Good question...shouldn't the butchering of the Amalekite
children be
considered war crimes?
[Modified: Oct/2000; May 2001; added a tiny
comment on 'euthanasia by humans' May 2002]
I
received a thoughtful and impassioned response to my piece on "How could a God of love order the annihilation of
the
Canaanites"...It went into more detail in one of the more
emotionally
difficult areas of that piece--the consequences on the Amalekite
children--and
deserved to be considered carefully. This issue is and should be
a
stomach-churning one for all sensitive hearts (especially Christians),
and this
piece will have to proceed soberly and humbly through the many
complexities
involved herein.
Unfortunately, the
person who sent the response in was NOT in fact the author, but had
simply
forwarded SOMEONE ELSE’s piece to me! When the actual author found out
about
it, he requested me to remove his material from my web site. It has
taken me
this long to rewrite and reorganize the material to honor his request.
With
that in mind, let's look at the statements and questions:
Does the bible actually
portray God as “infinitely merciful
and just” and at the same time as a genocidal deity, contradicting
itself at a
deep, moral level?
Although
this is not the heart of the writer's argument, let me note first:
1.
The portrayal of the biblical god is not actually
'infinitely merciful and just deity' as if these were axes on a graph,
but
rather that God delights more in mercy than in judgment. His 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?!" It was part of
the
task of the previous piece to demonstrate that the invention in THIS
case was
not unjustified, although quite unique.
2.
And, as for God being a 'genocidal
deity', the biblical events described do not seem to match what
we think
of by that term today. Even in the little section on the Amalekites,
the
description of the situation doesn't even come close to what we
consider 'genocide'
today. Most (but not all) things considered genocide today involve
groups
internal to the country in question, and they
were either
killed outright by their own government (sometimes
slowly through
torture and abuse) or deported to a place of sure-to-kill-them
environment.
Academic definitions of genocide exclude combat deaths and
noncombatants that
die as a by-product of military action. It generally denotes the
deliberate
killing of someone solely because of their indelible group membership
(indelible is the term used for race, ethnicity, nationality etc.--that
characteristics that are 'indelible'). [For one of the major
authorities on
this subject, see the work of R.J. Rummel at www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel.]
Consider
some of the better-known cases:
1.
The government of the
Ottoman Empire deported two-thirds or more
of its estimated 1-1.8M Armenian citizens during WWI. They were forced
into the
deserts of present-day Syria, and most died due slowly to starvation
and
dehydration. This was an internal group that was forced out of
the
country into the desert to die.
2.
The Nazi genocidal actions
against the Jews, the Roma, etc. were also
initially targeted at internal people.
3.
During WW2, the government
of Croatia killed an estimated 200-350K of
its internal Serbian citizens.
4.
Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime
in Cambodia killed 31% of its own
population, approx 2 million people (although some of this would be
considered 'democide' and based on 'delible' characteristics such as
political
alignment, instead of 'genocide' proper).
5.
In Rwanda, between 500k-1M
of the Tutsi ethnic group (all internal)
were killed by the Hutu ethnic group (fighting had been going on
between them
for some time).
Notice
how extremely different these are from
the case of the Amalekites:
1.
They are NOT an internal
group
2.
They are NOT a minority group
3.
Amalekites are NOT targeted
because of their Amalekite-ness (since they
were welcome as immigrants in Israel)
4.
They are never under the
government control of Israel.
5.
They are not pursed and
hunted in other countries for extermination.
Some
scholars identify 4 types of genocide (Frank
Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, cited by Helen Fein, in Encarta s.v.
"Genocide"):
1.
Ideological--where social homogeneity is sought, through 'ethnic
cleansing' of
internal 'pollutants'. This would include examples of the Nazi
Holocaust,
Armenian massacres, and the Cambodian purges. The Amalekite battle has
no
similarities to this, since these people were not internal 'dirt' that
needed
cleaning from within Israel. [In fact, the internal Amalekites were not
affected at all, apparently. They are certainly not mentioned/singled
out, like
a genocidal propagandistic document would do.]
2.
Retributive--is "undertaken to eliminate a real or potential threat",
but
again, these are "most likely to occur when one group dominates another
group and fears its rebellion or when the other group actually rebels."
The example given is that of the Hutu/Tutsi conflict in Rwanda. Again,
this
would not fit our case, since the Amalekites are NOT a part of Israel,
or even
under its control--for a 'rebellion' to be feared. The Amalekites had
always
been the aggressors against Israel, and Israel finally responded to
this
history.
3.
Developmental is where genocide is undertaken for economic gain. The case
in Paraguay
in the 60's-70's where they deported/killed an estimated half of the
native
Indian population, to allow for the expansion of logging and
cattle-raising
enterprises in the nation's interior, would be an example. This doesn't
fit our
case either--the desert was not a lucrative resource at all, the puny
belongings of the nomadic Amalekites (apart from their plunder of other
peoples, of course) would not justify such a military action, and the
Israelites were forbidden to prosper off the 'booty' anyway!
4.
Despotic-- is intended to "spread terror among real or potential
enemies". Examples of this are Ugandan presidents Idi Amin and Milton
Obote, who killed hundreds of thousands of (internal) Ugandans who
opposed their
power. Again, this is internal power abuse, and not at all similar to
our case.
What
this means--although it would not bear on the
main ethical sensitivity here--is that it is historically
inaccurate to
label this military action as 'genocidal'. (This is still the case,
EVEN IF
one ONLY is talking about the killing of the families of the warriors.
There
are none of the defining elements of genocide--as the term is used by
experts--present in the accounts of this initiative.) Let's be clear on
this--I
am not exploring how to "justify a genocide", because in the first
place, it is NOT genocide. [Interestingly, the only case we
have in the
bible of something approaching genocide is in the book of Esther.
Haman, a
prominent official, develops a plot in which the internal people will
be
allowed to attack, kill, and plunder the internal Jews in the nation.
This is
very close to genocide, and it is quite ironic that Haman is called an
Agagite,
and said to be an Amalekite by Josephus in Ant. 11.209.]
3.
Philosophically speaking, we would
not actually be able to get all the way to "contradiction" with this
line of argument anyway. If we succeeded in the argument, we might get
to
"manic-depressive" or "schizoid" or "insane" or
"fickle", but "contradictory" doesn't fit well into
discussions of personal characteristics. My mother was angry at me,
compassionate toward me, intimidated by me, amused at me--all at the
same time
on MANY occasions in my adolescent years, but her existence is not
'contradictory' at all. The argument/discussion below develops a moral
judgment
on God's behavior as perceived negatively. This might render God
immoral, and
therefore inconsistent with His portrayed character, but it would not
yield
non-existence in that process very easily.
To actually create a
logical
contradiction here, we would have to prove that God (1) clearly did
something clearly unjust in this action, and as a consequence,
(2) we
could never find a reason no matter how long we thought about it,
that
would provide some justification for this action.
Just saying that it seems
"always unjust to kill a child" is not enough—we would
have to show that even the cases in normal human experience in
which someone
has to do this (e.g. the horrible, but all too frequent, situation
in which
a father is forced to decide in the labor room of a hospital between
the life
of his child OR the life of his wife...many/most bio-medical ethics
experts
will side with killing the child, to save the life of the mother/wife)
the
actions of the father would be "unjust" as well. For, if we even
allow ONE EXCEPTION to this "always unjust" statement, we open up the
possibility that whatever ethical principle allowed that
exception MIGHT
ALSO BE operative in other/this case, and we also open up the
possibility
that there may be other principles that would allow such an action
(e.g.
mercy killing--refugees that kill their own small children to keep them
from
being tortured, enslaved, mutilated, and/or then killed horribly by
their
tormentors).
What this means is
that an
individual’s personal moral intuitions, if they run counter to moral
intuitions
of other experts and peers, may need further analysis and
qualification,
before they could function plausibly in constructing a
logical
argument of God's non-existence.
In other words, the
argument that I
THINK someone might make about this might look like the following:
1.
The biblical God CANNOT commit any unjust act
(Authority:
theological tradition)
2.
God ordered the killing of children (Authority:
biblical text)
3.
The killing of children can never be a 'just' act,
regardless
of competing ethical demands in a given situation. (Authority:
someone’s
personal moral intuition)
4.
God, therefore , ordered an 'unjust act'.
(authority:
substitution of terms)
5.
The ordering of an 'unjust act' is itself an
'unjust act'
(authority: not sure--this is somewhat controversial in ethical theory,
but I
will grant it here for the purposes of illustration)
6.
The biblical God, therefore, committed an unjust
act.
(authority: substitution of terms)
7.
Therefore, the biblical God CAN commit an unjust
act.
(authority: from the actual to the possible)
And at this point we
would have a
clear logical contradiction between statement #1 and #7, and presumably
could
conclude that that God could not exist (since our concept of this God
contained
a 'hard contradiction').
But notice the
problem--the whole
thing stands or falls on the accuracy of the personal moral intuition
in Step
3. It there is no reason to believe it applies WITHOUT EXCEPTION, then
our
attempt at constructing a hard contradiction this way fails. I have
already
mentioned one case in which exceptional circumstances are generally
considered
by experts to apply (i.e., the labor room), and one other case that has
a high
degree of probability for being another (i.e., the refugee camp), and
there
might be more that could be advanced (some of which I will offer
below). This,
of course, puts the ball back in the individual’s
court to do one of two things: (1) show that these
exceptions do NOT hold--and that the father who chooses to terminate
the baby's
life, so that his wife doesn't die has committed a horrible,
unjustified, and
culpable crime at the level of deliberate murder; or (2)
show
that although there ARE legitimate exceptions, there could not be
any
valid exceptions that would be operative in our biblical case.
But in any event,
someone would
still have much, much work to do, to be able to even offer the
'it is a
contradiction' position as an argument. Without such
work, this
objection is simple assertion, unsubstantiated opinion (e.g, 'hunch'?),
or
emotional statement.
Now, let me hasten to
add that I am
NOT trying to get us to abandon that moral intuition at all!! Our moral
intuitions
are very, very important (IMO) for our personal and community life. Our
moral
intuitions form the basis of personal conscience and the basis for
intersubjectively "agreed on" community ethics (and consequent legal
codes and social mores). And, I am not suggesting that this particular
moral
intuition is "wrong" or inaccurate at all. Most of our moral
intuitions are "statistically reliable guides." In other words, they
apply in most 'normal' situations. And, I might add, this also applied
to the
biblical testament world: God was outraged at Egypt's
infanticide, at
Canaanite and Israelite child sacrifice, and at the abandonment of
unwanted
newborns in the desert by wandering nomadic tribes (cf. Ezek 16). This
is a
legitimate rule, and it is that fact that creates the tension for
morally
sensitive people in this passage.
What I AM SUGGESTING,
however, is
that it is not the only moral rule or moral consideration that
applies here
(and/or in the cases I mentioned above), and that before applying it so
absolutely
to this biblical case, someone may need to apply the same level of
skepticism
they have about historical documents to their own moral beliefs first.
Further
refinement of the implications of the moral insight and real analysis
of the situation (actual or hypothetical)
needs to be undertaken to see to what extent it applies to this
specific
case.
But
let's get into the meat of the issue…
What
was the timing of the events
surrounding the judgment of the Amalekites?
Here are
the timing elements:
-
Israel
escapes from Egypt--Amalek immediately attacks their weak and helpless.
-
Soon
thereafter, Amalek also makes a frontal attack on Israel, in spite of
the distance, and without provocation:
"The
Amalekites lived in the desert, south of Canaan around Kadesh (Gen
14:7),
otherwise known as the northern part of the Negev (Num 13:29; 14:25,
43).
