"To say I "support" murder is to intentionally misrepresent what I have consistently said on this matter."
No, you are wrong. I am saying you support what God does. I call it "MURDER". And I disagree with you that it is not.
As I said: these were children and according to you they were God's children. This is not the way parents normally act. Indeed, we execute such people because we cannot conceive of acts more heinous and despicable.
"You have failed to even begin to show that God has ever acted unrighteously except according to your admittedly limited and relative opinion."
Yes, my opinion is relative. But murdering children has very little support these days amongst any groups of human beings. Certainly it was common in the days of Baal worship including the Israelites.
________________________________
Chapter 5
'Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, ...?'
(Micah 6:7, NKJ)
(A commentary on Micah 6:7, Baal worship, child sacrifice, propitiation and the atonement)
What an extraordinary question! 'With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' (Micah 6:6-7). - Even though it is rhetorical, Micah places in the modern mind a question of incredible absurdity. Who, in his right mind, could ever contemplate sacrificing his own child with the idea that this might in some way be pleasing to God as an atonement for sin? What kind of god would one need to imagine to ever countenance such an appalling abomination in order to be appeased for the sins of the soul? Yet, within the historical context of Micah, such a belief was held by many. Child sacrifice was a religious practice amongst the Phoenicians and Canaanite tribes - and, eventually, was a form of worship practised amongst the Israelites. The question Micah asked was not just a speculative, hypothetical, abstract wonderment; it was a question of real and contemporary relevance that raised prevailing issues of belief held by many who had forsaken true worship. Revealed in this verse of Scripture is a belief, commonly held in that period, that one could amend for sins through the sacrifice of an innocent child. It was thought that by giving up one's own child in this way one could appease God for sins of the soul and find divine favour. The idea, therefore, is that the penalty for sins could be paid for through the sacrifice of an innocent child - whose substitutionary death was thought sufficient to assuage God's wrath and satisfy His penal justice and offended honour. The child had to be of an age that was believed to be without sin - in order to pay for the sins of others. A firstborn child was preferred because the firstborn was regarded more highly and was, in consequence, a greater offering and demonstration of submission and loyalty.
However, early in Israel's history, Yahweh had commanded this whole notion to be utterly rejected as an abomination: 'There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire,... For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you' (Deut.18:10). Remarkably, in spite of God's warnings, Israel and Judah fell prey to these same corrupt practices. In the time of Jeremiah (active c. 626 - 585 B.C.), a 'tophet' - a place of child sacrifice and burial - had been set up in the Valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem. The Lord pronounced through the prophet: '... "I will bring such a catastrophe on this place ... because they have forsaken Me and made this an alien place, because they have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they, their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known, and have filled this place with the blood of the innocents. They have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into mind; therefore behold, the days are coming," says the LORD, "that this place shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter" ' (Jer.19:3-6, NKJ; cf. Jer.7:30-32). It was as a result of not repenting from following the worship of the Canaanites that the nations of Israel and Judah suffered God's wrath and were destroyed. Such worship is an abomination.
Today, we can look back upon these periods of apostasy in Israel's history and shake the head in condemnation. The thought of slaying an innocent child to pay for one's sins is anathema. Now, how much more the concept that the Law of God legalizes and accepts the substitution of the Innocent for punishment in the place of the guilty? Would God do that which He regards as an abomination for others to do? Would God do that which is not right and punish His own innocent Child for our transgressions - for the sins of the soul? It is written: 'It is not good to punish an innocent man' (Prov.17:26). Also: 'Do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty' (Ex.23:7). 'Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent - the LORD detests them both' (Prov.17v15). Yet, this is exactly the teaching of those who adhere to the beliefs of either the satisfaction or the penal substitution theories of atonement. It is envisaged that God the Father, in order to save us from the penalty of our sins, had to satisfy His own law and honour by punishing the Righteous One in our place. It is a reinstitution of the Canaanite doctrine - to teach that an innocent Child can, through sacrifice, pay the penalty for man's transgressions and sins of the soul.
Let us now look more closely at the historical background.
