A Reasonable Understanding of the Destruction of the Amalekites

Farrell Till's Colorful Balloon entitled "The Amalikite Atrocity”

By William Kesatie, J.D.

2 Samuel 15:2-8 contains one of the most troubling episodes in the Old Testament (OT): the destruction of the Amalekite people at the command of God—what Farrell Till labels “the Amalekite Atrocity. (Till, “The Amalikite Atrocity”, www.infidels.org.) Certainly, the destruction of the Amalekite at the direction of God remains one of the most troubling issues for a Christian who accepts the inerrancy of the Bible. It involves the collision between two perceptions of God: the God of love and forgiveness primarily taught in the New Testament scriptures (what Dr. Peter Kreeft calls “good and gentle Jesus”), and the jealous, angry God found in the Old Testament (“angry Jehovah”). The "Amalekite Atrocity" requires the believer to reconcile a good and loving God with a God who the Bible reports commanded the annihilation of an entire people.

The main portion of the Amalekite account can be found in 1 Samuel 15:1-8, which reads as follows:

Then Samuel said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the LORD. "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. 'Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'" Then Saul summoned the people and numbered them in Telaim, 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek and set an ambush in the valley. Saul said to the Kenites, "Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, so that I do not destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt." So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. So Saul defeated the Amalekites, from Havilah as you go to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He captured Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, "I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands." And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the LORD all night.

The ever-entertaining atheist Till describes the scene this way:

What happened on that day, if indeed it did happen, must by all standards of decency and morality--except for biblical standards, of course--be considered a moral atrocity. After all, this is a case where an attacking army went beyond the killing of the soldiers they fought against to the butchering of women and children and even infants still nursing their mothers' breasts. Please notice that Yahweh's order was to slay even "infant and suckling" (v:3); no one--nothing--was to be spared. As we will soon note, it was Yahwistic vengeance at its bloodiest.

Ibid.

In his essay, Till attempts to make a case the destruction of the Amakites by the Israelites under God’s command constituted a moral atrocity and a reprehensible action. He begins (and spends most of his essay) trying to image the events of that day to give us what CNN Jersualem might have shown if it were covering the event. But Till’s essay is like a colorful balloon: the surface is very colorful and flowery, but when you look inside, there is little substance.

This essay will identify in broad terms a view that can be defended by Christians who believe in Biblical inerrancy, showing how to resolve what appears to be a contradiction in this account with a good and loving God. I will show how a Christian can defend the orders of God as against the Amalekites as both understandable and-—contrary to Mr. Till’s assertion-—ultimately good. This essay will recount the Biblical defense for the destruction while responding to Till’s on-line essay.

One Need Not Accept the Actuality of the Amalekite Account to be Christian.

As a preliminary matter, it should be noted that the belief in an inerrant Bible is not a prerequisite to being a Christian. As apologist Gregory Koukl notes when discussing the “essentials of the Christian faith”:

Sometimes people [add as an essential of Christianity the notion that y]ou've got to believe that the Bible is inspired. That is not essential doctrine, although I would consider the authority of Scripture is a functional necessity because without it none of the other truth could be affirmed or asserted with confidence.

While I think that a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible flows naturally from a belief in Jesus, many good, believing Christians do not hold such views. These Christians will view the account of the destruction of the Amalekites primarily as either (1) a tale made up prior to the event to support the attack on the Amalekites, or (2) an after-the-fact justification for the attack which would make it palatable to the Jewish people. While I personally view these approaches as efforts to rationalize away the text and a compromise of Biblical inerrancy, the truth of Christianity does not turn on whether the Israelites actually had God’s command (or permission) to destroy the Amalekites. Christianity rises and falls upon the claims of Jesus and his death and resurrection. The account of the Israeli dealings with the Amalekites is a side issue—-an important one, but not the sine qua non of the faith.

If the verses relating to the destruction of the Amalekite people constitute a stumbling block to you otherwise examining the claims of Jesus Christ, I urge you to put it aside and look into the central claims of Christianity, i.e., the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin. Once you come to a Christian understanding of these points, then the paradigm shift that results from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit may open you to an understanding of these passages that was not previously possible.

The Christian Worldview’s Effect on the Amalekite Destruction

Before dealing with the main objection, it is appropriate to examine some presuppositions of Christianity in order to highlight how a Christian worldview may lend a different light on the Amalekite account.

