“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty
ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” - Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion
ethnic cleanser
Drive them out of the promised land
Numbers 33:50-53 And the Lord said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, “Say to the people of Israel, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall
drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places; and you shall
take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. RSV
God will drive them out
Exodus 34:11-13 Observe what I command you this day. Behold,
I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Per′izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb′usites. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you. You shall tear down their altars, and break their pillars, and cut down their Ashe′rim RSV
”Drive out the inhabitants”
2 Chronicles 20:6-7 Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. Our God, did you not
drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? NIV
He clears away many nations
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it, and
clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gir′gashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Per′izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb′usites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them. RSV
Purify the promised land
Deuteronomy 7:5-6 But thus shall you deal with them:
you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Ashe′rim, and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. RSV
”They shall not live in your land”
Exodus 23:23-24, 33 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and
I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices.You must
demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. …
Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you. NIV
Xenophobic cleansing
Nehemiah 13:1-3 On that day they read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God; for they did not meet the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing. When the people heard the law,
they separated from Israel all those of foreign descent. RSV
Towns destroyed
Numbers 21:2-3 And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord, and said, “If thou wilt indeed give this people into my hand, then
I will utterly destroy their cities.” And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and gave over the Canaanites; and [/B]they utterly destroyed them and their cities;[/B] so the name of the place was called Hormah. RSV
City burned
Joshua 8:28 So Joshua
burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolate place to this day. NIV
None were left
Joshua 11:21-22 And Joshua came at that time, and wiped out the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities.
There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel RSV
Midianite cities burned
Numbers 31:9-10 And the people of Israel took captive the women of Mid′ian and their little ones; and they took as booty all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods.
All their cities in the places where they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire RSV
Town burned and never rebuilt
Deuteronomy 13:12-16 If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you to dwell there, that certain base fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of the city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently; and behold, if it be true and certain that such an abominable thing has been done among you, you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, destroying it utterly, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square, and
burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God; it shall be a heap for ever,
it shall not be built again. RSV
Tyre will be scraped bare and never rebuilt
Ezekiel 26:3-14 therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers;
I will scrape away her rubble and make her a bare rock. Out in the sea she will become a place to spread fishnets, for I have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord. … I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets.
You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord. NIV
Cities laid waste
Leviticus 26:30-31 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. And
I will lay your cities waste, and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors. RSV
Villages burned
Jeremiah 49:2 Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will cause the battle cry to be heard against Rabbah of the Ammonites; it shall become a desolate mound, and
its villages shall be burned with fire; then Israel shall dispossess those who dispossessed him, says the Lord. RSV
”Throw down their alters”
Judges 2:2 And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land;
ye shall throw down their altars KJV
Alters smashed to pieces
2 Kings 11:17-18 Jehoiada then made a covenant between the Lord and the king and people that they would be the Lord’s people. He also made a covenant between the king and the people. All the people of the land went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They
smashed the altars and idols to pieces and killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars. NIV
Alters removed
2 Chronicles 14:2-5 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.
He removed the foreign altars and the high places,
smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands.
He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. NIV
Pull down the pagan shrines
2 Chronicles 31:1 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and
brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all. KJV
Corpses among the alters
Ezekiel 6:13-14 Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their
slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols. So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the Lord. KJV
Teenage king purges the land
2 Chronicles 34:1-7 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. KJV
