In the Old Testament, God orders the
massacre of entire nations, tribes and peoples. Some
examples are the slaughter of the Amelakites, the
Canaanites, the Midianites and the Gibeonites, including
their women and children. The common explanation for this
barbaric behavior is to make a distinction between god's
love and god's justice. These nations were
engaged in all sorts of immoral practices, including
human sacrifice. God was simply using Israel as a tool to
punish them. It is true that in Deuteronomy 12:31 God
expressly condemns pagan behavior, saying: "Thou
shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every
abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they [the
pagans] done unto the their gods; for even their sons and
their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their
gods". However, the Old Testament is far from
consistent in this denunciation of human sacrifice. As we
shall see, God's people were guilty of the same practice
which they were supposedly punishing.
The commandments in Leviticus specifically
deal with the method by which offerings and sacrifices
should be made to the Lord. Leviticus 27:28-29 reads:
"Nevertheless, anything which a man sets apart to
the Lord out of all that he has, of man or animal, or of
the fields of his own property, shall not be sold or
redeemed. Anything devoted to destruction is most holy to
the Lord. No one who may have been set apart among men
shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death".
In Exodus 22:29 God commands "thou shalt not delay
to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy
liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give
me". Clearly, taken together, these two statements
mean that the firstborn children of Israel were to be
sacrificed before the Lord and that they could not be
redeemed.
But even if human sacrifice was written into the Law, was
it ever actually performed? Ezekiel cries out that
"[the Lord] also gave them [Israel] statutes that
were not good and ordinances by which they could not
live; and I pronounced them unclean because of their
gifts, in that they [Israel] caused all their first-born
to pass through the fire so that I might make them
desolate, in order that they may know that I am the
Lord" (Ezekiel 20:26). So Israel did indeed pass
their children through the fire. And for what reason? So
that they would know that God is the Lord. In other
words, God commanded these children be tortured and
killed so that Israel would know who was in charge! Are
these the actions of a loving God or a tyrannical
dictator?
An example of a child sacrifice occurs in Judges
11:30-39. "Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and
said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of
Ammon into mine hand, Then it shall be, that whatsoever
cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I
return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely
be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt
offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of
Ammon...and the Lord delivered them into his hands...And
Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and behold, his
daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with
dances:...And it came to pass at the end of two months,
that she returned unto her father, who did with her
according to his vow which he had vowed". Notice the
nonchalantness with which Jephthah concludes this grim
business. It parallels the attitude of Christians who are
unfluttered by the barbaric behavior of their God in the
Old Testament.
In II Samuel 21:8-14 "the king [David] took the two
sons of Rizpah...and the five sons of Merab...and he gave
them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged
them in the mounatain before the Lord, so that the seven
of them fell together; and were put to death in the first
days of harvest...And after that God was moved by
entreaty for the land". When seven men are
slaughtered in cold blood in order to appease God in
hopes that he will end a famine, it can only be called
human sacrifice.
A final example appears in Numbers 31:28 "Take a
count of the booty that was captured, both of man and of
animal...And levy a tax for the Lord from the men of war
who went out to battle, one in five hundred persons and
of the cattle and of the donkeys and of the sheep; take
it from their half and give it to Eleazor the priest, as
an offering to the Lord...And the human beings were
16,000, from whom the Lord's levy was 32 persons. And
Moses gave the levy which was the Lord's offering to
Eleazor the priest, just as the Lord had commanded
Moses."
The fact of the matter is that as you read the Old
Testament, Israel clearly acted in a manner as savage and
immoral as any of their neighbors. They routinely
massacred entire nations of men, women, and children (Js
10:10-39). They ripped open the wombs of pregnant women
(2 Ki 15:16). They slaughtered suckling infants (1 Sa
15:3). And they spared only those beautiful women that
they have the desire to "make their own", i.e.
rape (Ge 34:13-29, Dt 20:13-14, Dt 21:10-13, Nu
31:31-40). They even took time out of their busy schedule
to torture innocent horses by slicing open the tendons in
their legs so that they will never be able to run again
(Js 11:6, 2Sa 8:4). Now tell me, what justice do you see
in that?
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