First, Christian philosophy is an entire construct. What is said in Genesis affects what is taught in Revelation and all parts in between. A person cannot pick and choose from the Biblical teachings and apply them to an otherwise non-Christian worldview and come to a correct understanding of the Biblical teaching. This requirement of understanding the material in an overall context is not unique to the Bible. By way of example, suppose a woman views humanity’s basic nature as being “good.” Such a woman would not be able to reconcile the conclusions she reaches with the conclusions reached by another person who starts with a belief that people are basically evil. Similarly, if a society starts with the presupposition that humanity is basically evil or selfish, then the laws passed by the government in that society seeking to control its citizens would necessarily differ from those of a society that believes people are basically good. For the latter, fewer controls would be needed because people could be trusted to do what is right. But to the society that believes that people are basically evil, such trust from government would seem incredibly naive.

The Biblical worldview also has certain presuppositions that must be understood before a correct understanding of the text may be reached, e.g., humanity was created good but has fallen; individuals lack the capacity to save themselves; all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. These beliefs may be significantly different than that held by the reader, and must be studied in depth to grasp how the Christian can defend the “atrocity” committed on the Amalekites. With respect to this particular issue, the following components of the Christian worldview are especially relevant:

A. God Did Not Create Evil—God Hates Evil But Is Willing To Forgive.

The Bible teaches that God created mankind “good”-—not perfect, but good-—and the world that they entered was likewise good (See, e.g., Gen. 1:9) and without sin. (Rom. 5:12) It was the willing disobedience of humanity (Adam and Eve) in violation of the known law of God (Eve could recite that God told her not to eat of the fruit in Gen. 3:2-3) that caused sin to enter the world. Thus, it was as the result of actions people take and have taken of their own free will that humanity is broken and sinful. Humanity has fallen, that is, we have fallen. We are sinners. We are unrighteous; each and every one of us without exception. In this condition, we do not deserve to spend eternity with a God who is both perfect and holy. Moreover, due to His nature, God cannot permit those who are sinful and unrighteous to enter into His holy presence.

One attempt to understand this problem more fully is known as the “Sin-Debt” or "Penal Substitution" model of salvation. Under this model, humanity is described as having unpaid “moral debt” or “sin debt” resulting from each individual’s failure to live fully by the precepts of God. This debt is like a credit running on your heavenly account which must be paid before you can be sufficiently “debt free” to enter heaven. The only problem is that no individual has the ability to pay the debt they have incurred because the only way to pay the debt is through having a positive balance on your account. But since every person sins, they are not paying off the debt but ever-so-steadily increasing the debt owed. Thus, no human has the means of earning the “capital” necessary to pay off the “sin debt” incurred through life. God does not desire that anyone die with insufficient credit to enter into heaven (2 Peter 3:9), but since no one is able to pay off their balances on their own, God took the step necessary to pay off the debts by personally paying the "sin debt" that each individual has incurred.

As described by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Penal Substitution models contend that through sin humans have incurred a moral debt which needs to be paid. These views hold that the price to be paid is spiritual death and separation from God. No one man can pay the debt of any other since all men have sinned equally. Thus, God chose to send his incarnate Son, free from original or committed sin, to die on behalf of others, and so satisfy their debt.

Murray, Michael, "Philosophy and Christian Theology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2002/entries/christiantheology-philosophy/.

The Bible does not teach that God needed a blood sacrifice to quench His wrath, but rather teaches that people are held responsible for the sin debt that they incur and bear the consequences for them (see, for example, Leviticus 5:1). Since death entered the world through sin (“the wages of sin is death”—Romans 6:23), it required a sinless man to die—-one who had the credit to pay the debt because he had not sinned—-in order to pay the debt for another. The only being who had and has the infinite worth necessary to pay the debt for all of mankind would be God Himself in the flesh. That is the work of the cross: He offered Himself as payment for all so that none may perish. Only those who reject God’s tender of payment in full will not have their debt paid.

Thus, in the Biblical worldview, all people—-whether they fully recognize it or not—-are incurring a sin debt that they cannot pay on their own and which will forever separate them from God. Yet, through God’s love, all people can be saved merely by accepting God’s payment of their “sin debt” account. This applies equally to the us and it applied to the Amalekites because those who believed and followed God were cloaked with the blood of Jesus if they died before Jesus was crucified.

