God smites women and children with impunity.

[Roger_Waldripbbp Admin]

God smites women, children and often animals with equal gusto, he seems to equal evil and wrong doing by association, rather than by being guilty of the personal, individual act: “Behold with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.” (2 Chronicles 21:14-15).

• This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by admin-config.

[Roger_Waldripbbp Admin]

This one will require a little more time. Actually, I am surprised that the individual didn’t use an example from the Old Testament of when the Israelites were clearing their land inheritance of foreigners. Maybe he did his homework on this one and understands why God used the Israelites the way He did to remove the inhabitants from the Promised Land.

But if he did the homework and understood why God did what He did with the Israelites in Canaan, then he should have been to see that the same reasoning applies to the above verses.

In the Old Testament, God had commanded the Israelites to destroy all the people in the land because they were wicked. And He told Israel, that if the Canaan inhabitants stayed among the Israelites, that they would be tempted and led astray into worshipping idols and other contemplable things. The wickedness had permeated so much into the Canaanite people that they could not be separated from it. God knew this and thus ordered their complete destruction.

Of course, the Canaanites could have come to their senses and repented individually and given themselves up to the Israelites. We see an example of this with the woman from Jericho. See feared the Lord and put her and her family into the e Israelites care and essentially they became Israelites. But they had to repent, give up their evil ways and follow the Lord God. She is rewarded for her faith in that she appears in the chronology of the Lord Jesus. But the Lord always provides a way out. And for everyone.

But here we see a pronouncement of judgment on the King Jehoram and the people of Judah. Back in the time of Judges, the people Israel demanded a king to lead them. God told them of the consequences of them having a king but they wanted one anyway. God allowed them to have their king, as they rejected Him as King, but did so with the condition that the Israelites had to submit to the king and follow him so long as the king did what was right in God’s eyes. If the king did not, the people were to dispose of the king so that they could have a Godly one.

Turns out that there were a few Godly kings but most were terrible. Some very terrible. And by terrible I mean ungodly. And it seems that most got worse than the one before them. So eventually, God said enough is enough. He had sent warnings to the kings about what would happen to them and the people if they didn’t turn it around.

But they generally ignored God’s pleas for them to come to repentance.

So God eventually exacts his punishment. He uses the Philistines, who Israel was tasked to illuminate but never fulfilled the command, to remove King Jehoram. In the process, a lot of people died protecting or by association to the king. But they were guilty as well as the king. They had an edict from the Lord to not follow ungodly kings. They did not live up to their responsibilities either. The punishment for their actions also affected children.

So God is not to blame. God told them the rules. God told them the consequences. God may have been slow, allowing them to repent, in executing his judgement, but He is not wrong in doing what He did.

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