If God says in His word “You shall not murder” isn’t He contradicting himself by killing everyone on earth with the flood, or back when He promised his “Holy people” the Promise land and ordered them to fight and kill everyone and take it over? , Isn’t that a contradiction, thus making his word(Bible) a lie?
Latin word for Murder is homicida. Break Homocida down into homo (man, human being, person) and the suffix cida derived from the word caedere (chop, hew, cut out)= man that was cut away.
Definition of Murder is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent (or malice afterthought), and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide.(Wikipedia) Break that down, murder is killing someone without a cause.
The Flood 5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
Genesis 6:9 This is the account of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.(NIV)
Verse 5 it says God grieved because men were wicked. Take it back to his 6th commandment,”Thou Shalt not murder” and definition of murder is killing without cause, in the flood there is cause because the men and women were wicked. God wiped out all man except for the ones He found righteous (innocent) in finding that God did not contradict His word.
Promise Land Deuteronomy 9: 5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.(NIV)
Deuteronomy 12:31 You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
So if God is contradicting his word, then killing all these people to gain the Promise land, it would then mean that they would have to be innoncent. But in Deuteronomy 12:31 it says they were sacrificying there own kids to their gods. I dont know about you but thats pretty evil to me, kinda sounds like abortion in these days. Anyways sacrifcying their kids to gods makes them wicked, which = cause.
Now to some this up. If God was to kill people with a cause, wouldn’t there also be people in those cities and towns who were innocent? Absolutely! Look at Noah’s story, God saved him and his family. In Joshua 6:25 it talks about Rahab, and how God spared her with the walls of Jericho collapsing. Even in Lots story with Sodom and Gomorrah, God saves Lot and his family by sending 2 of His angels to warn them about the destruction about to come. I believe God is a God of Justice, and the killings ordered by God in the Bible are justified with cause, intent, and reason.
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May 13, 2009 at 12:00
Brittany
This is so good Dan! I love the dissection of God’s Word, that’s when it really comes alive for me, through study! Great job!! and good word.
May 25, 2009 at 12:00
Sarah
Dan that was awesome…I had wondered about that from time to time. Thanks.
September 28, 2009 at 12:00
Jonn
I know this is alittle old, but since you brought your blog up recently on another forum, I’d assume you check it sometimes.
First, the Latin word for murder has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments would have been written in Ancient Hebrew. If you wanted to dissect the meaning by looking at the word-roots, you would have to do so from the Ancient Hebrew and not from Latin, a language that has no ancestry in common with Ancient Hebrew used a thousand years later.
Now, what you’re saying is that killing is not against God’s law so long as one has a reason for doing it. That’s positively absurd. I don’t know what you think about people murdering abortion doctors, but what do you think about people killing drug users? Using drugs, by many people’s standards, is an evil act. Are you then justified in killing them? What about homosexuals? Some people think homosexuals are an abomination. Are they justified in killing a homosexual?
Legally: absolutely not. Morally: the act of killing another person will ruin one’s relationship with god and the divine. It is a horrific act which changes the perpetrator irreparably. It can’t be justified, and the fact that you condone those acts, so long as they are in the “service” of god, is harrowing. You might think that atheists are evil, but isn’t saying that murder and death are ok so long as it’s against the right (i.e. different) kind of person marks your true moral fiber.