But make no mistake about it—God hates sin (Ps. 5:5). Sin is rebellion to God. Ultimately, God will come back in wrath to punish those who are in sin. (See, The Revelation to Saint John). But even though a large portion of humanity is in active rebellion to the law of God and therefore God Himself, God is both gracious and just to forgive their sins and cleanse them from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9.) Consider the words of apologist Glenn Miller:

[God’s] basic preferences are away from judgment (e.g., "Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’" Ex 33.11). His responses are asymmetrical: His compassion is to "a thousand generations", but his moral outrage extends only to the immediate household ("to the third generation"). Judgment is called His "strange, alien work" in Isaiah 28.21; His 'familiar' work is providing 'regular' environments for community life and experience, without massive divine interventions. We are supposed to develop our selves and characters by internal decisions to choose the good and to honor one another and to play our part in the development of others. His normal operating procedure is to build reward/loss consequences into our consciousness and into the workings of basic interpersonal relationships (from which we construct second-order social roles), and then let us get on with living. Even when relationships get bad, He normally allows the 'system' to try and correct it (e.g., peer pressure, legal systems, internal emotional pushbacks). Even in biblical history surrounding Israel (God's most overt/visible historical actions), the amount of judgmental intervention is tiny compared to what perhaps might have been expected on the Assyrians, for example, and the biblical record is filled with cries of the innocent asking "why don't you do something about these malicious oppressors, God?!" (Emphasis in the original.)

Miller, “Good question...shouldn't the butchering of the Amalekite children be considered war crimes?” (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/).

B. God’s Omniscience and Middle Knowledge.

There is certainly little debate in Christian circles that God is omniscient which means that he knows every action that has taken place and every action that will take place. One view of God’s omniscience is the “Middle Knowledge” perspective of God’s knowledge which holds that God also knows all possible actions people would take in this world and any other world which God might have created. As described by William Lane Craig:

“Intervening between the second and third moments of divine knowledge stands God’s free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His middle knowledge. By His natural knowledge, God knows what is the entire range of logically possible worlds; by His middle knowledge He knows, in effect, what is the proper subset of those worlds which it is feasible for Him to actualize. By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His middle knowledge. According to Molina, this decision is the result of a complete and unlimited deliberation by means of which God considers and weighs every possible circumstance and its ramifications and decides to settle on the particular world He desires. Hence, logically prior, if not chronologically prior, to God’s creation of the world is the divine deliberation concerning which world to actualize.”

Craig, “‘No Other Name’: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ.”

To put in different words, the “Middle Knowledge” perspective says that God knows three types of things in his omniscience: (1) all things that have actually been, (2) all things that will actually be, and (3) all things that may have been in all possible worlds. Middle Knowledge is the third of these knowledge types. By this view, God knows (and has known eternally) before each individual was born whether and under what circumstances that person would ultimately respond to His plan of salvation. Since God desires the maximal amount of “good” and the minimal amount of “evil”, He has created reality in such a way as to maximize the goodness and minimize the evil in this world. This means that God would not create any person knowing that in any possible world they could be saved without the means to be saved.

In other words, suppose that God knows that person X will respond to God’s gift of salvation only under condition A. If God were to create X in a universe where condition A would not occur, X would never accept the payment of his “sin debt” and would never enter into the kingdom of God. But if God creates the world with condition A, X will come to receive God's gift of eternal life. In such a circumstance, God would either (1) make sure that X is put into condition A, or (2) never create X. Thus, in Christian philosophy, there is no such thing as the unsaved person who would have turned to God under another set of conditions. God, knowing all possible universes, has not placed anyone on this earth who could be saved but either has not or will not be saved.

Nor would any person be able to plead ignorance of God's law. Romans 1:18-19 teaches: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them." Thus, although the skeptic may deny such knowledge, the Bible teaches that they have such knowledge and are suppressing it. (A separate essay can be written on this point, but suffice it to say that one of the time-honored proofs for Theism is the inborn sense of right and wrong--the same [and only] moral sense that Till actually relies upon to make the case that the destruction of the Amalekite infants was wrong.) Thus, the orthodox Christian view is that every person has sufficient knowledge of God to make claims of ignorance untenable.

Moreover, God’s knowledge is not dependent on age. God knows each of us in our mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13; Isaiah 44:2) He does not need to wait for any individual to become old and die of old age to know whether that person will receive God's offer to pay their sin-debt. Rather, God knows even before they are conceived what type of person the as-yet-unborn person will be and what they would ultimately do. Thus, God can cast judgment down on an infant as easily as an old man since God knows infinitely and perfectly exactly what each of those people have done and will do in the course of their existences.

C. God’s Salvation Is For Humanity, And Individual Men Can Reject It

One point of confusion arises from the question “who did Jesus die for?” This confusion is borne out by many Christians through an overextension of the teaching that God died “for you and for me.” Philosophically speaking, people, individually, are ontologically finite beings. It logically follows from that understanding that each individual person’s value is finite. God has infinite value which is why His death through the Second Person of the Trinity was sufficient to pay for the sins of the whole world. Humanity, as a race, is the party for whom God died to pay their debt. The teaching is that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16). The Bible does not say that “God so loved each individual person . . . .”

