When God Judged Entire Nations — And Why That Doesn’t Make Him a Moral Monster

If you’ve ever read parts of the Old Testament and felt a knot in your stomach over the commands to kill men, women, and children, you’re not alone.

Skeptics love to seize on these passages: “How could a loving God command that? Isn’t that genocide?”

Even people who believe the Bible sometimes skim past those chapters because they feel hard to explain.

If we’re going to answer this honestly — both for ourselves and for others — we need to set aside shallow slogans and look at the actual context. The Bible doesn’t dodge these events, and neither should we.

First — What Are We Talking About?

We’re not talking about every war Israel fought. We’re talking about very specific, one-time commands in which God told Israel to destroy entire populations — men, women, and children — during the conquest of Canaan or in certain cases like the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:2–3).

“Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” (1 Samuel 15:3)

At first glance, that sounds brutal. And if God were acting like a human tyrant, it would be. But that’s not what’s happening here.

These Were Not Random Villages

The people groups God commanded Israel to destroy — Amalekites, Amorites, Canaanites, Midianites — were not simply “other tribes” who happened to live in the wrong place. They were cultures that had, for centuries, filled their land with corruption:

• Child sacrifice to idols (Leviticus 18:21)
• Sexual perversion so deep it defiled the land itself (Leviticus 18:24–25)
• Violence, cruelty, and generational hostility toward God and His people (Deuteronomy 25:17–19)

God Himself said in Genesis 15:16 that He would not bring judgment until “the iniquity… is complete.” That waiting period lasted over 400 years — centuries of patience before acting.

Why Include the Women and Children?

This is where most people struggle emotionally. The short answer: God is not bound by the same limits we are when it comes to life and death.

He is the Author of life (Job 1:21) and has the right to take it at any time.

When children die — whether by disease, disaster, or judgment — they do not slip into some eternal void. Scripture gives hope that God receives them into His mercy (2 Samuel 12:23).

And there’s another layer: In cultures steeped in idolatry and violence, the children would inevitably be raised to continue the same evils. Removing them from that environment was, in God’s justice, also an act of protection against the spread of that corruption.

This was not “collateral damage” from sloppy warfare. It was surgical judgment on a culture whose moral disease had reached the point of no return.

Rare, Not Normative

It’s critical to understand: God’s command to Israel in these cases was never given as a standing rule for all wars.

Outside of these unique judgments, God’s own law forbade punishing children for their parents’ sins (Deuteronomy 24:16).

The Israelites were not told to wipe out every enemy — only these specific, deeply corrupt nations at that specific moment in history.

What About Today?

No Christian today has any biblical authority to wage this kind of war in God’s name. The Church’s mission is not military conquest — it is the proclamation of the gospel to every nation (Matthew 28:19).

The “wars” of the New Covenant are spiritual (Ephesians 6:12). The next time God executes a “total judgment” on humanity, it won’t be through Israel’s army — it will be when Christ returns as Judge (Revelation 19:11–16).

How Jesus and the New Testament Frame These Events

Far from being embarrassed by the Old Testament, Jesus used those judgments as warnings about what’s coming at the end of the age:

• Luke 17:26–30 — Jesus compared His return to the days of Noah and Lot. Both were moments when the judgment was total — no one in rebellion survived.
• Matthew 24:37–39 — The flood is used as an illustration: judgment came suddenly after years of normal life.
• 1 Corinthians 10:1–11 — Paul says the events in Israel’s history were recorded “as examples… for our instruction.”
• 2 Peter 2:4–9 — Peter groups together the flood, Sodom, and God’s deliverance of the righteous as patterns of His final judgment.

In other words, those Old Testament events are snapshots of the Final Judgment — condensed previews of the day when God will finally remove all evil from His creation.

The Nations God Judged

These judgments were not abstract. They happened to real nations in real places, for real reasons. Here’s a summary of the key nations God judged in this way:

Ancient Nation	Reason for Judgment	Key Scriptures	Modern Location Overlap
Amalekites	Centuries of hostility, ambushing Israel, refusing mercy to stragglers	Exodus 17:8–16; Deuteronomy 25:17–19; 1 Samuel 15:2–3	Southern Israel, Sinai Peninsula, NW Saudi Arabia
Amorites / Canaanites	Extreme idolatry, child sacrifice, sexual perversion, defiling the land	Genesis 15:16; Leviticus 18:21–25; Deuteronomy 20:16–18	Israel, Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, parts of Jordan and Syria
Midianites	Led Israel into idolatry and immorality at Baal Peor	Numbers 25; Numbers 31:1–18	NW Saudi Arabia, southern Jordan
Moabites	Pride, hostility toward Israel, idolatry	Numbers 22–25; Jeremiah 48	Central Jordan (east of Dead Sea)
Edomites	Violence against Israel, betrayal in times of distress	Obadiah 1; Ezekiel 35	Southern Jordan, NW Saudi Arabia
Philistines	Oppression and warfare against Israel	Judges 13–16; Amos 1:6–8; Jeremiah 47	Gaza coastal plain (modern Gaza Strip)

Lot’s Descendants — Moab and Ammon

After Sodom’s destruction (Genesis 19:30–38):

• Lot’s firstborn bore Moab → ancestor of the Moabites.
• The younger bore Ben-Ammi → ancestor of the Ammonites.

These nations often opposed Israel, leading to prophetic judgment (Jeremiah 48 for Moab; Jeremiah 49:1–6 for Ammon). Their ancient territories now overlap modern Jordan, though the ethnic lines are long since mixed.

Modern Parallels — Gaza, Israel, and Propaganda

In the present Israel–Gaza conflict, the same tactics show up:

• October 7, 2023: Hamas slaughtered civilians and kidnapped Israelis — sparking the war.
• Hostages remain captive — including women and children — yet much of the global conversation has shifted to accusing Israel of “blocking aid.”
• Reality: Aid convoys are inspected to stop weapons smuggling; Hamas has been caught stealing aid repeatedly.
• Propaganda: By placing weapons in hospitals and using children as shields, Hamas manipulates images to flip the narrative — making the defender look like the aggressor.

The Bible shows this is nothing new: Enemies of Israel in the Old Testament often erased the original offense to portray Israel as the aggressor.

Psalm 120:7: “I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.”

How soon people forget. Just as crowds turned on Jesus within a week, and Israel forgot God’s deliverance within a generation, the world has already blurred who started this war.

Takeaway:
The God who judged Moab, Ammon, Amalek, and Philistia saw through every lie, every victim-flip, and every act of cruelty disguised as compassion. He still sees through it today — and when His final judgment comes, there will be no propaganda spin, no political narrative, and no forgetting how it started.