Old Testament Scholar Joe Sprinkle Examines Deuteronomy 20:10-18

Was the Command to “Utterly Destroy” an Occasional Command?

Not only is the command given to Israel, but it occurs in the narrative as an occasional command. This is perhaps clearest in Deuteronomy 20:10-18, which is worth quoting at length:

“When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. “If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. “If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. “When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it [‘et kol zekurah lepiy hareb]. “As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. ‘This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. “However [raq], in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. ‘Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. “Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.

The New International Version (NIV) translates “put to the sword [zekurah, from the Hebrew verb nakah]” (v. 13) as a command (the imperative of the imperfect verb). However, Old Testament scholar Joe Sprinkle [book] argues that identical or similar parallels to this verse should be understood as a permissive use of this (imperfect) verb. That is, the verse permits the killing of the men. Thus verses 12-13 would be rendered this way: “Now if it [the city] is unwilling to make peace with you, but instead makes war with you, then you are permitted to besiege it. Now when YHWH your God gives it into your hand, then you may kill any of its men with the edge of the sword.”

Immediately following these verses, a particle (raq)—which the NIV translates “As for”—comes at the beginning of verse 14: “As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city . . .” This particle, Sprinkle notes, typically qualifies or restricts a previous statement. The previ­ous clause in verse 13 indicates what can be done to the “men/males,” and the following raq clause qualifies and clarifies that such a rule does not apply to women, children, and spoil. Verses 13-14 therefore express the principle of noncombatant immunity. If a city refuses terms of peace, one can permissibly kill the men. For those who will be engaging in the combat, however, this permission does not extend to women, children, and spoil; one is prohibited from killing them.

Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014), 58-59.

Videos on Israel: BDS, Apartheid, History, etc. (UPDATED)

Here are almost all the videos and audios I have either posted on my blog or uploaded to my YouTube & Vimeo dealing with the Palestinian Conflict or Israel. New videos will be added at the top. UPDATES appear just underneath.

Does Israel discriminate against Arabs? Is it today’s version of apartheid South Africa? Olga Meshoe, herself a South African whose family experienced apartheid, settles the question once and for all.


Why don’t the Palestinians have their own country? Is it the fault of Israel? Of the Palestinians? Of both parties? David Brog, Executive Director of the Maccabee Task Force, shares the surprising answers.


When the state of Israel was founded in 1948, it was done so with the approval of the United Nations. But today, Israel’s enemies routinely challenge the legitimacy of its very existence. So, under international law, who’s right? Israel? Or its enemies?


As Israel is under attack from Hamas in the Gaza strip and BDS — Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions — right here in America, Bill Whittle makes the historical and moral case for Israel, and shows just who, indeed, are the tyrants and aggressors in the Middle East


In which our host, Andrew Klavan, points out that the leftists behind the current Boycott, Divestment and Sanction, or BDS, efforts against the State of Israel are not at all anti-semitic. They just hate Jews and want to kill them…


Israel is a vibrant democracy with full rights for women and gays, a free press and independent judiciary. You would think that the United Nations would celebrate such a country. Instead, the UN condemns Israel at every turn to the point of obsession. How did this happen? Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights, explains in five eye-opening minutes.


Are Israeli Settlements the Barrier to Peace?

Is Israel’s policy of building civilian communities in the West Bank the reason there’s no peace agreement with the Palestinians? Or would there still be no peace even if Israel removed all of its settlements and evicted Israeli settlers, as it did in Gaza in 2005? Renowned Harvard professor and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz explains.


Kenneth Meshoe – Black South African Member of Parliament, Talks About Israel and Apartheid


Is Israel an Apartheid State?