Micah prophesied during times of national apostasy and upheaval 'in the days of Jotham [750-732 B.C.], Ahaz [c.735-715] and Hezekiah [c.715-686], kings of Judah' (Mic.1:1). He foretold the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and its capital, Samaria, which fell in 722 B.C. after a three year siege. His prophetic ministry, delivered before the reforms that took place under Hezekiah, warned of severe judgement to come in consequence of following the utterly depraved and idolatrous practises of surrounding nations. Following the rule of King David, the drift into apostasy might be said to have begun with King Solomon (c.970 -930 B.C.), who built high places for the worship of Ashtoreth, Molech and Chemosh to satisfy his foreign wives - one high place being just east of Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:5, 33). When Solomon's kingdom divided (c930), Jeroboam 1, chosen leader of the Northern Kingdom, set up idol worship for Yahweh at Bethel and Dan in an attempt to break the allegiance that worshippers of Yahweh had with Jerusalem. Gradually, Israel and, at a later time, Judah assimilated more and more ideas and elements of pagan worship into a syncretic belief system of which the worship of Yahweh was just one expression. King Omri of Israel, who founded the strongly fortified city of Samaria, hastened Israel's slide into idolatry (1 Kings 16:25-26; Micah 6:16). Ahab, his son, married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, priest-king of Tyre and Sidon, and established temples for the Phoenician worship of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 16:32-33). In Judah, the Sidonian Baal worship was introduced through Queen Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, who became the sole monarch from 841 to 835 B.C. - as a result of royal marriage , murder and intrigue (c.841-835 B.C.; 2 Kings 8:18; 2 Chron.22:2, 24:7). In spite of several attempts at reformation under various monarchs, notably Hezekiah and Josiah of Judah, and Jehu of Israel, the reforms were not complete - and the influence of Canaanite and Phoenician worship was not eradicated. There are numerous biblical references to the sway that Baal worship had over the people of the two kingdoms - right up to the time of their being taken away into captivity:
Of Israel, it is written: 'They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshipped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practised divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil ... So the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from His presence (2 Kings 17:16-17).
Isaiah described a practice of setting up tophets in the valleys and ravines: 'You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree; you sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags' (Isa.57:5). This brings to mind the archaeological discoveries at the Phoenician tophet at Salambo, Carthage, Tunisia, where in 1921 over 6,000 burial urns were found containing the remains of cremated children. The tophet occupies a large depression, close to the sea, and was used for sacrifice in the worship of Baal Hammon and the goddess Tanit for hundreds of years. It was a practice attested to in the writings of Tertullian, Orosius, Diodorus Sicus and Plutarch. There should be no doubt about the veracity of the Bible in its description of this form of worship practised in Israel.
Jeremiah testified of Judah: 'They have set their abominations in the house which is called My name, to pollute it. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire ..' (Jer.7:30-31, NKJ). The prophet Ezekiel, active from c.593 to 571 B.C., also declared the depravity into which Judah had fallen: 'You took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them [the idols] to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?' (Ezek.16:20-21, NKJ). Also, as mentioned by Jeremiah, the Jerusalem temple was once again desecrated with such worship: 'Then declare to them their abominations. For they committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and even sacrificed their sons whom they bore to Me, passing them through the fire, to devour them. Moreover they have done this to Me: They have defiled My sanctuary on the same day and profaned My Sabbaths. For after they had slain their children for their idols, on the same day they came into My sanctuary to defile it; and indeed thus have they done in the midst of My house' (Ezek.23:36-39, NKJ). Thus, elements of Baal worship became incorporated into the worship of Yahweh.
Of Judah's kings, Ahaz and Manasseh receive special mention. Ahaz, it is recorded, sacrificed his son in the fire (2 Kings 16:3-4) as did Manasseh (2 Kings 21:6). Both encouraged idolatry and Baal worship, sowing seeds of apostasy in the minds of the people, but Manasseh sank to a new low. It is written of him: 'Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites. ... He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols' (2 Kings 21:9-11). The damage had been done. Even the iconoclastic reforms of the just king Josiah were insufficient to stem the tide of the Canaanite religion beyond the duration of his own reign. Twenty-three years later, Jerusalem fell to the armies of Babylon, just as God's prophets foretold.