Amalek was the son of Eliphaz (Esau's eldest boy) by a concubine named
Timna
(Gen 36:12) and became a "clan" or "chief" in the tribe of
Esau (Gen 36:15). Thus the Amalekites were distant cousins to the
Israelites. There is every possibility that they had known
about the
promise of the land of Canaan that had been given to Esau's twin
brother,
Jacob; therefore, they should not have felt any threat to their
interests in
the Negev had this promise been remembered and taken seriously.
After
all, the promise was to be a means of blessing Amalek along
with all
the other nations (Gen 12:3) if only they, like Abraham, would have
believed. Instead they "came" (wayyabo') and attacked Israel
at Rephidim--some distance south of the north-central district of the
Sinai
where they lived. [EBCOT, Ex 17]
Indeed,
given the travel path of Israel, there would have been no reason to
even
suspect that Israel would have tried to invade Palestine--this attack
was
altogether an act of aggression and attempted violation.
- At that point God
pronounces judgment on Amalek (including a prophetic allusion to
continued conflict from Amalek: "from generation to generation"),
to oppose them as a nation and to destroy them as a national entity
sometime in the future. This has the effect of 'expanding' the
original judicial charge from only the initial atrocity to one
including recurring patterns of atrocity ('from gen to gen') [we
will also see this in the discussion below on the 'walking in the sins
of the fathers'.]
- Israel
sins against God in Num 14, and so they are beaten by Amalek in a
presumptuous attack (note: the issue is not ethnic background!)
- Israel
wanders around for 40 years in the wilderness, while information about
the power of Israel's God permeates the Land.
-
As Israel
is about to enter the Land, God reminds them of the instruction to
destroy the Amalek nation.
- Also at
this time, Balaam the Mesopotamian prophet specifically prophesizes to
the King of Moab of the destruction of Amalek (Num 24.20). Moab and
Midian were closes allies of Amalek throughout biblical history, and
this prophesy would have been well known by the leadership of Amalek
before they started the next couple of centuries of oppression and
violence against Israel. [That Balaam was a famous prophet in this area
has been confirmed by archeology.]
- The
Amalekites undoubtedly saw the conquests of Joshua, but there is no
mention of them in the biblical record during this 10-25 year period.
- Then,
beginning with the period of the judges, Amalek continues
the behavior of their forefathers--oppressing and attacking
Israel for between 200 and 400 years (Judges 3,6,7, 10) and actually
even AFTER the 'annihilation' of the main group of Amalekites (1 Sam
30).
-
But--during
these same 200-400 years--Amalekites were welcomed into Israel as
immigrants! (See the discussion on 2 Sam 1 below). There was a
period of 'amnesty' and 'clemency' unparalleled in ancient history up
to this time. God gave the individuals within the
nation centuries to 'get out' (or maybe even time to
reform the nation; it is possible that this judgment
pronouncement was conditional without being stated so explicitly, as
was the case with Nineveh in Jonah 3.4 and as embedded in the general
principle of Jer 26.1-6 and Jer 18.7-8: "At
one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to
uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation
against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent
concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. ") As with the vast majority of the Canaanite population,
the sensible Amalekites would have migrated somewhere else. All that
would have been left at the time of Saul would have been a leadership
raised and steeped in anti-Israel violence and hatred. This is NOT some
innocent nation, protecting its homeland from an invading and greedy
people. This is the sins of the fathers being continued by
their children.
- It is only after 200-400 years of
opportunity and influences to change, and after 200-400 years of
continued (and actually escalating) violence against Israel (who had
not even been sanctioned or ordered to occupy Amalekite territory!),
that God decides to execute the judgment given earlier.
- The execution of the king
of the Amalekites by Samuel (in 1 Samuel 15) shows that the judgment on
the Amalekites was not SOLELY due to the ancient, initial savagery
against Israel, but also included PRESENT atrocities as well.
In fact, the initial atrocity is not mentioned at all in this judgment.
Then
Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.” Agag came to him
confidently,
thinking, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”
33 But
Samuel said,
“As
your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be
childless among
women.”
And Samuel put Agag to
death before the LORD at Gilgal.
Do
we
have any reason to believe that this “Israelite-version” of the history
is
reliable, and not just the ‘song of the conquering victors’, who have
violently
stolen the land from the innocent Amalekites and naturally leave such
‘crimes’
out of their literature?
Basically,
“yes”:
1.
The biblical texts never even estimate the number of
Amalekites, but they do point out that they don't actually "have
lands" that they\ Israelites traveled ("trespassed") through. The
Amalekites were not PART of Canaan (which would have had a million plus
folks)--they were a nomadic tribe of marauding bands, living in the
southern
Negev (desert region). The archeological data we have of sites in the
Negev
around the time of this event indicates a very sporadic
population--although
mostly in the mid-central Negev-- although widely spread out. We have
evidence
of about 50 'fortresses' at this time, ranging in diameter from 25-70
meters.
Isolated houses were scattered between the settlements, but we would be
hard
pressed to get a total population above 10,000 people. The large
numbers of
troops Saul mustered would have been due to (1) political needs to have
all the
tribes represented (a theme that pops up in other places in the OT);
and (2)
needs to cover the wide geographical area described, even though
sparsely
populated. The 'city of Amalek' was likely a cult center, not a
population
center per se. David had combat with them with only 600 men
later.
2.
As for the Israelite's "naturally leaving criminal
acts out of their own writings", anyone that reads
the
Old Testament history and prophetic writings attentively could see this
didn't
apply to them! The OT record is literally filled with their evil, esp.
of the
elites and religious authorities!
And, they never seem to have a problem describing how frequently
they
get defeated in battle, for the text is filled with those events too.
And the biblical writers don't have the slightest problem describing
situations
in which they doubted God, accused God of various un-god-like actions
(e.g. Habakkuk on how God
could use the evil Assyrians; the Psalmist on how God could avoid
rescuing the
innocent; how God could let evil exploiters prosper so long), and even
of
leaving bad-looking-things completely unexplained (e.g. the numbering
of
David's census, the breach against Uzzah). On the basis of the surface
features
of the text, we have NO warrant for believing that the text 'sugar
coated' the
story, or functioned as propaganda or justification (in comparison to
other ANE
documents of the time, especially).
3.
Our every record of Amalekites in other, incidental
passages (i.e., focused on other items or characters), support the view
of
their vicious culture:
·
They attacked the stragglers when Israel
first came out
of Egypt (As we pointed out in the other piece, they had to LEAVE HOME
and
travel a great distance to do this.)
·
They later attacked Israel AGAIN without
provocation
(Ex 17, coming all the way to the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula
at Rephidim!), but were defeated. [We would think a
smart
group of people would do what the Canaanites did and migrate, but they
didn't.]
·
They partnered with Eglon and attacked
Israel during
the time of the Judges (3.13)
·
They participated in a 'scorched earth'
policy toward
Israel ["Whenever the Israelites
planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other
eastern
peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined
the
crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel,
neither
sheep nor cattle nor donkeys .5 They came up with their livestock
and their
tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and
their
camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. (Jud 6.3)]
·
This plundering is referred to in Saul's
time: "He (Saul) fought valiantly and defeated the
Amalekites, delivering Israel from the hands of those who had
plundered them." (1 Sam 14.48)
·
Saul obviously DID
NOT exterminate the entire tribal group (which probably ranged far
south into
the Sinai area [REF:ABD, "Negev
(Iron Age)]), for they lived to
continue raiding and hauling families off for the slave trade ["David
and
his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had
raided (lit. "stripped") the Negev and Ziklag. They had
attacked Ziklag and burned it, 2 and had taken captive
the women
and all who were in it, both young and old. They killed none of
them, but
carried them off [lit. "drove them", as the cattle in v.20] as they
went on their way. 3 When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found
it
destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.
4 So
David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep.
(I
Sam 30.1)]
·
Even their treatment of their slaves looks
bad : [1 Sam
30.11: "They found an Egyptian in a
field and brought him to David. They gave him water to drink and food
to eat—12
part of a cake of pressed figs and two cakes of raisins. He ate and was
revived, for he had not eaten any food or drunk any water for three
days and
three nights. 13 David asked him, “To whom do you belong, and where
do you
come from?” He said, “I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My
master
abandoned me when I became ill three days ago.]
4.
Although we have no extrabiblical records
of these people at all, this 'cultural profile' of marauding bands and
slave-traders is common in the ANE. Nomadic and marauding bands
were
sources of constant terror to peoples in the ANE (indeed even up to
modern
times!) and the wider Asian geography. Look at some of the non-biblical
mentions and descriptions of the nomadic terror:
From ancient sources:
·
"[Gutians] not classed among people, not
reckoned
as part of the land...people who know no inhibitions...with
human
instinct but canine intelligence..." (The Curse of Agade)
cited
at [OT:DLAM:113]
·
"[Amorite] a tent dweller...who eats raw
meat...who has no house during the days of his life, and is not buried
on the
day of his death" (Myth of the Wedding of Amurru, cited at [OT:DLAM:113])
·
"Since that time the Amorites, a ravaging
people, with the instincts of a beast... like wolves;
a
people which does not know grain" (Inscription of Shu-Sin, cited
at
[OT:DLAM:114])
And scholars point
out that these
groups (and some of their near-modern descendants) LIVED by violent
exploitation of the sedentary population:
·
"Their "campsites were regarded as
threats"
[OT:DLAM:113]
·
"An age-old antagonism exists
between the settled
peoples, al- hadar, and the nomadic or pastoral tribes, known
as Bedouin
(al-badiyah), but many settled tribes also have nomadic
branches. In
Yemen, the fertile southwestern corner of Arabia containing more than
one-third
of its total population, the same antagonistic feelings exist
between
city dwellers and qabilis, arms-bearing tribes mostly settled
in
villages. Until after World War I the Bedouin of the northern
deserts were
able to keep the settled people in constant apprehension of their
raiding; the
tribes would even attack and plunder the pilgrim hajj caravans to the
Holy
Cities unless they were bought off or restrained by force. But
modern
weapons and airplanes, which can be used to search out tribesmen in
their
desert or mountain fastnesses, have altered the situation.
(Britannica, s.v. "Arabia")
·
"Raiding was the traditional means of
supplementing the deficiencies of life in the arid zone. The
Bedouin took
by force from the farmers what they lacked in foodstuffs, material
goods, and
even women and children. Successful leadership in raids could be a
most
effective means of developing reputation and power, a practice that to
this day
has not been completely curtailed.
(Britannica, s.v. "Asian Peoples and Cultures, Traditional
Culture
Patterns, Bedouin". Notice that they were even PROUD of
"treachery leadership"!)
·
"At its highest degree of development,
Central
Asian nomad society constituted a very sophisticated and highly
specialized
social and economic structure, advanced but also highly vulnerable
because of
its specialization and the lack of diversification of its economy.
Geared
almost entirely to the production of war matériel--i.e., the
horse--when not
engaged in warfare, it was unable to provide the people with
anything but
the barest necessities of life. To ensure their very existence,
Central
Asian empires had to wage war and obtain through raids or tribute
the
commodities they could not produce. When, owing to circumstances
such as
severe weather decimating the horse herds or inept leadership, raids
against
other peoples became impossible, the typical Central Asian nomad
state
had to disintegrate to allow its population to fend for itself and
secure the
necessities for a subsistence. Hunting and pastoral nomadism both
needed
vast expanses to support a thinly scattered population that did not
naturally
lend itself to strong, centralized political control. The skill of a
Central
Asian leader consisted precisely in the gathering of such dispersed
populations
and in providing for them on a level higher than they had been
accustomed to. There
was but one way to achieve this:
successful raids on other, preferably richer, peoples. The military
machinery was dependent on numbers, which then precluded
self-sufficiency. In
case of prolonged military reverses, the nomadic aggregation of
warriors had to
disband because it was only in dispersion that they could be
economically
autonomous without recourse to war.