Now it is certainly true that God loves each and every one of us and is “not willing that any should perish.” (2 Peter 3:9) However, while God does not desire any individual to perish, the Bible makes it clear that many do perish in such passages as Jesus’ claim that the way to life is narrow and “there are few who find it.” (Matt. 7:14) God made people as free moral creatures, and has left it to individuals to choose whether they will be righteous or unrighteous. Unfortunately, beginning with the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, all humanity has chosen unrighteousness. In fact, people—-especially people in the ancient world—-engaged in acts that were not only unrighteous, but which God hated, such as child sacrifice. (Deut. 12:31) As noted above, God hates all iniquity. (Ps. 5:5) While God desires all of us to be saved, God—-who has given us free will to choose to be righteous or unrighteous—-will not overpower our will forcing us to be righteous, and therefore some people will ultimately perish—-not just in this life, but for all time. To say it differently, while individual men have sufficient value that God does not desire any of them be destroyed, because of our evil actions which God hates, he has permitted such destruction of both individuals and entire peoples/cultures in His plan for ultimate good. In other words, God loves each and every one of us (including every single person among the Amalek people), but because of his willingness to allow us to freely reject Him which he believes is the greater good, He is willing to allow the deaths of these loved ones for the greater good.

The view that someone should sacrifice loved ones for the good of the many is a common theme in literature. As one example, Agamennon sacrificed his beloved daughter to appease the Greek gods in order to spare his people. He had no desire to sacrifice his daughter, but it was made clear to him in the course of the play that such a sacrifice was necessary for the good of the people. Where a person puts a more compelling good over his or her own personal desires they are “tragic heroes” who garner praise for their devotion to the greater good. In many ways, God is the tragic hero. His desire is that all should be saved, but such an event is inconsistent with the free will he has so graciously granted to us. In the course of the exercise of the free will, many will turn away from God deciding that they know what is best for their own life. These people, much to God’s displeasure, will not taste the Kingdom of God, but their sacrifice was necessary in order that many will be saved in a world of free choice (the ultimate good).

D. The Old Testament Setting and God’s Chosen People.

The destruction of the Amalekite people occurred during Old Testament times. During that era, God's message had been reserved for the Jews which were God’s chosen people. Why? Did God not love the other non-Jewish people? If you conclude that God did not love the Amalekites, you misunderstand Christian philosophy. God loved all people, Jews and non-Jews alike, but He knew two things about those who were in other cultures such as the Amalekites that isn’t apparent at first glance. First, God knew as the result of His knowledge of all humanity that the Amalekites—like every other person who has ever lived—were sinners who would die with sin-debts if they did not accept God’s payment of the debt for them. Second, God knew as the result of His middle knowledge whether any individual person in any particular culture would ever accept His gift of salvation under any circumstances or at any time. In the case of the Amalekites, God saw them individually as totally irredeemable, i.e., there was not one person among them who would ever, under any circumstances in any possible world, receive God’s gift of salvation. The Amalekites were not judged because they weren’t God’s chosen people, but because God knew that each individual in the Amalekite culture—children and infants included—would not accept God’s payment of their sin debt under any circumstances.

Thus, to God, the Amalekite culture, like many other cultures, was full of sinners who would not ever freely choose righteousness, but unlike those people in the Jewish culture, they were completely unredeemable. Such an unredemptive nature was not the result of their having been born into another culture, but because God knew before they were ever born that they would not ever under any circumstances accept God’s gift of salvation.

Breaking Down the “Contradiction”

The main question that must be confronted is somewhat abstract. It asks “is it a contradiction to say that God is good, while acknowledging based upon the Biblical account that God ordered the destruction of the Amalekites?” To answer this question requires an examination of two other questions: (1) what is a “contradiction” and (2) is it impossible to understand the destruction of the Amalekites as a “good”?

Contradictions are very specific things. A contradiction is different from an inconsistency. A contradiction denotes that if you have two propositions (propositions “A!” and “B!”), then it is not possible that both A! and B! are true at the same time and in the same way. In other words, if there is any possible way to read the two propositions consistently, then they are not contradictory.

This is not an understanding of “contradiction” that is fashioned to defend Christianity. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle defined “contradiction” in a similar fashion.

“Aristotle defined contradictions in his work On Interpretation noting that for every affirmation there corresponds exactly one denial such that that denial denies exactly what that affirmation affirms. The pair consisting of an affirmation and its corresponding denial is a contradiction (antiphasis). In general, Aristotle holds, exactly one member of any contradiction is true and one false: they cannot both be true, and they cannot both be false.” (Emphasis in the original.)

Smith, Robin, "Aristotle's Logic", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/aristotle-logic/.

