God Behaving Badly: Part IV
Kill. Conquer. Repeat.
When God’s Favorite Pastime Was Ethnic Cleansing
If you judged the Old Testament on body count alone, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was less a holy book and more a conquest manual — with God as the bloodthirsty general in charge.
The commandments are clear: slaughter the men, the women, the children. Burn the cities. Take the land. Leave nothing breathing. And then call it holy.
Let’s start with Jericho. God doesn’t just tell Joshua to take the city — He demands everyone inside be killed. Not just soldiers. Not just leaders. Every man, woman, child, and animal. Even the livestock got the sword. Because apparently, divine justice doesn’t do nuance.
And then there are the Amalekites. God tells Saul to wipe them off the map. Total destruction. Why? Because of something their ancestors did centuries earlier. This is divine generational vengeance. When Saul shows mercy to some of them — including their king — God gets mad. Mercy, apparently, is disobedience.
And the Canaanites? Their biggest crime seems to be living in land God promised to someone else. So, He authorizes total displacement. Land theft, blessed by divine decree. “Kill them all and take their homes,” says the God of justice.
This is a recurring theme: if you’re chosen, you’re not held to a higher moral standard. You’re handed a sword and told to use it — because God said so.
And what about the children? The infants? The civilians? The ones who didn’t fight?
Collateral damage?
Nope. Intentional.
“Do not leave alive anything that breathes.” — Deuteronomy 20:16
This isn’t metaphor. This isn’t poetry. This is genocide ordered from heaven.
And if a human leader spoke like this — if a modern general commanded armies to wipe out entire populations because God said they could — we’d call it a war crime. A crime against humanity. We’d call them a tyrant. A monster.
But because it’s in the Bible, we call it sacred history.
We give it to children in Sunday school.
We turn it into flannelgraph.
We forget that this God isn’t stopping violence — He’s commanding it.
And worse, He frames it as virtue.
Conquest isn’t sin — it’s obedience. Killing isn’t failure — it’s worship.
If these stories are true, then we have to ask: What kind of God needs genocide to fulfill a promise?
And if they’re not true, why are they still held up as moral instruction?
There’s a pattern here:
- God gives the order
- His people kill
- And the rest are either buried or enslaved
Then we move on to the next chapter like it was just a Tuesday.
No repentance. No remorse. Just blood, blessing, and territory.
If a God exists who behaves like this, He isn’t loving.
He’s a warlord with a divine PR team.
And if you’re wondering whether this same God is still running the show today — well, look around.
The story hasn’t changed.
Just the names.
