Bible Synapse
Is God merciful, or without pity?
Hard question · Who God is · raised by 4 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
“The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.”
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
In the same psalm: the Lord preserves those who love him, “but all the wicked will he destroy”.
The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.
From Job’s story we see “that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy”.
Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
God’s own description of himself: merciful, gracious and forgiving, yet one who “will by no means clear the guilty”.
And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
A sentence on Jerusalem’s kings, priests, prophets and people, “I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them”, followed by a plea to repent and the prophet’s tears.
Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word; Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say unto thee, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them. Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord hath spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive.
Saul is ordered to destroy Amalek completely, “infant and suckling” included, for its attack on Israel after the Exodus.
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
The objection
The Bible says the Lord is “good to all” (Psalm 145:9) and “very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11). Yet in Jeremiah 13:14 God says of Jerusalem’s people, fathers and sons together, “I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them”, and in 1 Samuel 15:3 he commands Saul to kill the Amalekites, “infant and suckling” included. A God who is merciful to all, it seems, cannot also be without pity.
The answer
The Bible holds mercy and judgment together in the very place where God describes himself: he is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering”, yet he “will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6–7). Psalm 145 says both as well: the Lord is “good to all”, and “all the wicked will he destroy” (verses 9 and 20). God’s mercy is great, but it is patience that holds back deserved judgment to give room to repent; it is not a promise that judgment will never come.
Jeremiah 13:14 should be read for what it is: a sentence of judgment on Jerusalem’s kings, priests, prophets and people, not long before the city fell to Babylon. Its words are meant to be terrible: the time of sparing is over, and no rank or family will be exempt. It came after more than twenty years of warnings, “rising early and speaking” (Jeremiah 25:3), and even here the next verses plead, “Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness”, while Jeremiah says he will weep “in secret places for your pride” (13:16–17). The verse does not deny that God is merciful; it says that mercy refused ends in judgment.
1 Samuel 15:3 is harder still, and its severity should not be softened. It is a sentence of destruction on Amalek as a people, for its treacherous attack on Israel’s weakest stragglers after the Exodus (Deuteronomy 25:17–18) and its hostility ever since. Christians answer that God, the giver of life, has the right to judge a nation, and that this was a particular command for that time, not a pattern for anyone after it. Even then the Kenites, who had shown Israel kindness, were warned to leave (15:6).
Other answers Christians give
The language of ancient war reports
Some Christian scholars, such as Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, argue that commands to ‘utterly destroy’ use the stock exaggeration of ancient Near Eastern war reports and meant decisive defeat rather than the death of every person. They note that Amalekites appear again soon afterwards (1 Samuel 27:8; 30:1). Others reply that the command reads as literal; Keil and Delitzsch explain the later Amalekites as survivors who escaped.
Children and God’s mercy
Many Christians add that children who die are received by God’s mercy, as many read David’s words about his infant son, “I shall go to him” (2 Samuel 12:23). On this view God’s judgment on a nation is not his last word on its little ones.
Still open
How to understand the commands to destroy whole peoples (the Hebrew cherem, ‘ban’), and how they fit with the love of God shown in Christ, remains one of the most debated questions among Christian scholars.
From the classic commentators
With this threatening the prophet couples a solemn exhortation not to leave the word of the Lord unheeded in their pride, but to give God the glory, ere judgment fall on them.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Jeremiah 13:15 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
As the Amalekites afterwards manifested the same hostility to the people of God which they had displayed in this first attack, on every occasion which appeared favourable to their ravages, the Lord instructed Samuel to issue the command to Saul, to wage war against Amalek, and to smite man and beast with the ban, i.e., to put all to deathKeil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 15 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Jeremiah 13 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Samuel 15 (1857–78), at Bible Hub