Contradictions are not easy to come by. Any conceivable answer which shows that two claims are possibly consistent overcomes the assertion that the pair are contradictory.

“When someone claims

40) Situation x is impossible

what is the least that you would have to prove in order to show that (40) is false? If you could point to an actual instance of the type of situation in question, that would certainly prove that (40) is false. But you don’t even need to trouble yourself with finding an actual x. All you need is a possible x. The claim

41) Situation x is possible

is the contradictory of (40). The two claims are logical opposites. If one is true, the other is false; if one is false, the other is true. If you can show that x is merely possible, you will have refuted (40).

”How would you go about finding a logically possible x? Philosophers claim that you only need to use your imagination. If you can conceive of a state of affairs without there being anything contradictory about what you’re imagining, then that state of affairs must be possible. In a word, conceivability is your guide to possibility. (Emphasis added.)”

James R. Beebe, “The Logical Problem of Evil”, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Thus, the person who attacks the Biblical account on the basis that it creates a contradiction has a heavy burden indeed. Such a person cannot assert that it is a contradiction and then refuse to consider possible resolutions of the contradiction on the basis that it is not consistent with their reading. They have to approach the contradiction by saying "if these teachings are possibly correct, will they overcome the contradiction?" Any reading of the text that can possibly resolve the contradiction will overcome the objection.

The Heart of the Matter—Is it Possible that the Destruction Constituted a “Good”?

So, is it necessarily a contradiction to say that God could be good, a God of love who wants the best for all people, and at the same time to say that God is a God who orders the annihilation of a particular group of people?

Looking back on the presuppositions, we see that God loves all mankind. God does not desire that any should perish. Yet, God is most concerned with ultimate results. He is ultimately concerned not with whether a particular person is saved, but with whether humanity as a whole is given the possibility of salvation. With this background, it is time to turn to the actual Biblical account in its proper context.

A. The Evil Amalekite People

Exactly what types of people were the Amalekites? Deuteronomy, one of the first five books of the Bible which is largely believed to have been written centuries before 1 Samuel, describes the Amalekites in rather unflattering language. Deut 25:17-19:

“Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way when you were leaving Egypt, that he happened upon you on the way, and he struck those of you who were hindmost, all the weaklings at your rear, when you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear God. It shall be that when the Lord, your God, gives you rest from all your enemies all around, in the Land that the Lord, your God, gives you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under heaven – you shall not forget!” (Emphasis added.)

The Jewish Encyclopedia (JewishEncyclopedia.com) describes the Amalekites as follows:

A kinsman of the Israelites, Amalek nevertheless displayed the most intense hatred toward them: he inherited Esau's hostility to his brother Jacob. When other nations hesitated to harm God's chosen ones, his evil example induced them to join him in the fray. "Like a robber he waylaid Israel"; "like a swarm of locusts"; "like a leech eager for blood"; "like a fly looking for sores to feed on"; Amalek ('am laḳ = the people which licketh) hurried over hundreds of miles to intercept Israel's march:(Tan. Ki Teẓe, ix., and Pesiḳ. iii. 26b)

Likewise, the Jewish Virtual Library makes these points about the Amalekites:

This nomadic nation was, in ancient times, Israel's eternal foe. Shortly after the Israelites left Egypt and were wondering the desert, the Amalekites attacked the weary nation, slaughtering the weak and elderly. The Israelites, under the leadership of Joshua, later avenged the attack and defeated the Amalekites, but failed to completely eradicate the nation. Israel was then plagued with raids Amalekite raids. Today, the name Amalek is a symbol for evil and hatred against Jews, and Haman, the Persian leader who vowed to destroy all Jews, is considered a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalekites.

The commentary of the Whole Bible authored by Jamison, Faucett and Brown echoes the fact that the Amalekites were ruthless and hateful people:

[The Amalekites were a] powerful tribe which inhabited the country immediately to the eastward of the northern Cushites. Their territory extended over the whole of the eastern portion of the desert of Sinai to Rephidim--the earliest opponent ( Deu 25:18 Exd 17:8-16 ) --the hereditary and restless enemy of Israel ( Num 14:45 Jdg 3:13 6:3 ), and who had not repented ( 1Sa 14:48 ) of their bitter and sleepless hatred during the five hundred years that had elapsed since their doom was pronounced. Being a people of nomadic habits, they were as plundering and dangerous as the Bedouin Arabs, particularly to the southern tribes.