'The sin of the Amorites'
(Gen.15:16)
The Israelites were to perform God's judgement in driving out the Canaanites (referred to in Gen.15:16 as 'Amorites') at a time when the sins of this depraved and corrupt people had reached their 'full measure'. Under Joshua, the Israelite soldiers were told to show no mercy in casting out all of the inhabitants of the land that God had given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deut.7:1-4). According to Genesis chapter 10, the tribes occupying the promised land were descended from Noah through Ham and Ham's son Canaan. These included the Sidonians, Hitites, Jebusites and Amorites - collectively called the Canaanites. Israel's problems stemmed from the fact that many of the Canaanites were allowed to continue in the territory and to practise their religion following the initial invasion. Compromise was preferred to war and conquest (Judges 1:21-36), but this became a snare to Israel, just as foretold (Judges 2:1-3).
The ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint, translates 'Canaanite' as 'Phoenician' and 'Canaan' as 'the land of the Phoenicians' (cf. Ex. 16:35; Josh.5:12). The coastal Phoenicians became renowned traders and seafarers and established colonies all around the Mediterranean. For a thousand years, however, the Amorites were the dominant tribe in the territory of Canaan and Syria and this land was sometimes referred to by the Akkadians and Babylonians as the land of the Amorites. It was they who established the first Babylonian empire, making Babylon the capital. King Hammurabi of Babylon, c. 1790 to 1750 B.C., famous for his code of laws, was himself of the Amorite dynasty that flourished up to about 1600 B.C.
In Canaan, Amorite kings were still ruling at the time of the invasion of the Israelites under Joshua (see Joshua 10:5). The fact that the Amorite religion was not completely removed, however, was Israel's undoing. Time and again, Israelites were drawn away from the worship of Yahweh to worship the gods of Canaan. Judges 2:11-13: 'Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. ...they ... served Baal and the Ashtoreths.' (See also: Judges 3:6-7, 12; 4:1; 6:1, etc..) In Judges 6:10 we read: 'I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live. But you have not listened to me.' Nevertheless, whenever the Israelites cried out in repentance, the Lord sent 'judges' as deliverers - the last judge being the prophet Samuel. Sadly, the failure of the people to obey the Lord in driving out the worship of Baal caused them repeated suffering and misery. As a nation: as they walked after other gods, they walked away from God's protection.
This is a warning for spiritual Israel. We must not succumb to immorality or accept any doctrine that is rooted in Baalism: for if we do so, we also will remove ourselves from God's shield of protection. Paul spoke of this: 'Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell [not given as a precise figure] ..' (1 Cor.10:9). - This refers to the occasion described in Numbers 25:1-9, when men of Israel were enticed by Midianite women to engage in the sexual fertility rites of Baal at a high place called Baal Peor. Baalam, a prophet of Baal hired by the Midianite king Balak to curse Israel, found that every time he tried to curse, his cursing turned into a blessing. He had no power to curse Israel while they remained under God's protection. However, he cunningly advised Balak to entice the Israelites into bringing a curse upon themselves by tempting the men to indulge in sexual and spiritual fornication with Baal's sacred prostitutes - thereby inciting Israel to turn away from their Protector: 'They [the Midianite women] were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the Lord's people' (Num.31:15-16). - Outside of God's protection, the devil can attack.
Archaeologists have discovered many cuneiform cylinder seals of the Assyrian and Babylonish period depicting human sacrifice - although the exact interpretation may be debated - some also involve cuneiform legal documents containing penalty formulas: '.. he will burn his oldest son to Sin, .. he will burn his oldest daughter to Belit-Seri' (C. H. W. Johns, Assyrian Deeds and Documents, Cambridge, 1898). '.. his oldest son he will burn in the sanctuary of the god, Adad' (Textes Cuneiformes, Vol. IX: Contrats et Letters, edited by G. Contenau, Paris, 1926). '.. his oldest daughter with ten imer of good spices he will burn to Belit-Seri' (C. H. W. Johns, Assyrian Deeds and Documents , Cambridge, 1898). These are thought to date from the 7th century B.C.. The legal penalty for the breaking of these contracts was the sacrifice of a firstborn child to one of the pantheon of gods. - Through this means, the guilty person paid the price and was thought to have atoned for his offence.
