How often did Yahweh decide directly, or command someone specifically, to another human life/lives? This survey lists all the occasions when Yahweh command specifically for a person or groups of persons to be killed or destroyed. Excluded from this list are the kingdoms and cities (and their populations) of Canaan placed under the cherem command; these inculde the kingdoms of Sihon and Og, and the cities of Jericho, Ai, and Hazor.
1. The Flood, Gen 6-9.
2. Er, son of Judah, Gen 38:7.
3. Onan, son of Judah, Gen 38:10.
4. The First-Borns of Egypt, Exo 11:4ff.
5. The Pursuing Armies of Pharaoh, Exo 14.
6. Amalekites, Exo 17:8ff.
7. Worshippers of the Golden Calf at Sinai, Exo 32:27-35.
8. Nabab & Abihu, sons of Aaron, Lev 10:1-3.
9. The Blasphemers, Lev 24:10-16.
10. Cravers after Meat, Num 11:33-34.
11. The Rebels of Kadesh Barnea, Num 14:26ff.; Deut
12. The Sabbath Breaker, Num 15:32-36.
13. Korah and his Fellow Rebels, Num 16:23-35.
14. The Grumblers in the Camp, Num 16:41-50.
15. King and People of Arad, Num 21:1-3. (?)
16. Grumblers Bitten by Snakes, Num 21:4-7.
17. Worshippers of Baal Peor, Num 25:1-9.
18. Midianites, Num 31.
19. Achan and His Family, Jos 7:1-26.
20. Benjamites, Judg 20:1-48. (?)
21. Hophi and Phinehas, Sons of Eli, 1 Sam 2:27-36; 4:11.r
22. The Seventy Men of Beth-Shemesh, 1 Sam 6:19-
23. David's Child by Bathsheba, 2 Sam 12:15.
24. The Plague following David's Census, 2 Sam 24:15.
25. The Man of God at Bethel, 1 Ki 13.
26. Ahad & Jezebel, 1 Ki 21: ; 2 Ki 9:1-10.
27. Shemaiah, the False Prophet, Jer 29:32. (?)
28. Hannaniah, the False Prophet, Jer 28:15-17.
A. Of these 28 occasion, 3 may in fact be excluded from consideration because, though there is clear approval from Yahweh they were not initiated by Him. In #15 the Israelites were attacked by the king and armies of Arad and Israel made a vow to "devote" them to Yahweh, and Yahweh simply responds with approval. A similar scenario applies to #20; the Isralites responded to the intransigence of Benjamin and asked for Yahweh's counsel and He responded in approval. While it was Yahweh who pronounced the judgment of death upon Shemaiah the Nehelamite in #27, the false prophet's death is not actually reported. This leaves us only with 25 actual occasions.
B. Of the 25 cases, 16 (#4-19) belong to specifically within the context of the Exodus-Wandering-Conquest narratives. Taking away the first three, which belong to the history of Israel before the Exodus-Conquest, we are left only with 9 occasions. Spread over a 1000 years of Israel's history in the land and that is reported in the OT, this accounts for less than once every century.
C. We may group all these cases within a number of meaningful clusters. The most obvious is the cluster of 16 in the period of Exodus-Wandering-Conquests. It is highly significant that nearly two-thirds of all Yahweh's command to take lives belong in this half a century of Israel's history and most of the occasions for them were triggered by Israel's disobedience. The two occasions in David's life form another cluster, as is also the two (?) against the false prophets in Jeremiah's time.
Taken together, we begin to see how sparing and restrained it was that Yahweh meted out the death sentence in response to the sins of the world. This is a corrective that is very much needed in our view and study of the Old Testament.
©ALBERITH
170221lch