(Britannica, s.v. Central Asia)
The nomadic groups in
antiquity
were known for their violence and war-making power, even affecting the
military
"heroes" of the past:
"The second of the
human
factors was the nomads who inhabited the immense territories beyond the
northern frontiers. They fought constantly with the settled
populations,
but could nevertheless occasionally ally with them in the face of
necessity.
When Alexander arrived on the banks of the Jaxartes River, it
marked the
limit of the "civilized" world; beyond stretched the Eurasian
wilderness. The Roman historian Quintus Curtius recounts Alexander's
meeting
with a delegation of Scythians who gave him a warning. They told him,
Just cross the Tanais
[properly
the Jaxartes] and you will see how far Scythia stretches. You will
never
conquer the Scythians. Our poverty makes us quicker than your army,
which bears
plunder from so many nations. Just when you think we are far away, then
will
you see us in your camp. We know how to pursue and how to flee with the
same
swiftness...We seek out those deserts totally devoid of human culture
rather
than the cities and the rich countryside.
"These words sum up
what the
nomad world represented to an empire that stretched several thousand
miles from
east to west. The non-nomad population knew the threat only too well.
Alexander
was not the first to cross swords with the nomads. Cyrus, founder
of the Achaemenid Empire, had paid with his life while fighting them;
and
Darius, believing he could take them from behind through southern
Russia,
suffered a crushing defeat in his campaign against the Scythians along
the
shores of the Black Sea. (Britannica, s.v. Iran)
5.
And the trend line of data points on 'accurate
portrayal' of biblical characters is very positive:
·
When the OT tells us that the Canaanites
practiced
child sacrifice, we have archeological data to support that
(i.e., this
wasn't just Israel misrepresenting the Canaanites).
·
When the OT speaks of the anti-Asiatic
attitudes of
Egyptians in antiquity, we have extra-biblical literary data to
support
that (i.e., this wasn't just Israel misrepresenting the ancient
Egyptians).
·
When the OT speaks of the arrogance of the
Assyrian
war-lords, we have several types of historical data to support
that
(i.e., this wasn't just Israel misrepresenting the ancient Assyrians).
Thus, the
"control data", the
non-biblical data that we do have (in related situations)supports
the
reliability of the Israelite portrayal of these people.
6.
And finally, Israel never actually trespassed on
Amalekite territory at all. It was not in the original land-grant at
all, and
even the path that Israel took on the east side of the Jordan would not
have
brought them into contact with Amalek at all.
In
summary, the only data we have--scattered throughout the biblical
record and in
many cases in incidental mentions--supports the view of the Amalekites
as being
a malicious and persistent oppressor and menace to Israel. And we don't
have
the traditional earmarks of a self-glorification or
political-justification
document (like many of the stelae of ancient rulers).
But
doesn’t this
event fit the anti-biblical pattern of “punishing the children for the
sins of
the parents”?
Criminal actions by
parents always affect the lives of their children, but in
modern
cultures we can shield the children from some of the
consequence. For
example, in the modern world, the families of prisoners do not go to
prison
with the man (or woman), because we have social institutions that can
provide
base level care for them--totally unlike the ancient world. Even
in
exceptionally socially-conscious civilizations (e.g. ancient Israel),
the
plight of the "widow and fatherless" was precarious enough; but in
extreme conditions (e.g. migration, warfare, famine, captivity), it was
impossible. But even in our world, the principle of "the families of
the
criminal suffer too" is very, very obvious. There are ministries and
social outreach services that specifically target the tormented world
of the
child of the convict. They live on, but the consequences of the
father's (or
mother's) destructive behavior takes its toll...
There
are two important points that need to be made clear here: (1) the
relationship
between "sins of the father" and the "sins of the
children"; and (2) the relationship between the sin of a
ruler/king/leader
and the sins of the people/followers.
Point
1: The "sins of the fathers" and the "sins
of the children":
In
the OT, when a descendant is punished for "the sins
of their fathers", it is normally referring to "sinning in
the same way and character as their fathers"--NOT punishment
for the
actual acts of the fathers.
The
biblical expression for this is "walking in the
sins (or ways)of their fathers". A couple of passages
will show this:
Now in
the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, Abijam became
king over
Judah. 2 He reigned three years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was
Maacah
the daughter of Abishalom. 3 And he walked in all the sins of his
father
which he had committed before him; and his heart was not wholly devoted
to the
Lord his God, like the heart of his father David. (I Kings 15)
Now
Nadab the son
of Jeroboam became king over Israel in the second year of Asa king of
Judah, and
he reigned over Israel two years. 26 And he did evil in the
sight
of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and in
his sin
which he made Israel sin.(I
Kings 15.25)
In
the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha the son of
Ahijah became king over all Israel at Tirzah, and reigned twenty-four
years. 34
And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and
walked in the
way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel sin. (I Kings 15.33)
Now
the word of the Lord came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha,
saying, 2
“Inasmuch as I exalted you from the dust and made you leader over My
people
Israel, and you have walked in the way of Jeroboam and have
made
My people Israel sin, provoking Me to anger with their sins(I Kings 16.1f)
Then
Omri and all Israel
with him went up from Gibbethon, and they besieged Tirzah. 18 And it
came
about, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the
citadel of
the king’s house and burned the king’s house over him with fire, and
died,
19 because of his sins which he sinned, doing evil in the sight of
the
Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which
he did,
making Israel sin. (I Kings 16.17)
And Omri
did evil
in the sight of the Lord, and acted more wickedly than all
who were
before him. 26 For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son
of
Nebat and in his sins which he made Israel sin, provoking the Lord
God of
Israel with their idols. (I Kings
16.25)
And Ahab
the son
of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who
were
before him. 31 And it came about, as though it had been a trivial thing
for
him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, (I Kings 16.30)
Ahaziah
the son of
Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of
Jehoshaphat
king of Judah, and he reigned two years over Israel. 52 And he did
evil
in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father
and in
the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of
Nebat, who
caused Israel to sin. 53 So he served Baal and worshiped him and
provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger according to all that his
father had
done. (I Kings 22.51ff)
What this
principle
shows is that a phrase "the sins of X" would generally
mean--when applied to a descendant of X--"sins just like X did".
Point
2: the relationship between the sin of a ruler/king
and the
sins of the people/followers
Closely
related to the above, is the principle of a nation
'following in the sins of their king'. Again, these would be sins "like
X" or even "caused/influenced/provoked by" X.
And the
Lord gave
Israel a deliverer, so that they escaped from under the hand of the
Arameans;
and the sons of Israel lived in their tents as formerly. 6 Nevertheless
they
did not turn away from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, with
which he
made Israel sin, but walked in them; and the Asherah also
remained
standing in Samaria. (2 Kings 13.5)
In
the twenty-third year of Joash the son of Ahaziah, king of Judah,
Jehoahaz the
son of Jehu became king over Israel at Samaria, and he reigned
seventeen years.
2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and followed the sins of
Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, with which he made Israel sin; he did not
turn
from them. 3 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, (2 Kings 13)
And the
sons of
Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did
not depart
from them, 23 until the Lord removed Israel from His sight, as He spoke
through
all His servants the prophets. (2
Kings 17.22)
This
would mean that
judgment ascribed to the "sins of king X" could easily mean
"sins LIKE king X" or "sins by the people instigated by king
X".
A
very detailed case of the interaction between the ruler/father and
follower/descendants can be seen in the final judgment on Judah. The
biblical
texts sometimes ascribe the judgment to "the (specific) sins of
Manasseh" and sometimes to "the sins of Judah" and sometimes
both. In all cases, though, the character of the sins are identical
(e.g. idolatrous religious practices including shedding of innocent
blood
through child sacrifice)--the "like X" principle. The principles
above show how this makes sense, in such a culture.
2
Kings
21:
Manasseh was twelve years old
when he became king,
and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was
Hephzibah. 2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the
nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel. 3
For he
rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he
erected
altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done,
and
worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. 4 And he built altars
in the
house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put
My
name.” 5 For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two
courts of
the house of the Lord. 6 And he made his son pass through the fire,
practiced
witchcraft and used divination, and dealt with mediums and
spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the
Lord
provoking Him to anger. 7 Then he set the carved image of
Asherah that
he had made, in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his
son
Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all
the
tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever. 8 “And I will not make
the feet
of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, if
only they
will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and
according
to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.” 9
But they did not listen, and Manasseh seduced
them
to do evil more than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the
sons of
Israel.
10 Now
the Lord spoke through His servants
the prophets, saying, 11 “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done
these
abominations, having done wickedly
more than all the Amorites did who were before him, and has also
made Judah
sin with his idols; 12 therefore thus says the Lord, the God
of
Israel, ‘Behold, I am bringing such calamity on Jerusalem and Judah,
that
whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle. 13 ‘And I will stretch
over
Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and
I will
wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside
down. 14
‘And I will abandon the remnant of My inheritance and deliver
them into
the hand of their enemies, and they shall become as plunder and spoil
to all
their enemies; 15 because they have done evil in My sight, and have been provoking Me to anger,
since the day their fathers came from Egypt, even to this day.’” 16
Moreover, Manasseh
shed very much innocent blood until he had filled Jerusalem from
one end to
another; besides his sin
with which he made Judah sin, in doing evil in the sight of
the
Lord. 17 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh and all that he did and
his sin
which he committed, are they not written in the Book of the
Chronicles of
the Kings of Judah? 18 And Manasseh slept with his fathers and was
buried in
the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza, and Amon his son
became
king in his place.
19 Amon
was
twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in
Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Meshullemeth the daughter of Haruz
of
Jotbah. 20 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, as
Manasseh his
father had done. 21 For he walked in all the way that his father had
walked,
and served the idols that his father had served and worshiped them. 22
So he
forsook the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way
of the
Lord.
2
Kings
23.26f:
However,
the Lord
did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath with which His
anger burned
against Judah, because of all the provocations with which
Manasseh
had provoked Him. 27 And the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also
from My
sight, as I have removed Israel. And I will cast off Jerusalem, this
city which
I have chosen, and the temple of which I said, ‘My name shall be
there.’”
2
Kings
24:
In
his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became
his
servant for three years; then he turned and rebelled against him. 2 And
the
Lord sent against him bands of Chaldeans, bands of Arameans, bands of
Moabites,
and bands of Ammonites. So He sent them against Judah to destroy it,
according
to the word of the Lord, which He had spoken through His servants the
prophets.
3 Surely at the command of the Lord it came upon Judah, to
remove them
from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that
he had
done, 4 and also for the innocent blood which he shed, for he
filled
Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the Lord would not forgive.
2
Chron 33:
Thus Manasseh
misled Judah and
the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the
Lord
destroyed before the sons of Israel. 10 And
the Lord spoke to Manasseh and his people,
but they paid no attention.
Jer
15
Then the Lord said to me, “Even though Moses
and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not be with this
people;
send them away from My presence and let them go! ... “And I shall make
them an
object of horror among all the kingdoms of the earth because of
Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, for what he did
in
Jerusalem...“Indeed, who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem, Or who
will mourn
for you, Or who will turn aside to ask about your welfare? 6 “You
who have
forsaken Me,” declares the Lord, “You keep going backward. So I
will
stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am tired of
relenting! 7
“And I will winnow them with a winnowing fork At the gates of the land;
I will
bereave them of children, I will destroy My people; They did
not repent
of their ways.
Now,
when we apply this understanding to the Amalekites, a similar theme can
be
detected in the biblical text. Some of the judgment passages focus on
the
initial (specific) cruelties of the original Amalekites, and some focus
on the
present day recapitulations of those cruelties--the "like X"
principle.