Kenneth Meshoe, Member of Parliament in South Africa, Talks Israel


The History of the Middle East Conflict in 11 Minutes:


Why Israel can’t withdraw to its pre ’67 borders line:


Larry Elder On Israel (Plus: “Son of Hamas”)


A Challenge To Medved on Jewish/Israeli History


Medved Makes Short Order of Some Tired Ol’ Mantras


BDS: The Attempt to Strangle Israel ~ Dershowitz


The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement says it’s fighting for Palestinian rights, but it’s really just trying to destroy Israel. Jonathan Sacks, author and former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, explains how.


The Middle East Problem ~ Prager


UN vs Israel ~ Dr. Anne Bayefsky


Anti-Israeli Views at the NYT & the U.N. Exemplified ~ Prager


A Pro-Palestinian Call Taken ~ Prager


Caller Asks Dennis Prager About Palestinian History


Israel Palestinian Conflict: The Truth About the West Bank


ISRAEL VS THE WORLD!! ~ Crowder


Palestine Sucks ~ Crowder

Hot-Tub Conversations | Discussing Politics on Vacation

Well, my cruise to Hawaii and back (2013) went as well as one could expect. One of my favorite parts was being “buzzed” by the USS Vinson (Carrier) on our last sea day. Not only did we see a floating military airport, F-18’s, Sea-Hawks, and E-2C Hawkeyes… but we also saw a pod of whales and dolphins.

A great trip.

But I wouldn’t post just this on my blog… which is called “Religio-Political Talk”! I mean, Who cares about Hawaii!?

I wanted to recount a conversation, really a landslide of a conversation I had with an older gentleman (Walter) in a jacuzzi on board the ship. Now, many of the people on board were vets of some sort on a twilight cruise to Pearl Harbor… so political views lined up with most on board. Conversations — when political — were for the most part neutral or in agreement. And the many Canadians and Brits on board are suffering from the same political correctness in not dealing with immigration and Islamic radicals. We are in the same boat, so-to-speak. But while talking to a police officer from SoCal on vacation with his beautiful family, an older gentleman got into the jacuzzi and proceeded to blame — in general conversation — everything on Bush and Republicans. His ability to weave politics indiscriminately into conversation was amazing! I was impressed.

At first I decided to ignore the references, I took his age into account. However, after a while I caved and proceed to challenge him on many points he made. One topic was welfare, and I pointed out that more people are on food stamps than the population of Spain, he mentioned that many single mothers needed help… to which I used an analogy to help explain how social programs assisted in making single-parenthood an option.

Lets say that the government determined that tennis was the best way to create community and health in society, so it subsidized a small portion of classes, training courses and courts to be built. As the price of tennis dropped more and more people took classes and started playing tennis. Government saw that this was a good thing and subsidized more of it dropping the price even more allowing for easier access to the sport. The opposite is done with smoking. To decrease smoking government raises the cost of cigarettes to dissuade the action of smoking.

I asked if he agreed with my analogy. He said yes. I then referenced shortly Thomas Sowell’s interaction with an official from the welfare administration and pointed out that in effect the government is doing precisely what my analogy he agreed with promotes… that is, making it very easy for men to choose to leave their families because they know the government will feed their children, pointing out — as Larry Elder points out — that 75% of black children are born into homes without a father. Mentioning that THIS is why the poverty and crime levels are so high in these neighborhoods. NOT because of racism as he had eluded to, but because of subsidizing irresponsibility and fatherlessness!

He also intimated that the banks were also racist in their ravaging the poor by loans for homes they couldn’t afford. I pointed out that Bush and McCain tried to reform Fannie and Freddie a total of 17-times and each time were shut down by Democrats. Walter, the gentleman in the hot-tub, hadn’t heard that before, and I mentioned that Bill Clinton himself blames the Democrats, while still others rewrite history.

Conversation went to education and educational costs. Here is where we had a sharp disagreement. Walter said the schools only get $5,000 or so per student to teach them. I mentioned that each student in L.A. gets about $13,000 spent on them. Actually, I was wrong, it is closer to $30,000 dollars a year. But every point of disagreement or complaint Walter had focused around racism. Which led me to my final point of the discussion with his. I asked him why he was so sensitive to the topic of race/racism. He responded that he had a family member who passed in a concentration camp during WWII, mentioning his Jewish roots. Awesome!

