The Bible Answers: “Is Jehovah A Loving God Of Peace Or A Sadistic God Of War?”
Is Jehovah God a lover of peace or war? Did God, for instance, relish bringing all flesh to ruin in Noah’s day? Or did he derive some fiendish pleasure from destroying the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah? For an answer, let us look at the events surrounding the Flood of Noah’s day. The Holy Scriptures inform us that it devastated God that “every inclination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only bad all the time.” Their maleficence ‘saddened his heart.’ Nonetheless, God dispatched Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” to sound a monition as well as to construct an ark for the preservation of the godly . — Genesis 6:3–18; 2 Peter 2:5. ( Bracket mine )
Surrounding another judgment, only when the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had “abandoned themselves to sexual immorality and were bent on perverted sensuality” that God caused it to “rain sulfur and fire.” — Jude 7, The New Berkeley Version; Genesis 19:24.
Yes, the Bible certainly recounts Jehovah God’s prior adverse judgments frankly. Still, we need to keep in mind that such were invariably against ungodly individuals and in defense of the innocent. After all, “Minatur innocentibus qui parcit nocentibus.”
God’s love of goodness demands that he take action on behalf of those godly ones who love him. He never shrinks back from rendering justice whenever it is due. This, however, does not make Him a bloodthirsty God. His judicial actions, therefore, are a result of evil men and women adamantly refusing to forbear their depravity and evildoing, not because Jehovah delights in doing away with individuals.
His Judgments Against Ancient Evildoers
Demon worship, child sacrifice, sadistic violence, together with a range of sickening acts of sex worship were the order of the day with the Canaanites. Being a God of justice, Jehovah could not make it possible for these types of revolting practices to thwart the tranquility and safety of godly human beings, in particular, Israel. ( Deuteronomy 5:9 )
The Amalekites, just to illustrate, were “the first one of the nations” to launch an unprovoked assault on the Israelites after the Exodus, at Rephidim in the vicinity of Mount Sinai. For this reason, Jehovah decreed absolute annihilation for the Amalekites. ( Numbers 24:20; Exodus 17:8–16; Deuteronomy 25:17–19 ) Twice in the course of the period of the Judges, these bitter foes of Israel shared in invading Israel. They did it in the times of Eglon king of Moab. ( Judges 3:12, 13 )
Again, with the Midianites together with Easterners, they ransacked the territory of Israel seven years before Gideon together with his 300 men dealt them a brutal defeat. — Judges 6:1–3, 33; 7:12; 10:12 . As a result of their unrelenting savageness, in the period of the kings Jehovah ‘called to account’ the Amalekites, instructing King Saul to strike them down, which he did “from Havilah as far as Shur, which is in front of Egypt.” ( 1 Samuel 15:2–33 )
To illustrate, imagine if your city was without a legal police force or militia to apply the laws and regulations of the land — would that not give rise to sheer bedlam and violent rioting of the worst kind? Equally, Jehovah was required to take action against the Canaanites owing to their depravity as well as the legitimate peril they presented to humanity.
For this reason, he decreed: “the land is unclean, and I will bring punishment on it for its error, and the land will vomit its inhabitants out.” — Leviticus 18:25. “It is because of the wickedness of these nations that Jehovah is driving them away from before you,” he conveyed to the Israelites at Deuteronomy 9:4–6, “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land.” That God decided to make use of human beings to execute this judgment, instead of fire or flood, could not lessen the verdict.
Consequently, when warring with the nations of Canaan, the Israelite legions were mandated: “In the cities of these peoples, which Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not allow any breathing thing to live. Instead, you should devote them completely to destruction, the Hit′tites, the Am′or·ites, the Ca′naan·ites, the Per′iz·zites, the Hi′vites, and the Jeb′u·sites, just as Jehovah your God has commanded you; so that they may not teach you to follow all their detestable practices that they have done for their gods, causing you to sin against Jehovah your God.” — Deuteronomy 20:16–18.
As opposed to Ares, Otrera, Keres, Enyo or Eris, among others, Jehovah God is a respecter of life. Accordingly, He would not endorse indiscriminate slaying. Deuteronomy 20:10 and 11 instructed the ancient Israelites, ““If you approach a city to fight against it, you should also announce to it terms of peace. If it gives a peaceful answer to you and opens up to you, all the people found there will become yours for forced labor, and they will serve you.”
A God Of Mercy
Even though Israelite troops were permitted to marry captives they had to attend to them with the same rights and honor due to an Israelite wife. Poles apart from what we see in today’s wars, the Israelites could not rape or otherwise abuse these women. Jehovah instructed, “If you go to war against your enemies and Jehovah your God defeats them for you and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you are attracted to her and you want to take her as your wife, you may bring her into your house. She should then shave her head, attend to her nails, and remove the clothing of her captivity, [for hygienic reasons] and dwell in your house. She will weep for her father and her mother a whole month, and afterward you may have relations with her; you will become her husband and she will become your wife. But if you are not pleased with her, you should then let her go wherever she wishes. But you may not sell her for money or treat her harshly.” -Deuteronomy 21:10–14 ( Bracket mine. )
Would a sadistic warmongering god ever extend any mercy? Yet, when the people of one particular Canaanite city, Gibeon, sought mercy, Jehovah extended it. ( Joshua 9:3–27 ) Could a fierce war god have done so? Of course no, yet a God who delights in peace and justice would certainly. — Psalm 33:5; 37:28.
Over and over again, the Bible connects God’s blessing with tranquility because Jehovah is a lover of peace, not war. ( Numbers 6 :24–26; Psalm 29:11; 147:12–14 ) Due to this fact, when King David hoped to erect a holy space of worship to Jehovah, God explained to him: “You will not build a house for my name, for you have shed a great deal of blood on the earth before me .” — 1 Chronicles 22:8; Acts 13:22 .
Armageddon — The War To End All Wars
While on earth, the Greater David, Jesus Christ, referred to an era when God’s love of justice would cease to permit him to stomach the modern-day ungodliness we observe the world over. ( Matthew 24:3, 36–39 ) As he did with the Flood of Noah’s time as well as in the devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jehovah God Almighty will very soon take judicial measures to scour the world of narcissistic, ungodly individuals, thereby paving the path for tranquil conditions to exist under his heavenly Kingdom rule. — Psalm 37 :10, 11, 29; Daniel 2:44.
Once again, our loving Creator will carry out His judgment when He acts at Armageddon to eradicate the evil system that oppresses us all. When he does so, authentic peacefulness will indeed flourish earth wide as the genuinely humble ones unitedly worship Jehovah, “the God of peace.” — Philippians 4:9.