- So, the
"sins of X" data (i.e., founders' sin)would come from:
Deut
25.17:Remember what
Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, 18
how
he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at
your rear
when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God. 19 “Therefore
it shall
come about when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your
surrounding
enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an
inheritance to
possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you
must
not forget.
- And the "like the
sins of X" data can be seen in:
Also
when the
Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, you
cried out
to Me, and I delivered you from their hands. (Judg
10.10)
And he
(Saul)
acted valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, and delivered Israel from
the
hands of those who plundered them(I Sam
14.48)
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. 2 “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. (I Sam 15.1-2) [Notice: this is a
'posture'
statement, as opposed to just an 'event' statement--this "being set
against Israel" was ruthlessly maintained from generation to generation
of
Amalekite]
And he
sent you on
a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people,
the
Amalekites (1 Sam 17.15) [emphasis
on current wickedness, not past.]
What
emerges from this analysis is that any current culpability of warrior
Amalekites at the time of Saul was more an issue of "walking in the
sins
of their founders/fathers" than merely of some ancient event. [The fact
that Amalekites could be assimilated into Israel without execution(!)
points
out that it is the actual character/actions of an individual that made
the
difference back then. In other words, if the original cruel act of
Amalek was
the only criteria, then immigrants would be killed, not
accepted! ]
This general principle is the focus of Ezek 18, of course, and makes
this
explicit (even though Israel complains against God about this!):
"Yet
you (Israel) say, ‘Why should
the son not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity?’ When
the son
has practiced justice and righteousness, and has observed all My
statutes and
done them, he shall surely live. 20 “The person who sins will
die. The
son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor
will the
father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of
the
righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will
be upon
himself. 21 “But if
the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and
observes all
My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely
live; he
shall not die. 22 “All his transgressions which he has committed will
not be
remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has
practiced, he
will live. 23 “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,”
declares
the Lord God, “rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?
But
aren’t
individuals supposed to be punished for their OWN misdeeds ONLY, and
not the
misdeeds of others? (Deut 24:16, 2 Kings 14:1)
Absolutely,
but we need to not make the assumption that the killing of the
dependents was a punishment on them, as
opposed to
a consequence of the punishment on the fathers.
Morally, there is a huge difference.
To
illustrate how this works, consider the case of Rahab in Jericho.
Everybody in
the city knows to flee--they have known this a long time, and only the
unreasonable remain to fight (or the unable--the king may have forced
some to
remain in the city against their will, perhaps even Rahab). But the
passage
about Rahab's deliverance shows how the family connectedness
worked for
good or ill:
"Now
before they lay down, she
came up to them on the roof, 9 and said to the men, “I know
that
the Lord has given
you the
land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the
inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. 10 “For we have
heard
how the Lord dried
up the
water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what
you did to
the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and
Og, whom
you utterly destroyed. 11 “And when we heard it, our
hearts
melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you;
for
the Lord your God,
He is God
in heaven above and on earth beneath. 12 “Now therefore, please
swear
to me by the Lord,
since
I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly
with my
father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, 13 and spare my
father and
my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them,
and
deliver our lives from death.” 14 So the men said to her, “Our life for
yours
if you do not tell this business of ours; and it shall come about when
the Lord gives us
the land
that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”
"15
Then she let
them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city
wall, so
that she was living on the wall. 16 And she said to them, “Go to the
hill
country, lest the pursuers happen upon you, and hide yourselves there
for three
days, until the pursuers return. Then afterward you may go on your
way.” 17 And
the men said to her, “We shall be free from this oath
to you
which you have made us swear, 18 unless, when we come into the
land, you
tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you let us
down,
and gather to yourself into the house your father and your
mother and
your brothers and all your father’s household. 19 “And it shall come
about that
anyone who goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his
blood shall
be on his own head, and we shall be free; but
anyone
who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on
our head,
if a hand is laid on him. 20 “But if you tell this
business of ours, then we shall be free from the oath which you have
made us
swear.” 21 And she said, “According to your words, so be it.” So she
sent them
away, and they departed; and she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
In this
case, the sparing of the lives of the family of Rahab had nothing
to do
with their innocence. If they stayed in the house, their lives
would be
spared as a consequence of the (reverse) judgment on
Rahab, not as a (reverse) judgment on
themselves.
In this case, their being spared was ONLY a consequence of being
related to another (Rahab) and being in close enough relationship to
her to
listen to her pleas to stay inside.
This notion
of 'blood' as responsibility for someone's death leads us in an
important direction:
·
Execution of a criminal was "legally"
self-caused:
"Then
David said to him, “How is
it you were not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?”
15 And David called one of the young men and said, “Go, cut him down.”
So he
struck him and he died. 16 And David said to him, “Your blood is on
your
head, for your mouth has testified against you, saying,
‘I have
killed the Lord’s anointed.’” (2 Sam 1.14ff)
In
this situation, we have David (the new
king) telling a "young man" to execute the slayer of Saul. But the
responsibility for the death of the slayer is on himself--NOT
on David,
nor on the executor. In an accountability sense, the slayer is
responsible for
his own death--He "killed himself". [If this principle is applied to
the Amalekites, then they are responsible for their own deaths--even at
the
hands of Israelite soldiers.]
·
The "blood" principle also had a visible
component--the social recognition of responsibility for a
crime. In
the wanton killing of a military general, for example, we see that this
can
apply to descendants:
"And
the king said to him, “Do
as he has spoken and fall upon him and bury him, that you may remove
from me
and from my father’s house the blood which Joab shed without cause. 32
“And
the Lord will
return his
blood on his own head, because he fell upon two men more righteous and
better
than he and killed them with the sword, while my father David did not
know it:
Abner the son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa the
son of
Jether, commander of the army of Judah. 33 “So shall their blood
return on
the head of Joab and on the head of his descendants forever; but to
David
and his descendants and his house and his throne, may there be peace
from
the Lord forever.”
34 Then
Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell upon him and put him to
death, and
he was buried at his own house in the wilderness.(I Kings 2.31ff)
Notice
that only Joab was executed; his family only had to
deal with the shame and disgrace of Joab's crime. They were not guilty
per
se, but they were recipients of the consequences of
Joab's
guilt.
·
We have this even in a "pre-agreed upon"
condition of execution:
"Now
the king sent and called
for Shimei and said to him, “Build for yourself a house in Jerusalem
and live
there, and do not go out from there to any place. 37 “For it will
happen on
the day you go out and cross over the brook Kidron, you will know
for certain
that you shall surely die; your blood shall be on your own head.”
38
Shimei then said to the king, “The word is good. As my lord the
king has
said, so your servant will do.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days. (I Kings 2.36)
In
this case we have Solomon pre-announcing the conditions
under which Shimei would be executed, and Shimei agreed. In this case,
failure
to keep the agreement with the authorities was accepted by both parties
as a
legitimate reason for execution. Shimei agreed that "his blood" would
be upon his head, not Solomon's or the executioner. Again, he legally
'killed
himself' by going back on his agreement (itself a gracious concession
by the
royal family, by the way!).
·
Again, death as execution is NOT the
responsibility of
the judge or executioner--it is that of the criminal:
"Then
he may have a violent son
who sheds blood, and who does any of these things to a brother 11
(though he
himself did not do any of these things), that is, he even eats at the
mountain
shrines, and defiles his neighbor’s wife, 12 oppresses the poor and
needy,
commits robbery, does not restore a pledge, but lifts up his eyes to
the idols,
and commits abomination, 13 he lends money on interest and takes
increase; will he live? He will not live! He has committed all
these
abominations, he will surely be put to death; his blood will be on his
own head. (Ezek 18.10)
In
the above case, the person who oppresses
others will be put to death, but "his blood" will be upon his own
head. In other words, the death is NOT the responsibility of the judge
or
executioner.
·
This blood responsibility also shows up in
non-family
relations, in which one person could (probably) prevent the death of
another:
"The
word of the LORD came to
me:2 “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: ‘When I
bring the
sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their
men and
make him their watchman,3 and he sees the sword coming against the land
and
blows the trumpet to warn the people,4 then if anyone hears the trumpet
but
does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood
will be
on his own head.5 Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not
take
warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he
would
have saved himself.6 But if the watchman sees the sword coming
and does
not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes
the life
of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin,
but I
will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’ (Ezek 33.1ff)
Notice
how this would implicate the
father in the death of his family. If he knew to flee (perhaps from
other
encounters with Israel, or just in general from their reputation at the
time),
then his failure to do so would have brought the blood of his family
down upon
himself. It would have been HE who killed his family and himself,
regardless of
who was the actual executioner.
What
this basically means is that the father would have been
actually
responsible for the death of his family, by his continued hostile
actions
towards the Israelites. The children were not punished FOR
the
crimes of the father; rather, they were victims OF the
crimes of
the father.
A
striking illustration of this--and an additional indication that
'genocide' is
not the issue here--comes from incidental data in the passage from 2
Samuel 1
we noted above:
"Then
David
took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so also did all the men who
were
with him. 12 And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for
Saul and
his son Jonathan and for the people of the Lord and the house of
Israel, because they had fallen by the
sword. 13 And David said to the young man who told him, “Where are you
from?”
And he answered, “I am the son of an alien, an Amalekite.”
14 Then
David said to him, “How is it you were not afraid to stretch out your
hand to
destroy the Lord’s anointed?” 15 And David
called one of
the young men and said, “Go, cut him down.” So he struck him and he
died. 16
And David said to him, “Your blood is on your head, for your mouth has
testified against you, saying, ‘I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’”
Think
about the implications of this passage for a second:
- The young
man here is a child of an Amalekite immigrant to Israel
("an alien")
- Israel allowed
Amalekites to become part of the community, in the category of
resident-alien
- This child of an
Amalekite was likely a full-blooded Amalekite.
- This Amalekite was
trusted enough to serve in the army of Saul.
- Aliens were culturally
integrated well enough in Israel to be expected to know the rules about
killing those anointed of Yahweh
- This man was executed
by David, not for being an Amalekite, but just as another
Israelite would have been in the same way, for the same offense.
- Any other family
members of the young man's father (and extended family, probably) would
not have suffered any harm in the attack on Amalek--because their
father had the good sense to emigrate to Israel.
- David does not seem
shocked to find an Amalekite among the troops or resident in Israel,
and this would likely imply that others had emigrated as well. [The
"window" for Amalekites to migrate to Israel would have lasted
approximately 200-400 years after the pronunciation of the "destroy
them" edict in Ex 17!]
Here
is a family where the father's wisdom saved the lives of his
descendants--the
offspring were spared from the destruction not because of
their
"innocence" or their "guilt", but solely as a consequence
of the father's action.
To
net this out: the family members were not being punished for
the sins of
the father, but rather, suffered the consequences of the
father's
actions--for good or ill.
[This,
of course, is no different in principle today. The children of
substance
abusers don't often experience the material benefits of others (the
material
benefits are spent on alcohol or drugs). The children of physically
abusive
parents suffer bodily and psychological harm. The children of violent
criminals
often end up fatherless. They suffer the consequences of the parent's
sin, and
they are the victims solely of the parents.]
Pushback:
"Glenn, it seems to me you may have overstated the case for Amalekites
being accepted as emigrants into Israel. I find the young man in
2 Samuel 1 as the only example, and it doesn’t seem clear whether he
was a soldier under Saul, a POW set free accidentally in the confusion
of battle, or what. We do have the examples of Rahab and Ruth,
but of course they were not Amalekites. Do you have any further
example or clarification at this point?" ... See discussion of
this point at porous.html .
But
why couldn’t the
Israelites just ‘ignore’ the Amalekites?
