If God is merciful and loving, why do we see God commanding to kill people, even children in the old testament. How do we understand this in the Church’s point of view?

Great question, and one that has been asked by many students of the Bible!

To understand what’s going on here, we have to look at three different subject areas and bring them together: biblical studies, biblical theology, and moral theology. Let’s break it down one step at a time, and hopefully that will clear some things up.

Biblical studies is (in simplified terms) the field where we look at the “what” of the Bible. Fields like history, linguistics, archaeology, etc. all help us to look at the Bible with a better understanding of what the author was communicating to his original audience. That helps us to read the passage in its proper context. Before we can move into biblical theology, which focuses on the ways that the truths of the Bible fit into the theological structure of our faith, we have to study the text of the Bible itself and see what the author is trying to communicate and what it meant for the original audience. Otherwise, we could take the spiritual meaning of the passage out of context.

Let’s study the text first, then. There seems to be a huge contradiction when God gives the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” but then on other occasions he commands the Israelites to leave no survivors in battle. What’s going on there? For starters, the ancient Israelite’s understanding of God was not as fully developed as our own. The God they worshipped is the true God, but they didn’t understand him like we do today. Their image of God was much more tribal. This tribal understanding carried over into the ways the Israelites fought in battle. Ancient tribal peoples like the Israelites had a notion called “the ban,” which referred to war spoils or war property (in Hebrew, cherem). In the ancient Near East, armies that won a battle were entitled to the spoils (the cherem). This included things like treasure, land, livestock, and even women and children. But the Israelites were told to do something totally different: they’re told not to take any of the spoils.

What is the author trying to say here? Is it a glorification of war and conquest? This is where we need biblical theology, which takes the “what” from biblical studies and makes sense of it from a faith perspective. This command to not take the spoils is actually a way of the ancient, tribal Israelites trying to give the credit for their victory completely to God. Normally, a conqueror would get his share of the cherem for winning the battle. But what is the theme throughout those stories of conquest? “God will fight for you.” So when the battle is over and it’s time for the spoils, the Israelites don’t take any, but give it all to God. Does that make their actions right…? Well, no, it doesn’t. But again, remember that they did not understand their actions like we do today. They saw God as their champion and as the owner of all life, so to them, it made total sense to give the victory to God. It was wrong of them to kill, but they saw this killing as a way of taking nothing for themselves and giving all the “credit” to God.

That may shock us by today’s standards, but part of reading and understanding the Bible is seeing how the various stories fit into the big picture. If you look in later parts of the Old Testament, God actually says through the prophets not to slaughter. Look in the Book of Wisdom and you’ll find the author saying: “God did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living.” That’s not because God changed his mind! It’s more like God is leading the Israelites on this journey toward the fullness of truth. God is the author and Lord of all life, so all authority over life belongs to him. He also is the one who was giving the real victory to Israel. But they wouldn’t understand this like we do. So God had to gradually lead them toward truth one step at a time.

We’ve received the fullness of truth in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is the one who takes what came before in the Old Testament and interprets it for us who came after. Jesus is and always will be our standard for righteousness and for how to act morally. And this is where moral theology comes in. This is the field where the Church reflects on the words, actions, and life of Jesus and is able to show us how to live rightly based on that. The Church is our spiritual interpreter of the Bible (guided by the Holy Spirit), and her interpreting “key” is Jesus Christ. That is why we look to Christ to be our moral standard. This also means the Church (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) has to interpret the Bible like Christ did–in its proper context. The moral commands of the Ten Commandments are for all time. Willful murder will always be wrong; that’s the core message. The Church also has to look at the history of Israel and say “no, they didn’t fully understand what it meant to give all the glory to God, but they were trying to act according to what they thought would please God.”

As a final note, we cannot judge the moral standards of a people who lived 3000 years ago and expect them to be the same as our own. The Israelites did not understand God or what was right and wrong in the times of Moses like they did in the times of David or the times of the Maccabees. We have grown in our understanding of what is right and wrong over the years, and so (as Jesus tells his disciples) we are held to a higher moral standard. That does not mean that it was okay for the Israelites to leave no survivors in conquest–but remember that they did not know what we know now, and so they are less culpable.