“The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.” (1 Samuel 15:17-18)
My response to a legitimate, but nonetheless skeptical, question raised in the Letters page of the London Times:
Sir,
Dr. Jonathan Sacks (Register, August 14) writes that “the God of Abraham is a God of love, not war”.
Joshua 11:20 says:
For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.
1 Samuel 15:17-18 says:
The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.
Is that really the work of a God of love?
Yours sincerely,
STEVEN CARR,
Prenton, Birkenhead CH43 0SD.
August 14.
The Times, Letters to the Editor
August 18, 2004
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Author: K. J. Went
Keywords: Amalekites, Canaanite Genocide, Genocide, genocidal, genocidal God, Utter destruction, Annihilation, utterly destroy, utterly destroyed, exterminate, extermination, destroy utterly, totally destroy, total destruction, totally wipe out, wipe out, wipe out the Canaanites, ethnic cleansing, wiping out the Canaanites, violence, violent God, God of love, Saul's disobedience, God of vengeance, Remember Amalek, Amalek, Racial extermination
Bible reference(s): 1 Samuel 15:17-18
Source: Difficult Sayings.
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