Because the Amalekites wouldn’t ‘ignore’
Israel…and
responsible Israelite parents would need to do something to protect
their
lives…
The
Amalekites were a cruel, active, and hostile force, on Israel's
immediate
border. Israel was forbidden to attack other border kingdoms (by the
biblical
God), but Amalek had been actively oppressing Israel for at least 200+
years
(without provocation), beginning with their first week of freedom from
Egypt,
to the more recent slave-capture, pillage, and scorched-earth
aggressions in
the book of Judges. The only active suffering up to this point was BY
Amalek ON
Israel.
In spite
of all reason, Amalek continued to destroy land, people, crops, cattle,
and to
haul off people for sale as slaves in foreign markets--people who had
only now
gotten their first taste of freedom. This is not your normal 'angry
neighbor'--these are terrorists, these are slave-traders, these are
vandals,
these are unreasonable aggressors (unlike the Canaanites, who mostly
migrated
away; or the Jebusites, who resorted to deception).For Israel EVER to
enjoy a
moment's peace in the land of promise, Amalek must be rendered
non-hostile.
Without some kind of self-defense action on the part of Israel, Amalek
would
simply continue inflicting 'active suffering' on Israel's families,
their food,
their freedom. Something had to be done--somehow Amalek must be stopped.
How
could this be done? These were nomadic, desert peoples. If they had
been a
settled people like the Canaanites, you could simply drive them from
their
country and then occupy their cities, defending them if and when they
tried to
re-take the cities. But a nomadic people only built cities for
religious shrine
reasons, and were not there very frequently or very long. This tactic
would
simply not work.
With
nomadic tribes, you either (1) destroyed their leadership and warriors,
or (2)
you drove them out of the territory and built fortifications around the
edges
of the land (keeping a military force along the barrier). If you were a
fledgling nation yourself (i.e., pre-monarchy or nascent-monarchy
Israel), you
would not remotely have had adequate resources to build fortifications
and
provide a military force to guard some desert-line fortifications,
around a
territory that was not even given to you in the land-grant by God.
[This,
historically, has rarely been an option for smaller states, in
territories without
natural borders such as mountains, difficult rivers, etc..]
In the
face of unreasonable, consistent, and oppressive violence against your
family
and your kin, you are stuck with the imperative and responsibility for
serious
war. It is naive at best, and morally irresponsible at worst, to deny
this. To
defend one's family against unprovoked and destructive violence is a
fundamental moral obligation.
I hope
it is clear by now this was not some simple 'act of territorial
aggression' on
the part of Ancient Israel! This was a defensive (and exceptional)
military
campaign. There just were not many practical options as to how to do
this...
So, if the
Amalekite aggression virtually required the elimination of the
warrior-class,
what practical options for survival remained for the women/kids?
Well, if
this analysis is correct so far, we are faced clearly with the problem
I
pointed out earlier--the widows and fatherless kids, in the desert.
This is, as
pointed out above, a situation that the Amalekite warriors put their
families
in--NOT the Israelites per se.
So, what
options might Israel have had concerning the fatherless Amalekite
family,
once the warriors had been eliminated in battle?
There
are ONLY four options to consider:
1.
Take them back as slaves (or to be sold as slaves)
2. Take
them back and turn them over to social relief programs/processes
in Israel.
3.
Leave them there in the desert to their fate
4. Kill
them there in the desert
Option
1: Take them back as slaves (or to be sold as slaves).
This
was, of course, what some other nations would have
done. In fact, this is what many nations would have initiated the
conflict
for (see my discussion on OT Slavery for more documentation and
discussion
of this, and especially the horrors of being a foreign/POW female
slave). The
Amalekites alone would be an example of raids to produce slaves
for
re-sale in the slave trade:
"On of the most valuable
spoils of battle was the people. In the UR III period some tablets
recorded
long lists of women and children...Sometimes women and children were
included
as part of the general massacre, but usually they became slaves."
[OT:DLAM:236-7]
This
was (1) against God's strong anti-slavery theme for Israel, who
forbade them to make slaves, engage in slave-trade, or turn over
runaways, etc.
But more importantly, (2) it was practically impossible at
the time--the
country/people did not have resources to assimilate this many new
people, ALL
of whom would have needed to be fed and clothed at a difficult period
of
Israel's history (still at the height of Philistine warfare and
Transjordanian
aggression). At a practical level--as actual ancient "slave
societies" have taught us-- adult slaves generated by foreign wars
often
harbor revenge, and wait for that night in which they can kill you in
your
sleep. The effects on societies of these types of internal hostile
elements are
well-known. [Indeed, to some historians, this is why the Pharaoh
suppressed the
Israelites so abusively in Egypt at the end. There were major external
threats
at the time, and if a significant block of "unhappy insiders" sided
with the outsiders, then the nation would easily fall.] This is a
purely-practical consideration, but one that has to be considered in
understanding why this option was not open to the Israelite nation.
In an earlier time,
when Israel was
united, strong, and before the population decimation/fragmentation
under the
Judges, we do have a situation in which all
(32,000) female children were spared and brought into
Israel. In the conflict with Midian/Moab, all unmarried female children
were
spared, brought into the nation, and distributed throughout Israel.
Since the
normal age for marrying (and therefore, losing one's virginity) in the
ancient
world was around twelve, this would have given an average age of
5-6 years
for these girls. This would have made this group neither useful for
concubinage (or illicit sexual activity, as is often vulgarly
suggested, and
contraindicated by the practice of the normal Israelite family), nor
generally
even for 'servant work'. They would be only consumers of resources,
parenting,
and care for years and years, but since there were 24,000 adult
Israelite males
who died in the event, the resource consumption would have balanced
out. And
remember, the miracles of the wilderness stopped abruptly in a matter
of
weeks/months.
I might also point out
that God
very, very rarely uses the miraculous, never to solve systematic,
long-term
infrastructure problems like welfare. There was plenty of want, hunger,
thirst,
disease during the period of the Judges, but God didn't do any miracles
for His
own people. There were many such situations during the Monarchy, and
during the
life of the Patriarchs as well--but no miracles. When Jesus walked on
earth and
performed His selective miracles, there were multitudes of people who
were NOT
healed, who died "prematurely" (if this is a meaningful concept), who
were abused/exploited by the Romans. The ONLY large-scale or
population-wide
miracles I can think of were those forty years during the Wilderness
Wanderings--a mere blip in biblical history--and they were never
foreshadowed
during the famines of the Patriarchs nor repeated during the droughts
and
famines of Israel. Based on this pattern, it would be unwarranted to
assume
that God would have 'made manna appear' for these people IF HE REALLY
CARED
ABOUT THEM. The whole position of "If God really cared, He would
intervene
miraculously to stop a crime, keep Paul from being martyred, reduce
cheating on
tax forms, or raise everybody from
the dead whenever they were killed" is highly problematic, and is
subject
to a number of systemic flaws, not the least of which are related to
the
Problem of Evil [I have a number of discussions about this issue on the
Tank].
What this means for us is that 'appeal to miracle' as a reason to keep
this
'option 1' viable cannot be depended on. We are still stuck in the
ordinary
world, as God created it.
Unfortunately,
this was simply not an option in the
historical situation of the time. [In today's world, it sometimes is—as
in
refugee work--but it is unreasonable to expect them back then to be
able to do
something that absolutely could not be supported by the limited
infrastructure of the ancient and formative societies.]
Option
2: Take them back and turn them over to social relief
programs/processes in
Israel (or anywhere else, for that matter):
Similar
problem here: there were no social relief
programs/processes adequate to take care of this
many
dependent people. [Remember, most of these people would have been
nomadic
dependents (without agricultural or industrial skills) or minor
children
(consumers without the ability to contribute to their upkeep), at a
time before
the agricultural surpluses of Israel could support such a large group
of
resident aliens. As marauders, the Amalekites did amass some gold (1
Chr 18.11)
and livestock, but God forbade the Israelite soldiers to take this with
them as
spoils of war (probably so Israel would not get a 'taste' of raiding
other
nations for booty, and become like the Amalekites).
There were no
social relief,
welfare, or benevolent resources ANYWHERE in the ANE, even in the
"wealthiest" of nations. Even elderly care was a major issue, but not
addressed by the public sector. There simply was not enough resource
surplus or
infrastructure available to do this:
·
"In spite of the government's propaganda
concern
for widows and orphans, there was no systematic welfare system.
The
institution that dealt with the problem of young families bereft of a
father
and husband is called the a-r u-a, meaning 'dedicated.' Women and
children
were 'dedicated' by relatives who could no longer support them or by
themselves,
and they were employed especially in weaving and processing wool.
Because we
have several detailed records of such persons, we know that they
usually did
not live long after they had been dedicated, probably owing to the
wretched
conditions in which they lived and worked. ...Women weavers were
exploited
extensively at Lagas; their children no doubt died at a high rate: one
group of
679 women had only 103 children, though other groups had more. " [OT:LIANE:35]
·
"Ancient society has fewer elderly, it is
true,
but they existed nonetheless, and had to be supported along with many
children,
most of whom would not survive to adulthood." [OT:CEANE:2]
·
"While it is true, as Van Driel points out,
that
life in the ancient Near East was in general much shorter and death
much
quicker, even the few that survived into old age, or lingered on in a
slow
decline of physical and mental powers, would have placed a huge
burden on an
economy that knew more scarcity than surplus." [OT:CEANE:241]
·
"Care of the aged does not form a separate
category in the law codes; indeed, there is not a single law that
deals with
the subject directly." [OT:CEANE:241]
·
"Nonetheless, all the contributors stress
that the
role of the public sector was limited." [OT:CEANE:244)
Let's be VERY clear
about this. We
take these for granted and they simply did NOT exist in the ancient
world. This
was NOT in any sense an option for this situation.
Option
3: Leave them there in the desert to their fate
This,
of course, is simply another form of the death
sentence: a slower death through exposure, predatory animals (and
possibly
slave-traders), and dehydration.
To escape from a
military victor
was the same as escaping to a prolonged and agonizing death, in
the ANE:
·
"Battle casualties were the major cause of
death
among adult males. Those captured on military campaigns most probably
died of
exhaustion and maltreatment. Those who managed to escape from their
victors
died of exposure, hunger, and thirst." [OT:DLAM:146]
·
"Those who were able to flee from their
conquerors
often died of exposure, starvation, or thirst."
[OT:DLAM:237]
[You might remember
that being left
in the desert to die this way was the form of execution used in the
Ottoman
Empire genocide mentioned above: "They were forced into
the deserts of present-day Syria,
and most died due slowly to starvation and dehydration."]
This
situation is illustrated in the early story of Hagar
and Ishmael. They are sent away into the desert by Sarah/Abraham, and
death was
expected:
She
[Hagar] went on her way and wandered
in the desert of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she
put the
boy under one of the bushes.16 Then she went off and sat down nearby,
about a
bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.”
And as
she sat there nearby, she began to sob. (Gen 21.14ff)
Whether
this form of death (generally taking a week or
less) is any less horrible than death from a sword (with its terror,
but over
in minutes) will have to be left up to the reader. It is certainly not
obvious
to me that watching your loved ones die slowly and agonizingly is
preferable to seeing them die almost instantly.
And,
the possibility of staying alive but being captured by
slave traders is not much more attractive (if any). Frequently in
antiquity, people would commit suicide rather than become
foreign
slaves (whose lot was quite different from home-born
servants).
Whole groups of peoples would kill themselves when captured, to avoid
this
horrible fate. Bradley mentions some of the more vivid instances
[HI:SASR:44f]
·
Most of the Spanish tribe of the Cantabri
(22 BC)
killed themselves when enslaved by Rome, cutting their own throats,
drinking
poison, or setting fire to their huts and dying in the flames
·
The inhabitants of Xanthus (in Lycia)
undertook mass
suicide three times! (after being captured by Cyrus the Great,
Alexander the
Great, and M. Brutus)
·
400 Roman soldiers killed themselves at the
point of
capture by the Frisii (28 AD)
·
The Dacians killed themselves in preference
to being
enslaved by Trajan.
