u/HolyTaxEvasion

Chapter 20 of Deuteronomy speaks of the laws concerning war. A common defense of this passage is that these practices were common back in the day. However, it doesn't address the criticisms that it supports both genocide and slavery. How do you respond to those claims?

NET version starting at the beginning. It does have something cool where soldiers are able to go home for several reasons which doesn't get talked about much such as going home due to fear

> When you go to war against your enemies and see chariotry and troops who outnumber you, do not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. 2 As you move forward for battle, the priest will approach and say to the soldiers, 3 “Listen, Israel! Today you are moving forward to do battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted. Do not fear and tremble or be terrified because of them, 4 for the Lord your God goes with you to fight on your behalf against your enemies to give you victory.” 5 Moreover, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you has built a new house and not dedicated it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else dedicate it. 6 Or who among you has planted a vineyard and not benefited from it? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else benefit from it. 7 Or who among you has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her.” 8 In addition, the officers are to say to the troops, “Who among you is afraid and fainthearted? He may go home so that he will not make his fellow soldier’s heart as fearful as his own.” 9 Then, when the officers have finished speaking, they must appoint unit commanders to lead the troops.

Waging war against a city that is not in the Levant

> 10 When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace. 11 If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves. 12 If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it. 13 The Lord your God will deliver it over to you, and you must kill every single male by the sword. 14 However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city—all its plunder—you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you. 15 This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

Waging war against the Levantine nations

>16 As for the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance, you must not allow a single living thing to survive. 17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 18 so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods, causing you to sin against the Lord your God. 19 If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, you must not chop down its trees, for you may eat fruit from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! 20 However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

If you're new in the faith, please don't read this because it may cause you to doubt as well. You've been warned so continue at your own discretion.

The past couple years have been like I imagine job might have felt. It's caused me to question why Yah has turned his face from me and challenged my earlier held beliefs. The only answers I've received from people in my life were "God has a plan" and "God works in mysterious ways" which are hollow and don't really answer the question.

Last month, things came to a head when I received objective proof that what I had thought was the voice of Yah during my prayers was really just a hallucination of my own mind likely brought on by the stress I've been undergoing. This utterly destroyed my faith because it meant my entire salvation story for the past 7 years was built on a lie. This caused me to question the authenticity of the Torah/writings/prophets. Surprisingly, the answers I found made sense and it's possible that they were simply stories that were made up during the Babylonian exile to teach people morals. Not even the gospels were safe and there was an equally as good explanation for those too that I hadn't considered before.

So here I am at my wits end, considering abandoning the faith all together. I'm really at loss here and not sure else can be done. All I can really think of is this and wonder why he has decided to harden me

Romans 9:18 NET

> So then, God has mercy on whom he choses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he choses to harden

I still believe most of the Torah to be a good moral framework, but some passages I can't explain like Deuteronomy 20:10-15

> When you approach a city to wage war against it, offer it terms of peace. 11 If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves. 12 If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it. 13 The Lord your God will deliver it over to you, and you must kill every single male by the sword. 14 However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city—all its plunder—you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you. 15 This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations.

I thought annihilation was reserved only for the Canaanite nations due to their wickedness, but here's a carte blanche commandment to do it to anyone. How can this be justified? It seems paradoxical.

I hope this gives you enough context to address some of these points of unbelief. As a final closing note I'd like to say thank you to all of you in this sub who've helped answer Torah questions throughout the years. It was essential in my journey the past 3 years before our robot overlords decided to give me a vacation ;)