The sources are consistent in their view of the Amalekites as an exceptionally wicked people. The verses from Deuteronomy point to their treachery (accord, Exod 17:8-16). They are seen as the embodiment of evil and hatred towards the Jews which were God’s chosen people. While Israel was to make justice and brotherly love—-even to strangers-—its guiding rule (see, e.g., Leviticus 19:34), the Israelites were commanded to not forget that Amalek had perpetrated a cowardly and unprovoked attack on the feeble and hindmost, when the Israelites were marching from Egypt.

Amalek’s enmity against Israel stems not only from its legacy as Esau’s grandson (Jewish Encyclopedia, supra), but from what it represents. Amalek was the first among nations (Num 24:20), i.e., the leading force of evil. Consequently, the struggle between Israel and Amalek can be seen as a heavenly metaphor played out in real life for the eternal struggle of good versus evil.

The Israelites were God’s chosen people. It was through them that Christ was to enter into the world. The Amalekites, the forces of Mordor (so to speak), were seeking to eliminate the Israelites and God’s plan of salvation. The manner in which they acted was very much as a terrorist might approach the task-—picking on the poor and weak with cowardly attacks. They needed to be eliminated so that God’s plan of salvation could proceed. God chose His people which were His agent for the ultimate “good” of the Christ to act as His hand of judgment upon the Amalekites, and ordered their absolute annihilation.

Moreover, the eradication of the Amalekites was not a “sudden” turn where God ordered the attack on a nation that had had nothing to do with the nation of Israel for 400 years.

“The command for exterminating them, with which 1 Samuel 15 opens (1 Sam 15:2-3), may have been given as a consequence of their raids having become more sanguinary under their then king Agag (1 Sam 15:33). It was clear to Samuel that the struggle with these ancient and ever-hostile opponents was a matter of life and death to Israel. According to the Talmud, the Torah commands Israel to do three things after completing the conquest of the Holy Land: to appoint a king, to eradicate Amalek, and to build the Temple. Hence, Samuel introduced this command to battle Amalek by telling Saul that, since he had been anointed as king, Amalek – the leading force of evil in the world – was to be wiped out entirely.”

Source: Unknown.

Amalek was a constant and belligerent predatory tribe of nomads that was quite capable of raids at a distance from its usual home.

“Joshua already encountered Amalek early in the game, as we are told in Exod 17:9-10,13. Then we find during the era of Judges, the 400+ years that spanned from Joshua to Samuel, the following references to “troubles” with Amalek: Judges 3:13, 6:3,33, and 7:12. In 1 Sam 14:48, Amalek is referred to as Israel’s ‘oppressor’, which could be interpreted in the continuous ‘pain in the butt’ vein. We also see that this problem didn’t end with Saul’s victory over Amalek, since he didn’t ‘wipe them out’. King David had to fight them (1 Sam 30:1) as well as King Hezekiah (1 Chron. 4:43).”

Source: Unknown.

Since the Amalekites were one of the instrumentalities of Satan, God knew not only what they had done, but what they would do if allowed to continue. God, in love for the greatest number of people, and recognizing these particular individuals in Amalek (all of whom have finite value as individuals) as totally depraved and unregenerate under any circumstances, decides to cut off this problem by having the Israelites—-as his instrument for good—-wipe them out totally. This destruction, when viewed out of context, certainly appears to show that God is being mean-spirited, even evil. But in fact, it was required to save the largest number of people while causing the death of some people who were evil themselves.

B. God’s Reluctance to Punish the Unjust

God does not take the destruction of people lightly. As demonstrated early in Genesis when God personally smote (because His chosen people had yet to develop into the nation that could act on his behalf) the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he showed his desire to spare a group of people even if there are a very small number of people who can be seen as “righteous.”

Abraham came near and said, "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”

So the LORD said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account."

* * *

Then he said, "Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?" And He said, "I will not destroy it on account of the ten."

Genesis 18:23-26, 32.

These verses reflect the absolute absence of righteousness in the societies of Sodom and Gomorrah. God does not punish unjustly, and refrains from meting out punishment when the righteous may be slain with the unrighteous. Bible Commentator Matthew Henry points out:

“God’s general good-will appears in this, that he consented to spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous. See how swift God is to show mercy; he even seeks a reason for it. See what great blessings good people are to any place, and how little those befriend themselves that hate and persecute them.”

Matthew Henry Commentary on Genesis 18, available through The Blue Letter Bible (http://www.blueletterbible.org/).

Moreover, while the 1 Samuel account does not specifically describe the events leading to battle, the OT shows that God gave the wicked peoples of the OT world an opportunity to turn from their wicked ways and surrender to God’s people before any attack. As shown consistently in the OT, and as highlighted in the account of Jonah, when God has decided to punish a culture, he sends them advance notice. He will send prophets telling them what He is about to do, and asking them to repent. Jonah went to Nineveh to tell the people of that city that God was to destroy them. They listened and repented and God did not destroy them. Thus, it is a good probability that the Amalekites had plenty of notice of what would happen if they continued in their rebellious and evil ways.