This led me to my favorite analogy, which I asked Walter to allow me time to build. He agreed, revealing ultimately his political inconsistencies:

Walter, I will use Bush in my analogy. Let us say for twenty years Bush attended a church that twice prominently displayed David Dukes likeness on the cover of their church’s magazine which reaches 20,000 homes, and a third time alongside Barry Mills (the co-founder of the Aryan Brotherhood). Even inviting David Duke to the pulpit to receive a “lifetime achievement award.” Even selling sermons by David Duke in the church’s book store. Authors of sermons sold in Bush’s church’s bookstore teach in accordance with Christian Identity’s view that Jews and blacks are offspring of Satan and Eve via a sexual encounter in the Garden of Eden. In the church’s bookstore, the entire time Bush attended, books like Mein Kampf (Hitler), or, My Awakening (David Duke), and other blatantly racist books. Even members of the Aryan Brotherhood felt comfortable enough to sit in the pews at times… being that the pastor of the church was once a reverend for the group.

Now Walter, if Bush had gone to a church like that I would walk arm-n-arm with my Democratic comrades in making sure he would never be President. You would expect me to I am sure?

He confirmed my suspicion. I then shared my knowledge of Obama.

I purchased from Obama’s church’s bookstore online 3-books: A Black Theology of Liberation, Black Theology & Black Power, and Is God A White Racist?: A Preamble to Black Theology. In these books Walter, God is said to be against white people, and mirror in their hatred of whites to that of Jews in Mein Kampf, calling both devils.

[Take note I didn’t recall the exact quotes I am using below]:

“The personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew” ~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“The goal of black theology is the destruction of everything white, so that blacks can be liberated from alien gods” ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.62

“White religionists are not capable of perceiving the blackness of God, because their satanic whiteness is a denial of the very essence of divinity. That is why whites are finding and will continue to find the black experience a disturbing reality” ~ James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, p.64

(see more)

…continuing…

Another was a montage of faces – black leaders, past and present, with the title “The legacy lives on” – that included Wright, Farrakhan, Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad, Rosa Parks and even O.J. Simpson attorney Johnny Cochran. (Weekly Standard, Newsmax, and WND)

Obama’s pastor not only was a minister in The Nation of Islam, an anti-Semitic/racist group, but the church’s book store sells sermons by Louise Farrakhan, who teaches that the white man was created on the Island of Cyprus by a mad scientist, Yakub. (Mr. Farrakhan also believes he was taken up on a UFO to meet God, and was told he was a little messiah, take note also that he was directly involved in the deaths of police officers as well.) Louise Farrakhan was featured twice on the church’s magazine which reach 20,000[plus] homes in the Chicago area. Even placing on the cover with Louise Farrakhan a third time the founder of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. Elijah Muhammad likewise taught that the white man was created by Yakub 6,600 years ago. Walter, Louise Farrakhan teaches that the Jews in Israel do not belong there, and that the true Jews are the black people. Louise Farrakhan was invited into Obama’s church, to the pulpit and given a “lifetime achievement award.” In fact, the New Black Panthers and members of the Nation of Islam often times sat in the pews for sermons by Rev. Wright, whom Obama called a mentor. Not to mention Obama’s wife pictured with racist, anti-Semetic, UFO cult members.

So I expect you, Walter, to join arm-and-arm with me on finding out why the media, and Democrats who are so concerned about racism let such a man into office, when, if the tables were turned, I wouldn’t want in office.

Do you know the next thing out of Walter’s mouth was?

Didn’t Bush speak in a church that forbid interracial marriage?”

I responded that no, it was a speech at Bob Jones University…

… and you are making my point Walter. If that bugs you soo much to mention it during the course of a conversation, why doesn’t Obama’s history more-so irk you? Not to mention the university overturned its silly rule, even Bob Jones said he couldn’t back up that policy with a single verse in the Bible (CNN). Obama’s CHURCH OF TWENTY YEARS has made no such concession.

