

Todd