In
these cases, people obviously preferred a rapid death rather than
even life-in-slavery (much less slow-death-in-the-desert). Why would we
assume
the Amalekite women and children would feel differently--especially
in a
culture that dealt in slave trading and apparently abused its slaves
as
well [above].
Again,
this is not obviously preferable to a quick
death, and indeed, the data from suicide seems to indicate quite
the
opposite.
Option
4: Kill them there in the desert
- We do have
some data from antiquity that shows that people preferred quick
deaths over slow agonizing ones, and this data also comes from
suicide events.
"Men
condemned to participate in amphitheater events
[in the Roman empire] realized that their deaths would be agonizing and
painful. Some chose to commit suicide, and...spare themselves the
torment..." [HI:ATRD:349]
To
this, we might add the suicide of Saul in 1 Samuel 31,
in which he desires to die rather than be tortured ("abused"--cf.
Jdgs 19.25).
- And
we have already seen that people preferred quick deaths to
'normal' foreign slavery.
- In fact,
in antiquity, people preferred quick deaths (e.g., suicides)
over many adverse situations in which they were still alive.
Biblical
examples include Samson (instead of on-going
slavery and abuse by the Philistines), Abimelech (instead of dying in
disgrace), Ahithophel (instead of living on with a lower status), and
Zimri
(instead of facing political reprisal at the hands of his rival).
Extrabiblical
data supports this as well:
·
The Greeks and Romans practiced
suicide for
a number of reasons, and Stoicism was famous for its "endorsement" of
the issue.
·
From Philo: "In
Jewish literature of the Hellenistic and Roman periods pious Jews
are often portrayed as taking their lives voluntarily rather than
betray their
religious beliefs. For example, when in 39 or 40 A.D. the emperor Gaius
announced plans
to have a statue of himself erected in the Jerusalem temple, the
Jews
solemnly warned the Roman governor Petronius that, if this were carried
out,
they would first slaughter their women and children and then kill
themselves
“in contempt of a life which is not a life”" (Philo Gaium
236). [REF:ABD, s.v. "suicide"]
·
From Josephus:
"Although Josephus himself delivered a lengthy speech on the iniquity
of
suicide in the Jewish War (3 §362–82; but his own
neck was on
the line), in the same work he also praised the heroism of the
Jews at
Masada who mutually slaughtered themselves rather than fall into
the hands
of the Romans (7 §320–88)." [REF:ABD,
s.v.
"suicide"] (note: Masada was occupied by a force of less than 1,000
Jews, including women and children, and only two women and
five
children chose to hide rather than kill themselves in a quick death.]
·
From later
Rabbinic writers: "In later rabbinic literature there are numerous
stories of suicide, and this despite the usual claim by scholars that
the
rabbis opposed the practice. The Mishnah and Talmud contain accounts of
suicide
and martyrdom as well as discussions relating to the rules and
regulations
governing both. For example, b. Ketub. 103b relates that
when rabbi
Judah the Prince died a “voice from heaven” (bat
qôl) proclaimed
that all those present at his death would enjoy the life of the world
to come.
When a fuller, who had the misfortune of not calling on the rabbi that
day,
learned of this, he killed himself. Immediately, a bat
qôl announced
that he too would live in the world to come...A similar story in the
Mishnah
'Abot Zar(18a) concerns the martyrdom of Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion
during
the emperor Hadrian’s reign. The rabbi was wrapped in a Torah scroll
and set on
fire; but to ensure that he would suffer, water-soaked tufts of wool
were
placed upon his heart. His disciples therefore begged him to
breathe in
the fire in order to hasten an otherwise gruesome death. The rabbi,
however, refused, in words faintly reminiscent of the Phaedo: “Let
him
who gave [my soul] take it away, but no one should destroy
himself.” The
executioner then asked whether he would enter the world to come if he
helped
the rabbi die sooner. When he received an affirmative response, the
executioner removed the tufts of wool and the rabbi died. The
executioner then
threw himself upon the fire. Suddenly a bat qôl proclaimed
that
both the rabbi and the executioner had been admitted to
the
world to come."[REF:ABD, s.v.
"suicide"]
So,
if we except the reality of the lack of social infrastructure necessary
to support
such a group, this final alternative looks like the "least painful and
least dehumanizing" (judging from the data concerning suicide in the
ancient world). There is nothing laudatory about it, to be sure, but
the moral
difficulty was forced on the Israelites by the Amalekite warrior
aggression.
The fact that the destruction of the Amalekite warrior group was
required to
end the continual anti-Israelite savagery, forced the Israelites into
this
situation.
What this means is that the ancients disagree
with
moderns over what is “morally acceptable euthanasia”. The
ancients--from
the evidence of suicides--clearly believed that a sudden death was
preferable
to an anticipated life of future suffering (e.g., slavery), an
anticipated
death by starvation/thirst/exposure, or of torture (e.g., capture by
rival
rulers). Accordingly, this means that our modern intuitions about the
morality
of various types and ranges of euthanasia may need further analysis,
and that
although most forms of ancient euthanasia/suicide would have been
painful/violent (generally involving swords, not Socratic type
poison!), they
would not have been considered morally wrong. And since, there is no
explicit
censure given in the bible for the suicides mentioned, it would be
premature to
decide that ancient criteria for acceptable euthanasia were
‘less moral
than’ modern criteria. Even the case of 'anticipated'
sufferings are
sometimes allowed in the modern world, especially in wartime
situations. POW's,
for example, have been known to request death from other soldiers, to
avoid a
future of anticipated torture and death.
I remember vividly the first time I was confronted
with this
concept. It was back in high-school, pre-Christian period, as I glanced
at a
scene on TV. I wasn't watching the show at all, but was struck by the
image of
two heads sticking up out of level
ground. As I tuned in to the situation, I saw something that deeply
disturbed
my thinking. The movie was an old black-and-white Western, and the hero
cowboy
had ridden up with his friend, on horseback, to this spot of level
ground. What
showed sticking up out of the ground were the backs of two human heads,
one an
Indian squaw, and the other a
"paleface" man. They had been buried up to their necks in the
dirt (rendering them immovable), next to a fire-ant mound. The hero
read the
Indian sign nearby and explained to his fellow they these two had been
caught
in some sexual impropriety some days back, and they were sentenced to
die
slowly and painfully by fire-ant. The heads were still recognizable,
but not
moving or speaking, and fortunately the camera did not show their faces
(back
then, but they might nowadays!). The hero took out his gun and shot the
two
people, ending an agony that I still cannot think of without squirming.
I
remember thinking -- 'was that really murder?'. It was deliberate, it
was
unprovoked, it was violent--but it was merciful.
I think now about that situation, from an
anticipatory perspective.
Had I been the cowboy and saw them at a distance as they were burying
the poor
souls, and watched as the group of executioners stood watch for a long
time,
would I have used my rifle and shot them earlier, from a distance?
[Assuming
there was no real chance I could overcome the group myself, nor outwait
the
group, or other options.] What would be the morally correct answer?
These are
complex issues, and ones that cannot be decided on with simple words
like 'never' and 'always'.
Now, before I move to the next point, we need to
be clear on
the above--THERE ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS. There are no 'other ways out'.
There are
no 'softer choices'. To say "there must be some other way" is
avoidance, given everything we know about ancient history and the
situation.
For the husband who has to decide to end the life of the baby, to save
the life
of his wife, "there must be another way" is a bitter fantasy world.
For the father who has to pull the plug on his brain-dead child, "there
must be another way" is a bitter fantasy world. For the daughter, who
has
to administer the lethal medicine to her at-death-point mom after a
long, long
time of suffering and pain, "there must be another way" is a bitter
fantasy world. Sometimes there simply aren't morally 'neat, tidy, and
comfortable' endings.
And, very importantly, there is NO WAY TO AVOID
THE CHOICE.
If you were Israel's leadership, and you HAD to destroy the warrior
class of
males for all the reasons already discussed, then you would inexorably
be faced
with this decision. And in our case, it was God who said 'do it this
way'--the
God who makes the difficult decision about the day and manner of our
own
deaths, for each of us, and it was the God who takes no delight in
death
(indeed, who intends to destroy it) who decided that this was 'least
painful of
all choices'.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Inconclusive
unethical
intrascript: "This makes me nervous--wouldn't this be a carte blanche
approval of human euthanasia or 'mercy killing'? Wouldn't that be a
direct
implication of this event (or at least of your approach)?
Actually, this event would not bear on the
subject
directly, simply because the decider is God. God, of course, is the
only agent
who bears last-say authority over death. God bears some kind of
governance
responsibility for every moment of death. And, we know that God
sometimes
operates in a euthanasia fashion, for His word says so:
The
righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart;
devout
men are
taken away, and no one understands
that
the
righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.
Those
who walk
uprightly enter into peace;
they
find rest as they lie in death. [Is 57.1-2]
We even speak of
this in some cases of terminal illness of loved ones, speaking of "God
ending their suffering".
But Scripture
generally warrants that this is a choice and decision to made by
the
"only wise God", a choice that can only be safely trusted to His
goodness, wisdom, and authority.
There is no clear
logical warrant to move from "God has the non-derived authority
to
decide on the moment and circumstances of the death of another" to "a
human has the non-derived authority to decide on the
moment and
circumstances of the death of another". Humans are thought to have
'derived' authority for such, in selected areas: certain forms of
capital
punishment, some situations of family and self defense, and certain extreme governance situations
(see the 'lifeboat ethics' discussion below).
There are also
decisions that have direct consequences in the
life/death arena,
but that are not in themselves life/death
decisions--many of the
difficult scenarios discussed in bio-medical ethics fall into this
category
(e.g., the one mentioned at the beginning of this article).
Our passage, though,
is one in which the decision is taken out of the hands of the
Israelites
and made explicitly by God. Our analysis of this decision here might
reveal the
euthanasia-like features of His choice, but one could not draw
the
implication from these that humans should invariably do
the same.
That would be a non sequitur.
(There are, of
course, arguments that could be made on the basis of God as moral
exemplar,
but since our passage is explicitly about God as governance agent,
one would
have to appeal to other passages, data, sources of authority to warrant
using
our text for that. The differences between the moral strictures upon
God in
governance and upon us as 'images of God' in individual behavior
are very
significant, but something far beyond the scope of this article. )
The issue of human-decided
euthanasia is a very, very complex one, in my opinion, but is also one
that our
passage does not speak to in the least.
So, not only
would this NOT be a carte blanche approval
of human-decided euthanasia, but also this would bear only
obliquely upon
the subject, if at all…
………………………………………………………….
But
if
we visualize the horror of the scene—mothers watching children be
killed,
and children watching their mother be cut down—surely this cannot be
‘right’?!
Of
course this scene is horrible(!), but to see this in perspective we
would need
to (1 )put this side by
side with equally vivid and emotionally stirring stories about:
1.
the elderly Israelite couple, who after suffering under
harsh slavery for 60 years in Egypt finally escape miraculously with
their
grandchild. They gather the first material possessions they have ever
owned--given
to them by the Egyptians on the night they left--and are following the
main
body of Israelites. They are overjoyed by their first experience of
freedom and
hope for a more 'normal' life for their granddaughter. But they are
old, and
the decades of physical abuse have left them weak. And so they fall
behind the
main group of Israelites, and they must rest more frequently and
longer. And,
as the gap widens, they see a dust cloud behind them, chasing them.