At this point Walter started to get out of the hot-tub finishing with “well, that’s just your opinion.” (Meaning, my carefully laid out facts and years of study combined with an analogy was hogwash.) Walter went his way, and even avoided me when he saw me in the international caffe — even though our conversation was calm, rational, and reasoned. I even asked him permission twice to make my analogies, being polite and respecting his age. Walter is a great example of how Democrats ignore following their own concerns to their logical conclusions, when applied to their own candidate. Sad.

Chuck Charlie Bown Racist

Some Non-Spiritual Reasoning Behind Why the Left Hates Israel

The Breitbart article astutely ends with this synopsis that makes sense to me. I say in the title “non-spiritual” because as one is more secular… typically one hates more-and-more Godly activity in the panoply of history. In other words, the Left hates miracles! And Israel’s mere existence is evidence of God’s mighty hand.

[….]

The fact is that when it comes to Israel, nobody seems to be interested in the truth. No one cares that it gave up the lands it seized during the Yom Kippur War, in the hope of securing peace. Nor that it gifted the Palestinians 3,000 greenhouses, opened border crossings and encouraged trade. Nor that the Gazans responded by destroying the greenhouses and electing a government committed to eradicating the Jews, which has fired thousands of rockets into Israel, and digs tunnels under Israeli territory from which to launch surprise attacks.

No one cares that Israel gives Gazans advance warning of raids, while Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians. Nor that Hamas places its weapons in schools, mosques, hospitals and private homes, to maximise the chance of civilian casualties. Nor that Israel arrested those guilty of murdering a Palestinian youth, and offered reparations to the victim’s family, while Hamas did nothing to capture or punish the killers of three Israeli teenagers. Nor that no Israeli soldiers are actually based in Gaza, despite talk of an ‘occupying force’ by Hamas apologists

No one takes these facts into account because they are unhelpful to the narrative propagated by the pro-Palestinian Left – namely, that this is a battle between a strong, macho oppressor and a weak, downtrodden underdog, which leftists can feel virtuous about supporting.

Israel is a distillation of everything leftists hate about Western nations: capitalist, conservative and fiercely patriotic. It is a projection of their own prejudices about the supposed injustices of societies that cherish the ‘wrong’ values and the ‘wrong’ people. They don’t share the Palestinians’ spiritual beliefs, but they share a common enemy. Indeed, if Israel was removed from the equation, its critics would have little good to say about Gaza or Hamas. Theirs is a marriage of convenience.

The Left’s use of the Israeli-Arab situation as a platform for moral preening, and as a metaphor for its own hang-ups, blinds it to the evils of Hamas and the rest of the Muslim Brotherhood. It seems oblivious to the ideological conflict between Islamic fundamentalists and Western progressives, because it persists in regarding the former as pet victims of the latter. It may discover the hard way that it is giving comfort to an enemy that makes no distinction between liberal hand-wringers and any other infidels.

Anthony Weiner Getting His Eschatology Mixed Up Between Christians and His Wife`s

A Revealing Hour in Harlem With Anthony Weiner (h/t, HotAir)

When one supporter invited Weiner and more than a dozen members of the media into his apartment, the candidate noted the Israeli flag the man had displayed in his living room.

“Are you Israeli?” Weiner asked.

No, the man answered, explaining that he is a Christian who believes in the central role Israel would play in paving the way for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

“Got it,” Weiner said. But don’t you also believe that we have to be wiped out before the Messiah can return?”

“No,” the man replied.

“OK, we’re cool,” Weiner said. “Thank you for inviting us into your home.”

A couple more door-knocks later and Weiner finally called it a day.

No, Christians believe Christ is coming back to stop Israel from being destroyed. But the saving power is stored in a Person beyond human power (God). In other words, Christians can not speed along or make God tarry, it — the providential nature of His involvement with history — is in His time-table, not ours.