Also, under the rules of war that the Israelites operated, they gave the Amalekites every opportunity to surrender prior to the actual attack. And it is almost certain that few women or children were left behind. As noted by Norman Geisler:

“[M]ost of the women and children would have fled in advance before the actual fighting began, leaving behind the warriors to face the Israelites. The fighters who remained would have been the most hardened, the ones who stubbornly refused to leave, the carriers of the corrupt culture. So it’s really questionable how many women and children might actually have been involved anyway.

“Besides, under the rules of conduct God had given to the Israelites, whenever they went into an enemy city they were to first make the people an offer of peace. [Deut. 20:10:10-13] The people had a choice: they could accept that offer, in which case they wouldn’t be killed, or they could reject the offer at their own peril. That’s appropriate and fair.”

Thus, contrary to the assertion of skeptics such as Till, the destruction of the Amalekites was not an evil. It was the Amalekites who were evil, and it was the judgment of God through the Israelites on the Amalekites that led to their destruction. We can be confident that the people destroyed were irredeemably wicked and unrighteous. We can be confident that there were no righteous people among those destroyed. We can be confident that God sent them prior notice of their destruction, and that he gave them opportunity to repent and surrender even up to the date of the actual battle. The destruction that fell upon them was the result of their absolute and utter unrepentant evil, and their decision to continuously attack and attempt to annihilate the chosen people of God.

Some Objections

A. What About the Babies?

One of the first objections is “what about the babies? How can they be seen as having made any decision?” As stated by Till:

“My position, which is the position that any humanitarian would take in the matter, is that such an event as this must be considered a moral atrocity. The American Heritage Dictionary defines moral as that which is ‘concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character; pertaining to the discernment of good and evil.’ It defines atrocity as an "atrocious condition, quality, or behavior; monstrousness; vileness.’ Atrocious is defined as ‘extremely evil or cruel; monstrous; exceptionally bad.’ What degree of judgment is required for one to determine that killing defenseless babies is ‘bad’?”

Till, Was the Amalekite Massacre a Moral Atrocity?, supra.

As a preliminary matter, it should be noted that Till appeals to morality for his position. But the moral argument for the existence of God makes a very strong case that there can be no absolute morality without the existence of a moral lawgiver. Without an absolute standard, all Till can actually say is "I don't like this." And without an absolute moral law-giver, there is strong reason to believe that there is no basis for absolute moral standards.

Looking again at Till's question, I acknowledge that if one approaches this problem from the perspective of the limited knowledge that people can havethis is a very difficult problem. How can God order the killing of a baby who, for all humanly discernible purposes, has done nothing that would make them deserving of such an early death? However, when one approaches this question from the perspective of God’s knowledge, the answer is not that difficult.

If God knows us from our mother’s womb, and he knows not only everything we have done (not much in the case of an infant), everything we will do (not much in the case of an infant who dies in infancy), and everything we may do in any possible world (God’s middle knowledge), the paradigm changes. God’s knowledge allows Him to know as clearly as if that infant had lived in all possible circumstances whether that infant would grow up wicked or not.

Not long ago, Steven Spielberg directed a movie entitled Minority Report in which three psychics predicted crime in advance and allowed the police to catch a criminal, e.g., a murderer, before he or she committed the crime. The lead character, a police detective played by Tom Cruise responsible for tracking down these criminals before they acted based upon the clues given by the psychics, was himself accused of murder in advance of having committed the crime, and the movie is about how this detective determines that the system isn’t perfect. The psychics, it turns out, can only see what might happen, but the future was not predetermined and people could choose not to commit the crime foreseen.

So, presuming that there were infants who died in the attack on the Amalekites, whether it be one or one million is irrelevant, these infants were not innocent bystanders who were killed by the brutal God of the Israelites. They were not innocent at all. Rather, they were judged as unredeemably evil just as surely as if they had lived their lives to be 120 years of age. Thus, God could judge them along with the rest of the Amalekite culture and submit them to the same punishment.