They fear
that maybe the Egyptians are trying again to enslave them, so they jump
up in
fatigue and anxiety and begin racing toward the Israelites. But they
are no
match for the marauding Amalekites, who quickly capture them. They
watch in
horror as their granddaughter is stripped and evaluated for what price
she
might fetch at the eastern slave market, with crude suggestions as to
what
'use' she might be to the plantation slave bosses. They see her bound
and tied
to the back of the horses, where she will have to walk behind their
caravan
until exhausted and then thrown into a slave-cart. They are next: the
Amalekites strip them of their clothes, take their few belongings, and
then cut
them down with the sword. Their last images are of their granddaughter
screaming for help as she is driven at spearpoint...
2.
the impoverished and undernourished young Israelite
family has been able to hide their small crop so far this growing
season. Each
previous year, the marauding Amalekites have burned their small crop
and killed
the few livestock they used for clothes and cheese, and the family has
eaten
what little the wild land could provide. They sleep under a rock
cropping, in
fear of detection, and take turns at night watching for predatory
animals,
slave-trading bands, and the Amalekites and their allies. Harvest is
almost
here, and they have actually gathered a few items already (and consumed
them
hungrily). They suffer from various forms of malnutrition and exposure,
and the
youngest--Abigail the three-year old little girl--cannot get up due to
some unknown
sickness. But hope has arisen for the first time in years, and the
parents are
eager to feed their little ones the food they desperately need. As they
are
gathering the first pick, with ears always alert, they hear the
familiar sound
of hooves...And though they run, they are overtaken by the Amalekite
raiding
party. They watch as their crop is burned to ashes (the raiders only
laugh at
the sight--they don't take any of the food at all), along with the
feeble hope
that grew there too. But they have bigger problems now, because they
did not
reach the hiding place in time. The raiders size up the family and
recognize
that such youth will fetch a pretty shekel in the slave markets of
Damascus.
The young wife and two of the healthier children are stripped and tied
together
with other captured Israelites, to be marched off to be sold to
different
owners in different parts of the world. One smaller child is simply cut
down--screaming in terror-- with the sword in the eyes of both parents.
Abigail
begins to cry in fear from her cot under the rock, alerting the
Amalekites for
the first time of her presence. The father tries vainly to defend his
family as
they plead for mercy, but he is rewarded only with the anti-Israelite
taunts of
hate and the slash of a sword. The last thing he hears are Amalekite
words of
the leader, to leave the sick Abigail as food for the wolves, rats, and
ants--since she wouldn't have any value in the slave trade.
And
we
would need to (2) situate this in the historical "landscape" of
the day, in which the "size" of objects in the landscape can be seen
in relation to one another.
In this
case, we would note:
1.
The Amalekite scene examples would have occurred all in
one day, and involving a maximum of one to two thousand families.
2. The
above example #1 would have occurred over the space of probably
an entire year, and involved a couple of thousand people minimum (on an
exodus
party of 1.5 million people)
3. The
above example #2 would have occurred seasonally for over
two hundred years (perhaps as long as for 400 years), and involved easily
tens
of thousands of families.
So,
from a perspective standpoint, the actions of the Israelites
are of significantly
less magnitude and scale than the anti-Israelite
actions of
the Amalekites--from the standpoint of perspective.
If
perspective is useful at all, then it is decidedly in the 'favor' of
the
Israelite response to Amalek.
But
doesn’t
the “justice of the biblical god” in this situation look more like the
most horrific of war crimes?
Let me
see if I can clarify my response here somewhat.
1. The
"justice of the biblical god" is not the sole cause of the military
action against the Amalekite warrior class in this case--it clearly
includes
the making of a final defense for Israel (and, actually, for other
victim
nations and groups of the surrounding land—Israel would not have
been the
only source of slaves and raided goods) against an unusually
malevolent and
violent aggressor group. As I pointed out above from the biblical text,
the
cause was broader than the single verse in 1 Sam 15.2, but included the
factors
in the other passages I mentioned above. In fact, if we want to
question
something about God's character, we would be closer to the truth if
we
accused Him of "reprehensible leniency"--for He allowed this
group to terrorize Israel for 200-400 years before He dealt decisively
with the
issue, and He allowed individual Amalekites to migrate into Israelite
culture
without penalty! This is "patience to a fault" almost...His
heart resists judgment and acts of punitive finality, and He waits as
long as
He can before executing these types of actions...
2. The
killing of the innocents is not the target of "justice"
per se (just as damage to tents,
clothes, or animals would not be).
His "justice" actions were specifically directed against the
warrior class and leadership--explicitly those that actually performed
the
acts of violence against Israel. Even
in the main passage in 1 Samuel 15, the
leadership seems to be the main focus, as the phrase "and destroy all he
has" would indicate. Following this is a list of what is included,
and
it is a general list including people and animals. It is difficult to
make this
order implicate the oxen as being 'guilty of atrocity' against Israel
(just as
the women and children would not have actually participated in the
initial raid
against Israel, typically), and probably the women/children/animals
were
considered by the nomadic Amalekites as property (since these were
routinely captured,
sold, and traded).
3. As indicated
above, the killing of the innocents would be an issue of mercy-killing
(given
the desert environment and situation we discussed above), and it is the
least
painful and least dehumanizing of possible outcomes--indeed, it is the
course
of action many people took themselves when confronted
with
similar alternative futures. The innocents were victims of the warrior
class'
choices, not victims of the biblical god and some evil
Israelite
exploitation initiative.
4. I think the
label of 'war crimes' might be appropriate to this situation if it
were done
today with our modern resources and infrastructure. The
'justification' of
the act in the biblical case derives from it being the more
merciful/least
painful of all available alternatives. In today's world, it would
likely not be
this. In today's world, a combat mission could easily leave homes,
infrastructure, inventories of food/drink supplies , skilled civilian
labor and
civil leadership intact--destroying only the military sector of the
culture.
This might have dire economic consequences, but it certainly wouldn't
be life
threatening in any meaningful sense. In addition, in the modern world
there are
international and regional relief organizations to help with refugees
and
survivors. But in the case of the ANE and these nomadic
plundering
groups, ALL of the males are part of the military sector, there is no
infrastructure whatsoever, there are no inventories of ANYTHING, even
the
subsistence skills are in the hands of the males (remember, they had to
raid to
get even the basic necessities of life for the group), most of the
transportation (e.g., camels) would have fled during the conflict,
there are no
relief resources whatsoever, and they are in the middle of the desert.
(Of
course, this is the reason that the quotes given earlier point out that
those
who escape from battle die from starvation, thirst, exposure, etc.) It
is simply
incorrect to place this on a par with war crimes motivated by hate
and
containing malicious and unnecessary violation of innocents (when
alternative
actions were clearly available). [There are war crimes in
the ANE,
to be sure, ranging from cruel POW torture, to civilian
mutilation/torture and
then execution, to gruesome displays of previous victims.]
But
if the
biblical god was indeed omnipotent, then it would seem he could
have done
many things rather than slaughter so many people. And if he
couldn't have
done anything else, wouldn’t this show then that He is NOT omnipotent?
(aren’t
we back to “God is either good OR omnipotent—but not BOTH” kind of
arguments?)
The
major problem with this is theological,
concerning the omnipotence of God.
The omnipotence
argument can be sketched out like this:
a.
God can do all things
b.
Accordingly, God could have resolved the issue by some other means
that extermination of the group.
c. God
DIDN'T use a different method than the one involving
extermination.
Therefore
either:
d. God
is omnipotent, but cruel (because He chose extermination rather than
other presumably less-violent paths)
or
e. God
is not necessarily cruel, but He is NOT omnipotent either(because
He couldn't come up with non-cruel alternatives)
This
type of reasoning is generally irrelevant, because omnipotence normally
doesn't
'play' in historical settings. God very, very, very rarely overrides
normal
historical causation in macro-level events. He normally works (when He
intervenes and overrides at all) from the basis of divine-heart
(personal) characteristics rather than divine-power (more
metaphysical) characteristics. Another way of saying this, perhaps, was
that He
generally works in history, not on
history. In
this case, He:
1.
He tried to convince the people, for a long time, of the
dangerous consequences of combating Israel.
2. He
waited patiently for centuries for them to change their minds
about their violent anti-Israelite terrorism.
3. He
apparently "convinced" some of them to emigrate to
Israel and enjoy the blessings of His people.
4. He
apparently waited until some Amalekites were away from the main
body of the group (since they show up later in the biblical record,
implying
some survivors who were not involved in that battle)
He
normally upholds the law of cause/effect and consequences. [We have
discussed
this many times on the Tank, so I won't gather all the arguments again
here.]
It is not a lack of omnipotence that is at work here, but
rather
the principle of God holding up the law of moral consequences (within
social
and cultural contexts of connections and community). He tries to make
the moral
universe 'navigable' for those who try to make right and constructive
choices,
by allowing us to see in history (in our own lives, or the lives of
others) the
consequences of moral choice and character-based behavior.
God
binds Himself within His choices as well. He plays within the community
rules
He sets for others. Once the historical situation eventuates, He almost
always
works within the confines of that situation. These are self-imposed
'limitations', in a manner of speaking, that govern God's behavior
as a
member of and participant in historical community. God's normal and
preferred way of working in history is as a personal
influence
(through His closest friends), although on occasion He will act as a
judicial
power (e.g., in judging the Pharaoh, David, Amalek, or Israel).
To
discuss these issues in the context of 'omnipotence' may be
close
to being a category mistake (like talking about 'green ideas').
But isn’t this using
a “you
gotta see the Big Picture” approach, to avoid accepting responsibility
for
clear ethical atrocities in the lives of specific individuals?
We
all know of historical situations in which larger-scale perspectives
have been
abused, but at the same time, they are essential for most large-scale
governance issues. In situations involving conflicting ethical demands,
sometimes the deadlock can only be broken by big-picture thinking, or
ethical
framework perspectives. In the case of the innocents here, we are
facing a
moral dilemma that essentially consists of "do we kill them swiftly?"
or "do we let them die, slowly, painfully, and agonizingly?"--which
is more merciful, given no other alternatives exist? This situation is
where
there are two undesirable outcomes, and one has to make
a choice
(in this case it was God) as to what is the most humane choice? [This
is
similar to the case of unconscious loved ones, writing in pain
untouchable by
morphine, under some terminal illness, with no hope of regaining
consciousness...but
still suffering horribly. In our case, however, the suffering of thirst
and
starvation and disease will be all conscious until towards the end, and
therefore accompanied by despair and the pains of a dying heart.]
To try to
see the complexity of the governance issue let's construct a
hypothetical
situation. In philosophical ethics, one of the major hypothetical
scenarios one
discusses is "lifeboat" ethics. The instructor paints the
"lifeboat" scenario:
You
are captain of a passenger boat, responsible for the
lives of your passengers, which has an accident in the middle of
shark-infested waters. No messages of help were sent before the crash,
so
rescue is not expected or likely. The 30 passengers and crew all cram
into the
lifeboat (capacity 29), which is immediately encircled by sharks. There
are no
weapons upon the lifeboat, and the raft is beginning to sink due to the
overload. The nearest island (deserted, of course) can be seen, but you
cannot
reach it without at least one passenger jumping out of the lifeboat to
certain
death by being fought over and eaten by sharks. You, as captain, cannot
be the
martyr yourself, since only you have the requisite skills to help the
29 people
survive once you get to shore, etc.
The probability of the
boat sinking
with 30 people is 100%, the probability of being fought over and eaten
by
sharks (once in the water) is 100%, and the probability of outside
intervention
(e.g., rescue) is 0%.
You
ask for a volunteer, to give their life to save the
group. If only one person decides to give his/her life for the other
29, then
the 29 have a decent chance of making it to shore.
No
one volunteers, after repeated requests. You are now
forced with killing (against someone's will) one innocent person, or
letting 30
(innocent) people die in the jaws of the sharks.
What
do you do?
