Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Judges

3
It's not just select tribes or families showing faithlessness, it's the entire Hebrew nation. Before Joshua led Israel into the promised land, the Lord was very explicit and direct (Deuteronomy 28) about the punishments which would befall the people of Israel if they ever became unfaithful. It promised no less than widespread death, defeat, destruction, degradation, and dispersal. The supreme being would be incapable of going back on It's word, as It does in these verses.
3:31
If your sense of humor tends in that direction, this is one of the funniest images the Bible has thus far produced.
9:56
What is the message here? That the Lord "rights all wrongs"? Or is this simply an isolated incident? If so, isn't it unreasonable to propose that the Lord would right certain wrongs but not others, or that once upon a time It righted certain wrongs, but no more? The wording of this verse seems to imply that the events following the death of the sixty-nine could not have happened any other way, that everything had to happen as it did. This seems to be another biblical argument against free will, and not just pertaining to specific individuals. A very important point is that it is not reasonable for the Lord to give a complex set of rules to follow, as It has done, unless humankind has the free will to do or not do these things in the first place. Many of the people and nations whose hearts were "hardened" endured death and destruction as a result. It is ludicrously unjust to have people become victims of the Lord's wrath, when they weren't even acting of their free will in the first place.

1 comment:

[].ragko said...

The only wrath there is from any god comes from the people who follow blindly and miss the fact they are following each other.