B. Would You Kill A Baby If God Told You To?

Till’s article is fascinating in its argumentative style. He starts off by defining the slaughter of the Amalekites as an atrocity as quoted in the immediately preceding section. The remainder of his essay is almost pure rhetoric. He attempts to shock us by trying to describe what the attacks were like and asks whether Biblical inerrantists “think that Amalekite children and babies somehow didn't bleed when spears were thrust through them or feel pain when they were hacked with swords?” (Ibid.) He then asks what he apparently views to be the killer question:

“To cut right to the heart of the matter, I am going to ask [the Biblical Inerrantist to whom the article is directed] a question that will let us know just how sincere his belief in the moral rightness of the Amalekite massacre really is. I will state it in the form of a true or false question:

“If I . . . had been born an Israelite in the time of King Saul, I would have willingly and gladly participated in the Amalekite campaign by killing women, pregnant women, children, infants, the elderly, the sick, and the feeble.”

Ibid.

This question is irrelevant. It is designed to inflame passion without informing or making a point. To wit, what I or any other person would do in such circumstances does not say anything about the rightness or wrongness of the action by God. Neither I, nor any other Christian, is omnipotent. Neither I, nor any other 21st Century Christian, would “willingly and gladly” participate in killing anyone. But my willingness to act is not the question.

I could put the question in a different light by rephrasing it as follows: “If I . . . had been born an American in the time of World War II, I would have willingly and gladly dropped the atomic bomb on two Japanese cities knowing that it would be killing women, pregnant women, children, infants, the elderly, the sick, and the feeble." Now, many people would say they would not do it. Many others would say that they would. But it really isn't relevant whether we would willingly participate in the action. Rather, it is more important to ask whether the act was ultimately good or bad taking into account the state of the world. Many people, acting on much less perfect knowledge that God is professed to have, would stand proudly today and say that it was right and good, and that if the decision should be made again, we should still drop the bombs. Thus, we look to right and wrong to decide whether this action should occur; not to how we would feel if we were the ones committing the action.

Likewise, I know in my heart that it is my moral duty that I should be willing to go to the worst parts of the world (even the worst parts of town and in the prisons) to personally help care for the sick, the criminal, the poor, etc. I personally have done some of these things, but I would not say I did them either “willingly or gladly.” Does the fact that I have reservations, even a strong dislike, about doing certain good deeds for my fellow humans (activities consistent with the moral will of God) make the act of helping the poorest and most criminal among us evil? Of course not. Till is simply using a rhetorical device to try to obfuscate the real issue: was it right? How I would have personally felt about it if I had been an Israelite is not relevant.

Freely admitting that I would not want to personally kill and infant any more than I would personally want to be the one who dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I acknowledge that when God calls, if He is God, we should be jumping. Not because of "might makes right", but because God has asked you to do something and out of love and in trust that He knows what is ultimately good, we ought to do it. The Jews did. They understood from experience that Samuel spoke for God (see, e.g., 1 Samuel 7), and if Samuel said "God says", then they should respond or they would be being disobedient to God--the same action which caused the fall of man in the first place.

But be careful: Would God call on a Christian today to do the same thing as He called on the Amalekites? I can confidently say "absolutely not". The destruction of Amalek occurred in OT times--a unique time heading towards the birth of Jesus. Until that time, God did what God did to make certain that Jesus was born at the time and place provided so that the most people could be saved. Once Jesus was born and died on the cross, the rules changed. God has not changed, but a new part of His plan became effective. It was that "we are to love our neighbors as ourselves." There is no longer a need to wipe out any person or persons or tribes because they can no longer, in any way, interfere with God's plan of salvation. The work on the cross is complete and nothing else on this earth will occur that can thwart this plan.

Conclusion

From the Christian viewpoint, the struggle represented by the enmity between Israel and the Amalekites was not simply a metaphor–-for Israel was to serve as the root through which the salvation of the world would grow. God had a plan which would result in the most good possible in this broken and degenerate world. It involved Jesus. But as part of the plan, God knew that Jesus would have to come into this world at a particular point in history, but that until that time, the devil would seek to destroy the Jews in order to stop that plan of salvation. Satan used the Amalekites as his prime weapon to achieve this goal, and God used his chosen people to stop Satan’s plans.

God did not act irresponsibly or evilly. He waited more than 400 years between the dates of the original attacks and the date that He, through Saul and Samuel, had the Israelites act as His instrument in destroying the Amalekite culture. And as the result of God’s mercy, his warnings, and his opportunities, we can confidently modify the statement so often seen at the end of films: “No righteous or redeemable people were injured in the destruction of the Amalekites.”

Now, I know that the skeptic will try to shred this for a number of reasons, but think about this: is there really any flaw to what I am saying in light of the Biblical teaching? The skeptic may not agree. The skeptic may argue that God could have devised a better plan. The skeptic may argue that God should have “taken them out” without killing them. But those objections do not change the point that what I am proposing as a solution which takes into account God's immutable character and God's love throughout the Bible while allowing the "genocide" of the Amalekites.

©2003 William J. Kesatie