However, I do wish to note, that while I post videos showing the failure of Anthony Weiner, really a life lived without Christ – prideful and bowing to human nature, he does seem to mixed up on his eschatology, and this is an important point.

You see, Huma, his wife, is intimately involved through her mother and father with the Muslim Brotherhood. Which calls for the destruction of Israel… right now… without a savior. Here for instance is a small bit about her mother, Anthony Weiner’s mother-in-law, the one standing next to Hillary Clinton below — standing to her left, our right:

Bedfellows

…Saleha Abedin is closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and to supporters of violent jihad. Among other things, she directs an organization – the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child. The IICWC, through its parent entity (the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief), is a component of the Union for Good (also known as the Union of Good), another formally designated terrorist organization. The Union for Good is led by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the notorious Muslim Brotherhood jurist who has issued fatwas calling for the killing of American military and support personnel in Iraq as well as suicide bombings in Israel. (As detailed here, the Obama White House recently hosted Qaradawi’s principal deputy, Sheikh Abdulla bin Bayyah, who also endorsed the fatwa calling for the killing of U.S. troops and personnel in Iraq.)

Like Sheikh Qaradawi, who helped write the charter for the IICWC, Saleha Abedin is an influential sharia activist who has, for example, published a book called Women in Islam that claims man-made laws enslave women. It reportedly provides sharia justifications for such practices as female-genital mutilation, the death penalty for apostates from Islam, the legal subordination of women, and the participation of women in violent jihad.

…read more…

So, the reality is that Weiner is married to someone who knows all too well who wants to destroy Israel. In fact, most conservative Christians would fight family and friends of Weiner’s to protect it.

Andrew Pochter, the American Killed In Egypt, Brainwashed By Our Educational Institutions (e.g., Lies)

(Posted from work) The young kid, Andrew Pochter, the U.S. citizen stabbed to death in Egypt… While a Jew, seemed to be caught up in the idea of “Revolutionary” thought. In an article written by acquaintance of his linked an article Andrew wrote in Al Arabiya (which is where the above photo comes from) in which he seemed supportive of jihadists:

Earlier last month, the King approved the release of 90 Islamist and Sahrawi political prisoners. This seems to be a good start, though it is important to keep in mind that over 100 political prisoners still remain behind bars.

Pochter said the release of 90 Islamists was a good start? American Thinker points out that those who indoctrinated him in college are the one’s who bear the cost of the brutal stabbing of this young man. The previously mentioned post by an acquaintance of Pochter’s said this:

To the killers, I say… if you knew him you wouldn’t have done this.

How naive!

From American Thinker;

  • First, 73% of the Palestinians surveyed agree with the annihilationist dictates of this canonical hadith (the words and deeds of Islam’s prophet Muhammad which have a weight often equal to the Koran), quoted in the Hamas Covenant….
  • 80% agreed with the quoted sentiments expressed in article 15 of the Hamas Covenant (subtitled, “Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is a Personal Duty”), which describes classical jihadist theory — including jihad martyrdom (i.e., homicide bombing) operations — as well as its practical modern application to the destruction of Israel by jihad,  and the need to recruit the entire global Muslim community….

[…..]