One of the texts discovered at the site of the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit in 1978 describes the offering of a human sacrifice with the view to gaining divine favour. The text reads: 'O Baal, drive away the force from our gates, the aggressor from our walls . . . A firstborn, Baal, we shall sacrifice - a child we shall fulfill.' This corroborates the biblical account of King Mesha of Moab who is recorded as having sacrificed his firstborn child on the wall of his city at a time when the Israelites had his city under siege: 'Then he took his eldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering upon the wall' (2 Kings 3, NKJ). - On seeing this, the Israelites withdrew.
The appellation 'Baal', meaning 'Lord' or 'Master', was a term implying ownership and oversight. It was a title that appeared in many local place names, eg: Baal Hermon, Baal Peor, Baal Meon, Baal Tamar, Baal Perazim, Baal Hazor, Baal Zephon, etc., suggesting either the title of territorial gods to whom local inhabitants gave allegiance or the location of a high place or temple dedicated to one of the most powerful gods of the Canaanite pantheon. He was often depicted holding a lightning bolt and is sometimes referred to in inscriptions as 'Baal Hadad': the god of rain and storm - hence the male god of fertility, thought to provide growth, as the rain waters the earth. Other titles, such as 'Baal Shamem' (meaning 'Lord of Heaven') were also used. Baal was associated with the goddesses: 'Ashera' (1 Kings 18:19); 'Ashtoreth' (Judges 10:6) - called also 'Astarte' - 'the Queen of Heaven' (Jer.7:18) and known to the Babylonians as 'Ishtar'; and Anath (considered Baal's sister, cf. Ugarit mythology) - who was also worshipped in Egypt by the same name. That Baal was also a god known to the Egyptians is verified by the place name: 'Baal Zephon', which was located near to Israel's crossing of the sea (Ex.14:2). In fact, both Baal and Astarte were venerated by the Egyptians at Thebes and Memphis (Encyc. Brit., 1911).
Historians have long recognized that the gods of the ancient Near East and Babylon had their counterparts in the gods of other ancient cultures, including that of Egypt, Greece and Rome - but by other names. Philo of Byblos (c.100 A.D.) likened Baal Melqart of Tyre to the Greek god Zeus ('Jupiter' to the Romans). In North Africa, temples to the Roman God Saturn ('Kronos' to the Greeks) and Juno replaced temples to Baal and Tanit (Saturn, in mythology, was said to have eaten his own children). The myths, although, varying from place to place and from nation to nation had certain aspects in common: the gods had their consorts, gods and goddesses ruled over the elements, and various nature gods 'died' and 'returned' with the seasons; the worship employed sexual fertility rites, priests and priestesses who claimed to prophesy and commune with the spirits of the idols they served, and the worshippers followed sacrificial systems to propitiate and gain divine favour. The Canaanites and Babylonians were not the only ones to use temple prostitutes - both male and female. It was a common practice. At Corinth, 1000 'sacred' prostitutes served the temple of Aphrodite to the extent that this city of ancient Greece became infamous for its sexual immorality. What, then, were the great attractions that these religions possessed that made them so appealing and popular in the ancient world? The answer is simple. These religions engaged the sensual, self-centred and self-gratifying desires of man. Material wants and passions, it was thought, could be satisfied by indulging in the rites of the gods and the practices of their servants. In the religion of the Amorites, it was lawful even to sacrifice children, as we have studied, for the sake of self-interest.
All these religions were unified by a common spirit. The Bible makes it clear what that spirit was. It is written: 'They worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood. They defiled themselves by what they did; by their deeds they prostituted themselves' (Ps.106:36-38, NIV). ..."
bible-study-online.org |
