God hates murder, indeed killing of every kind. Listen to the witness of these texts from the Old Testament of the Bible (emphasis mine):
The Ten Commandments make it clear: Exodus 20:13 Deuteronomy 5:17: “You shall not murder.”
Proverbs 6:16-19 16 There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that hurry to run to evil,
19 a lying witness who testifies falsely,
and one who sows discord in a family.
God doesn’t even want wicked people to die: Ezekiel 33:11 11 Say to them: As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
Indeed, the Ten Commandments were given by God when Moses was doing his best to lead the unruly people of ancient Israel (not to be confused with the recently invented nation state of the same name) out of slavery in Egypt and into freedom in the ‘promised land’, Also in the ‘Law of Moses’ God had to put limitations around revenge killings and revenge woundings because the Israeli people were escalating wrongdoing by killing and maiming more than the original offence. So, God decreed, three time…
Exodus 21:23-24 “23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” The idea is that a revenge or retributive act cannot exceed, only match the original offence.
Leviticus 24:19-20 19 Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.
And Deuteronomy 19:20 20 The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” This final scripture is in the context of witnesses in a legal matter giving false testimony. God loves justice and fairness and loves mercy even more.
Let us take this ancient Jewish principle, provided by God and see how the current military-government leadership of the modern-day nation state that takes the name of Israel has behaved in the last two years. Infamously, on October 7th, 2023, the military group Hamas that was running the Gaza Strip region of Palestine suddenly invaded neighboring Israel in a night and day of rampant murder and rape, killing approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking approximately 250 people hostages, 85 of whom have died in captivity.
Is retaliation and revengeful response the Israeli military have killed over 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority children and women, and more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank region of Palestine. Note that 20,000 Palestinians children have been murdered by Israel.
The original Hamas murders were to be thoroughly condemned, even if they were the desperate, angry response of a people long ground down by Israeli apartheid. The Israeli response has been classified as genocide by independent human rights organizations such as the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice.
May we never forget that the recently created nation state of moder day Israel was created in a wave of international sympathy for the Jewish people suffering genocide at the hands of the Nazi Holocaust in which approximately six million Jews died (alongside 3.3 million Russian prisoner of war, 1.8 million Polish civilians, perhaps as many as 5000,00 Roma gypsies, 300,000 Serbs, at least 250,000 disabled people and millions of Slavic people from Belarus and the Ukraine.) I had hoped that the Israeli nation would never dehumanize other people for being non-Israeli. I do not refer to the Jewish people as the perpetrators of genocide because, while 73% of the current Israeli population are Jewish, the genocide of Palestinians is best understood as a nationalistically driven abhorrence rather than a religious one. Having said that, the ruling leaders of Israel include Zionist leaders who are driven by a nationalistic agenda underpinned by a right-wing Jewish understanding of recreating the ‘promised land’ and ushering a third-temple period for a hoped-for Jewish nation.
As a Christian I stand 100% against Zionism for reasons I can write about elsewhere.
As A Christian I recognize and uphold the right of every person, irrespective of creed or nationality to live. All people possess inherent dignity. Violence, murder and war are not acceptable responses to an offence. This is not God’s way for humanity. In Christianity, the response to an offence is not an eye for an eye but a check for a cheek, an extra mile for a forced mile, a coat for a forced stolen shirt, forgiveness and reconciliation, seventy times seven.
I hope the current Arab and Trump-led peace initiative work. If Palestine is secured as a homeland for the Palestinian people, Muslim and Christian, may we have a museum in Washington DC dedicated to the Palestinian genocide. May we Americans remember that the death rained upon the Palestinians was with American warplanes, bombs and bullets.