The day the enemies conquer some part of the Muslim land, jihad becomes a personal duty of every Muslim. In the face of the Jewish occupation of Palestine, it is necessary to raise the banner of jihad. This requires the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses, locally [in Palestine], in the Arab world and in the Islamic world. It is necessary to instill the spirit of jihad in the nation, engage the enemies and join the ranks of the jihad fighters. The indoctrination campaign must involve ulama, educators, teachers and information and media experts, as well as all intellectuals, especially the young people and the sheikhs of Islamic movements…It is necessary to establish in the minds of all the Muslim generations that the Palestinian issue is a religious issue, and that it must be dealt with as such, for [Palestine] contains Islamic holy places, [namely] the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is inseparably connected, for as long as heaven and earth shall endure, to the holy mosque of Mecca through the Prophet’s nocturnal journey [from the mosque of Mecca to the Al-Aqsa mosque] and through his ascension to heaven thence. “Being stationed on the frontier for the sake of Allah for one day is better than this [entire] world and everything in it; and the place taken up in paradise by the [horseman’s] whip of any one of you [jihad fighters] is better than this [entire] world and everything in it. Every evening [operation] and morning [operation] performed by Muslims for the sake of Allah is better than this [entire] world and everything in it.” (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi and Ibn Maja). “By the name of Him who holds Muhammad’s soul in His hand, I wish to launch an attack for the sake of Allah and be killed and attack again and be killed and attack again and be killed.” (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim)

This is the “context” Andrew Pochter was never taught by the pseudo-intellectual, moral cretins indoctrinating similarly callow American youth throughout our academic, religious, political, and media institutions. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the dastardly hands of those who indoctrinated him—to his death.

Pochter was looking at the world with Western eyes that have its ethos flooded with the Judeo-Christian understanding of peace and Justice. Pochter put this Matrix onto the Middle-East and expected the Islamists and Marxian revolutionaries to abide by this. Pathetic. The Jewish Press put it well:

What was he doing in Egypt?  Why did he feel more connected to Arab countries than to Israel?  Did he really think that he, a Jewish American, could do something for “the pursuit of peace and understanding?”

Did his family support this delusion?

Did his family and friends and teachers warn him that he was going to a dangerous place?

Another site astutely asks, “Hmmm, I wonder if the words ‘left wing,’ ‘anti-Israeli apartheid,’ ‘free free Palestine,’ ‘bleeding heart liberal Jew’ are part of this equation?” I wonder as well. Yet another commentator on a blog about Pochter said the obvious:

If a Jewish kid from a liberal arts college thinks he’s going to change the lunacy that has engulfed Egypt, then he’s showing that his parents should have given him a few doses of reality along with the credit cards and summer camps

Islamists do not care about others, even their own son’s and daughters (read here trained from a young age to be suicide bombers). Neither do Marxian revolutionaries. In what I can find about Pochter, he seems to equate the two religions (Judaism and Islam) as morally equivalent. Hogwash. Even mentioning in the above “poem” that Jesus and Muhammad are the same. Hogwash. In a response to a local writer, I make the differences known:

MUHAMMAD ordered his followers (and participated in) the cutting of throats of between 600-to-900 persons. Not all men, but women and children. He was a military tactician that lied and told others to use deception that ultimately led to the death of many people (taqiyya). We never see any depictions of Muhammad with children, we just know that he most likely acquired a gal at age 6 and consummated the “marriage” when she was nine. He was a pedophile in other words. While the Qu’ran states that a follower of this book should have no more than 4 wives, we know of course that he had many more. Many more.

JESUS, when Peter struck off the ear of the soldier, healed it. Christ said if his followers were of any other kingdom, they would fight to get him off the cross. Christ invited and used children as examples of how Jewish adults should view their faith… something culturally radical – inviting children into an inner-circle of a group of status oriented men as the Pharisees were and using them as examples to learn from. Jesus, and thusly us, can access true love because the Triune God has eternally loved (The Father loves the Son, etc. ~ unlike the unitarian God of Islam). Love between us then, my wife and I, the love in community/Body of Christ, has foundations in God. Even the most ardent Muslim still leaves his or her entrance into “heaven” as an arbitrary choice of “god.” The love of Christ and the relationship he offers is bar-none the center piece of our faith… something the Muslim does not have. Which is why the Church evolved because they have a point of reference in Christ to come back to. We would not want the Muslim to fall back to his point of reference but to look to Jesus as a referent.

So what do I tell even a truly moderate Muslim? “I hope you act more like Jesus than Muhammad.” Differences matter. But not on University and College campuses.