In the
classroom, this discussion proceeds then to what criteria one
"should" use to decide which passenger or crew member is to die--to
save the many. It cannot be you--no matter how badly you want to avoid
the
knowledge that you had to kill someone against their will--since your
death would be the one most likely to result in the death
of the
others (and your death would have been in vain). I repeat, the "I will
be the
martyr" answer is unacceptable--for in your death, you will likely have
'killed' the others. You, as captain, will be forced to live with your
choices,
which will not be easy, but will be important to the lives of 28 other
people.
Is it the one who has
already enjoyed the longest life? Is it the one who has made the least
contribution to life (so far)? Is it the one who has the least
probability of
surviving on the island once you arrive? Is it the one that is
likeliest to be
a divisive element once at shore (when unity will be essential to the
survival
of the group)? Is it the most 'morally questionable' one (involving
ethical
judgment)? Is it one selected by random processes (e.g., short straws)?
Do you
take a vote? Do you have a 'last man standing' fight, with the people
fighting
to throw each other off the boat, so that only the strongest people
stay on the
boat? Do you pick those with the least number of dependents back in the
real
world? And so on...
Some students will try to avoid the issue
altogether, by
talking about 'taking their chances' on the boat, on the sharks, or on
the rate
of travel toward the island. But the scenario is not constructed that
way--the
'there must be some other way' fantasy options don't exist...just as in
real
life tough decisions...just like decisions public leaders in governance
have to
make some time...If you the captain take a chance (especially given the
odds
stated above!) and lose all 30, when you could have saved some/most,
this is
generally considered unacceptable (assuming you value human life, of
course).
The
death of the person chosen (in most ethical systems) is morally
required--but
it is only the "big picture" that justifies this
violation of their will. Examining the morally of killing them--without
placing
it in the context of the alternative of killing 30 people--will not
lead
one to the ethically correct and overall more humane choice. [In
fact,
in traditional ethical systems, the killing of the individual in this
context
is not considered 'legal murder', but falls into 'justifiable
homicide'.]
This
principle can be abused, of course, as we all know from countless
examples in
history and in the modern world, but this does not invalidate the
principle
itself--it only highlights the misuse of it. [This
principle was
reportedly used by Caiaphas against Jesus in John 11:49-50!]
If
you—as leader—make a moral judgment to decide NOT to make a choice,
then this
implies that you would not kill the one to save the 29, and
consequently, your
moral judgment would kill the 30.
This
moral trade-off or dilemma situation actually can be extended in the
lifeboat
example to an additional (and possibly relevant) sub-scenario:
Once you
have decided who to kill (to save the group), how do you
kill
them?
a.
Do you literally throw them off the raft screaming, with
them frantically trying to climb back in (threatening to capsize the
boat,
feeding everyone to the sharks) or trying to pull someone else out so
they can
get back in, before the sharks seize them in their jaws and drag them
underwater?
b.
Do you tie them up, so they cannot jeopardize the boat,
and then throw them to the sharks to be fought over and eaten alive as
they try
to hold their breath while sinking in the ocean?
c.
Do you knock them unconscious, and then throw them in,
so that they only experience the jaws of the sharks for the brief
moments the
pain brings them up to terrorized consciousness?
d.
Do you kill them in the boat (while they are screaming
and pleading for mercy), by gunshot to the head, snapping the neck, or
strangulation/suffocation, and then throw them to the sharks, so that
their
suffering is absolutely minimized?
Are ANY
of these "pleasant" alternatives?-- Of course not!--they are
stomach-churching, gut-wrenching, heart-hollowing alternatives. The
very
exercise of thinking through this should deeply disturb any
compassionate person! My attempts
at the Lifeboat scenario over the last couple of years still bring
tears and
anxiety and feelings of hopelessness to my heart...But when there is no
other
"way out"--the toughest choices of one's life have to be made...and
these choices (and consequences--however important and good) haunt one
for the
rest of their life...no question about it...But a troubled memory and
haunted
conscience may be a small price to pay for saving 29 lives...
But are some of these
alternatives in the lifeboat more humane than
others?--absolutely.
[Normally, one selects the method that would minimize pain and minimize
negative effects on the survival chances of the rest of the group. In
this case
it would be the swift death in the boat, than the much more terrifying
and
painful death by sharks. The implication for our case should be
obvious: a
swift death for the innocents would be morally preferable to
the
greater-suffering death in the desert (of course, we already saw from
the ANE
literature that people tended to choose this swifter option for
themselves as
well).]
Now, some might propose that all must die. Some might say that you the captain
discuss the matter with the group and get agreement that all thirty
sink and
be eaten deliberately, rather than sacrificing someone else,
so that
the 30 can die with a 'clean conscience' of not having murdered someone
(although it is quite questionable whether they would have shared your
responsibility for killing the individual--they might have simply
trusted you
to come up with the tough decisions and accountability for the
choices). Of
course, your moral responsibilities as captain are rather
different: to
bring back as many alive to their families as possible, regardless of
what
emotional state they are in. A group suicide of this type is certainly
not out
of the ethical question, but if ANY ONE of the 29 do not
AGREE/WANT TO
DIE this way, then you have done the exact same "against their will"
killing as in the traditional 'sacrifice' PLUS you have killed more
people in
the meantime. [A variant of this would be to not tell the 30
that the
boat will sink, until it is too late, forcing them to die "with
a clean
conscience" without their consent, but this seems less
'virtuous'
than the other alternatives.]
This is
a vivid textbook illustration, but it shows clearly that specific moral
choices
must be evaluated alongside the moral consequences of
the alternative
choices (and even non-choice is a choice, of course). To not choose to
do
something in this case, invariably results in the death of everyone. In
other
words--the "big picture".
And, by
the way, this lifeboat ethics scenario is lived out in the real world
constantly. I remember engaging this puzzle as a student/reader earlier
in
life, and thinking through it in abstract terms. But the "blood" in
it finally registered itself with me the first time--as a business
executive in
a firm about to go under, putting literally thousands of people
suddenly into
the jobless category--I had to decide which of my workers I had to
fire, in
order to keep the other workers with a paycheck for their family...The
decision
on who "to throw off the lifeboat" so the others could continue to
have paychecks is one of the more painful and distressing ones senior
executives (at least the "human" ones) have to make...
We really
need to see the reality of the trade-offs in complex moral situations.
It is
not simply the horror of one set of
examples versus the horrors of another set of examples--it
really is the
'bigger picture' of trying to maximize value and minimize destruction.
It's
just not as easy as decrying the death of innocents, no matter how
heart
wrenching that may be to us or to God.
One
modern illustration, to show how complex tough situations can be:
I have
in front of me as I write this, an article from the U.S. News
and World
Report of May 3, 1999 (p.41). The article's title is: "Paying for
Freedom: When Christian groups buy slaves in Sudan, do they help keep
the
practice alive?"
The
first paragraphs might easily have been written about the Amalekites:
"Arab
mercenaries, riding fast horses and firing Kalashnikov
rifles, swept down from the north. For two weeks, they terrorized this
settlement [Nyamlell, Sudan] of 10,000 black farmers, burning stocks of
seeds,
slaughtering cattle, torching huts. Then they rounded up 400 Kinka
tribespeople
and marched them away as slaves...Over the past decades, such raids
have
occurred hundreds of times in a civil war between Sudan's Arab north,
ruled by
an Islamic government, and the mainly black south, whose people
practice
Christianity and traditional African religions."
Into
this scene comes an organization called Christian Solidarity
International, who
buys these slaves from Arab middlemen and returns them to their
families and
loved ones in Nyamlell for free. Is the civic leadership of Nyamlell
thankful
for these efforts to end the suffering and captivity of their sons and
daughters?--No. The civilian commissioner of the country condemns the
purchasing/freeing action: "The program is empowering some of these
Arabs
to continue with their acts...It may seem cruel to block the
redemption of
our children, but it's necessary in order to halt the trade in the long
term."
Now,
who's right here? Has the leadership of the country made a bad
choice--using
"big picture" words like "in the long term"? Or is the
relief of immediate suffering of the captives created by the Christian
group
the right choice, even though it incidentally provides economic
incentive for
further slave raids?
This is
quite complex and simply painting a picture of the immediate
suffering
of an existing captive is NOT a complete enough
way to
approach the issue; one MUST consider the future sufferings of
future
captives as well.
In the
same way, one cannot avoid 'bigger picture' thinking in difficult moral
scenarios like we have with the oppressive Amalekites and young Israel
in the
land. To ignore this aspect of moral thinking would result in immature
judgments and less-than-best-case results.
.......................................................................................................................................................
Summary statements:
- The case of Amalek does not conform to
known patterns of genocide, and therefore cannot legitimately be so
called.
- Constructing a logical contradiction
(disproving God's existence) in this case would be exceptionally
difficult (at best).
- We have real-life trade-off decisions
involving human life that create a presumption against the unilateral
application of the "to kill a child is always unjust" without
qualification or situational variance.
- The Amalekites had a long and violent
history of aggression against early Israel (and other nations as well),
raiding, plundering, and kidnapping them for slave trade.
- The biblical descriptions and accounts
about the Amalekite situation have earmarks of authenticity in
themselves (e.g. verisimilitude) and control data from the ANE increase
the overall credibility of these foreign-descriptions considerably
beyond initial 'historical skepticism'.
- Nomadic groups such as the Amalekites
were violent and terrifying problems all over the ancient world.
- The innocents were not guilty of their
fathers' sins, and anything that happened to them as a consequence of
military action against the warrior class could not be construed as a
punishment on the innocents.
- There was a solid line of anti-Semitic
and misanthropic treachery/behavior by successive generations of
Amalekites.
- The fate of the innocents was a direct
result of the horrible actions of their leaders--the warrior class.
- Amalek's acceptance into Israelite
society is a clear indication of a non-genocidal military action
against a specific location of Amalek.
- The military action was designed to
completely eliminate the Amalekite presence in the desert, and the only
option was wholesale destruction of the warrior/military population.
- There were only a couple of options as
to what should be the fate of the Amalekite dependents.
- There were no options to absorb the
people into Israel, and there were no options for welfare, or relief
programs in the ANE.
- The only two choices were leave them
to die slowly/agonizingly or kill them quickly/violently.
- People themselves normally chose to
die quickly (i.e., in cases of individual suicide or group suicide)
rather than go into foreign slavery or lingering torturous death (at
the hands of others or at the mercy of the harsh environment and times).
- God chose for them to die quickly,
rather than the prolonged suffering scenarios of dehydration,
starvation, exposure.
- The ancients considered
suicide/euthanasia for anticipated (but only for certain-to-occur)
extreme and terminal sufferings to be morally acceptable.
- The amount of atrocity and terror and
violence done by the Amalekites to the Israel over those centuries
would VASTLY DWARF the actions of Israel in that one final battle.
- In modern situations and times, this
action against the innocents could likely be considered "war crimes",
but in the radically different ANE/desert situation, the label of 'war
crimes' would not make sense. [It was much more of a euthanasia-type of
action.]
- To expect God to do a random
miraculous events on a frequent basis in cases like this is unwarranted
by the biblical portrayal of God.
- The Lifeboat Ethics problem
demonstrates the complexity (and emotional difficulty) of big-picture
and large-scale governance issues.
- The Lifeboat Ethics problem also
demonstrates that some types of killing are more humane that others
(with application to our case).
So, as in the emotionally-churning alternatives of
the
Lifeboat, I am forced to say (with heavy heart, but probably not nearly
as
heavy as God's was that day--judgment has always grieved God--He knows
all
about the sorrow of governance, believe me) that the swift death of the
innocents, in the context of a certain and much-more-suffering death in
the
desert, was the most merciful and least tragic course of action...
The Christian ThinkTank...
[https://www.Christian-thinktank.com]
(Reference Abbreviations)