Does God have the ‘right’ to destroy cities filled with human beings? Does He? Even many Christians seriously question whether God has that ‘right’ or whether the stories of God’s ‘wrath’ in the Bible are even true. Why do they think that? Many say that God would not be loving or ‘just’ if He were to do that. Is that true?
God’s Justice
In the last part of our series we saw God change Abram’s name to Abraham, and Sarai to Sarah. We learned about physical and spiritual justice through the story of Sarah and her servant Hagar. Now, we want to see how God meted out His justice to cities and nations in the Old Testament.
In Genesis 18 we find Abraham ‘hosting’ three ‘men’ who had come to visit him. It didn’t take long to learn that one of the ‘men’ was God (most likely a Christophany – an appearance of the Son of God before becoming a man through the Virgin Birth). The other two ‘men’ were angels.
“Then the Lord appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, “My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by, inasmuch as you have come to your servant.” Genesis 18:1-5
The Hebrew words at the beginning of verse one are: ‘wayyêrā ’êlāw Yahweh’ – ‘and appeared to him Yahweh.’ Those words cannot be misunderstood or misinterpreted. God ‘appeared’ to Abram. The Hebrew word means ‘to see.’ Abram saw ‘three men’ (’ănāšîm – male persons) ‘standing by him.’ He bowed himself to the ground and said, ‘My Lord’ (Hebrew – ’ăḏōnāy). The word means, ‘ruler, master, owner, Lord.’
This was not the first time Abram had ‘seen’ the Lord. Genesis 12:7 reads – “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.” The words are the same as in Genesis 18 – ‘wayyêrā Yahweh.’ At the beginning of Genesis 12 we read –
“Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. ” Genesis 12:1-4
The first words in Hebrew are – wayyōmer Yahweh ’el ’aḇrām. Read Genesis chapter 12 through chapter 18 and it should be clear that Abram knew he was talking with the God who had called him out of paganism many years earlier. Genesis 18 is where God told Abram about the ‘son of promise’ who would be born the following year (Isaac). Genesis 18 is where God told Abram that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their great sin. The two ‘men’ who were with Yahweh were the angels who went to Sodom and Gomorrah to save Lot before God destroyed the cities. Was God ‘right’ in doing that? Could not the God of the universe have spared the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? What would ‘justice’ say? Let’s see what Abram did and how God responded to a request for leniency in dealing with those people –
“And Abraham came near and said, ‘Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ So the Lord said, ‘If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.’ Then Abraham answered and said, “Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose there were five less than the fifty righteous; would You destroy all of the city for lack of five?’ So He said, “If I find there forty-five, I will not destroy it.‘ And he spoke to Him yet again and said, ‘Suppose there should be forty found there?’ So He said, ‘I will not do it for the sake of forty.’ Then he said, ‘Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Suppose thirty should be found there?’ So He said, ‘I will not do it if I find thirty there.’ And he said, ‘Indeed now, I have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord: Suppose twenty should be found there?’ So He said, ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of twenty.’ Then he said, ‘Let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak but once more: Suppose ten should be found there?’ And He said, ‘I will not destroy it for the sake of ten.’ So the Lord went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.” Genesis 18:23-33
This ‘negotiation’ between Abram and Yahweh is most insightful for us to understand when we talk about ‘justice.’ Abram’s questions and Yahweh’s answers demonstrate God’s merciful justice. Abram started with 50 and ended with ten ‘righteous’ being found within the city. God said He would ‘spare all the place for their sakes.’ God demonstrated ‘merciful justice’ in responding as He did. However, as we learn in Genesis 19, there were not even ten ‘righteous’ found in Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s destruction of the city and its inhabitants was ‘righteous and just.’ Only three people escaped with their lives out of the thousands who lived in the two cities: Lot and his two daughters. Interestingly, the incestuous relationship the two daughters had with their father when he was drunk led to the birth of Moab and Ben-Ammi. Moab became the ‘father of the Moabites.’ Ben-Ammi became ‘the father of the people of Ammon.’
Though the Moabites and Ammonites were distant relatives of Abram (through Isaac and Jacob), they also became pagans and often opposed the descendants of Abram: Israel. This meant that they would not be allowed to enter into the ‘assembly’ of God’s chosen people because of how they had treated the Israelites as they traveled from Egypt to the ‘promised land’ –
“An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and water on the road when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.” Deuteronomy 23:3-4
Was God ‘just’ when He disallowed the Ammonites and Moabites from entering the assembly of the Lord? Was God ‘just’ when He directed Israel to kill thousands of Ammonite and Moabite soldiers in battle? The answer is yes, He was.
One other question: was God ‘just’ when He allowed Boaz of Bethlehem to become the ‘kinsmen redeemer’ of Ruth, a Moabite woman who was the widow of an Israelite? The answer is ‘yes.’ God was mercifully just. Boaz married Ruth and they became the great-grandparents of David, the future king of Israel.
Yes, God is Just, He is Merciful, and He is Wise.
Next Time
Many people view the God of the Bible (especially the Old Testament) as a ‘moral monster.’ Is that true? Many atheists and other non-Christians use the Bible’s stories of how God dealt with the Egyptians and the Canaanites as examples. We’ll look closely at those examples in the next part of our special series – God’s Justice: How It Works.
God’s Justice eBooks
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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