When God Ordered Genocides in the Bible
Think the Bible is about love and forgiveness? It also commands mass murder, child slaughter, and ethnic cleansing — all in God’s name.
When people talk about the Bible, they like to picture peace, love, forgiveness, and that shiny “God is love” message, focusing on the nice bits of the New Testament. But turn the pages to the Old Testament and read the fine print, and you’ll find some extremely problematic scenes that make modern war crimes look mild. We’re not talking about regular battles here — we’re talking about the textbook definition of genocide.
“If these texts were found in any other ancient document, we would call them what they are — accounts of genocide justified by divine command.”
— Dr. Hector Avalos, Professor of Religious Studies, Iowa State University, author of The Biblical Case Against Violence
Jericho — The Holy Massacre
Let’s start with Jericho, the city with the famous falling walls. You probably heard the Sunday school version — trumpets blowing, walls tumbling, everyone cheering. Sounds like a victory parade. But what followed wasn’t a celebration — it was a massacre.
In Joshua 6, God told Joshua and the Israelites to kill everyone in Jericho — everyone. The verse says:
“They utterly destroyed everything in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.”
That’s not metaphorical. It means they killed babies, elders, and animals — and burned the city to the ground.
If this story happened today, it would be on the front page of every newspaper as a war crime. But in the Bible, it’s “God’s will.”
The Amalekites — God’s Grudge Gone Wild
The Amalekites messed with the Israelites once in Exodus 17, and God took it personally. Generations later, in 1 Samuel 15, God gave King Saul an explicit order:
“Go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
In other words, wipe out an entire ethnic group — even the babies still nursing at their mothers’ breasts. Saul hesitated and spared their king, Agag, plus some livestock. God’s reaction? Fury. He didn’t get mad because of the killing — He got mad because Saul didn’t kill enough.
The prophet Samuel had to finish the job, personally hacking King Agag to pieces.
Imagine that. A prophet murdering someone with his own hands to please God. The same Bible that says “Thou shalt not kill” turns around and celebrates this.
Sodom and Gomorrah — The Fire from Heaven
Genesis 19 gives us one of the Bible’s most famous wipeouts — Sodom and Gomorrah. God decided these cities were beyond saving and dropped fire and brimstone on them like a divine airstrike.
The Bible doesn’t say how many people lived there, or what exactly made them so wicked, but we’re supposed to believe every man, woman, and child deserved it. Even Lot’s wife — who just looked back for a second — was turned into salt.
Were there kids in those cities? Almost certainly. Were there people just living normal lives, working, raising families? Of course. But the story doesn’t care. When God’s mad, everyone pays.
If you read that story in any other ancient book, you’d call it mythology. Read it in the Bible, and it becomes “justice.”
The Canaanites — The Biggest Holy Land Cleansing
The biggest biblical genocide by far is what happened to the Canaanites. When the Israelites arrived at the “Promised Land,” God told them to take it by force — and not to leave anyone alive.
Deuteronomy 20:16–17 lays it out plain:
“But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall leave alive nothing that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.”
“Nothing that breathes” — meaning not one human or animal.
This was a multi-year campaign, city after city, tribe after tribe. Think of it as the ancient version of ethnic cleansing — except it’s blessed by God.
Historians call it “the conquest of Canaan.” Believers call it “divine destiny.” Strip the religion away, and it’s mass murder with a halo.
“The conquest narratives are theological justifications for the extermination of entire peoples. They reflect an ancient worldview where divine favor was measured by total victory, not mercy.”
— Dr. Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University, author of Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses
Midian — Moses’ Dirty Work
You’d think Moses — the man with the tablets — would be above genocide. Think again.
In Numbers 31, Moses ordered an attack on the Midianites. The Israelites killed every man. Then Moses got angry because they spared the women and children. His command?
“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”
Let that sink in. Moses ordered the killing of boys and women — and told his army to keep virgin girls as spoils of war.
If that doesn’t sound like genocide mixed with sexual slavery, what does?
And remember, this isn’t some “evil” pagan army. These are God’s chosen people under direct command of the same man who supposedly brought us the Ten Commandments.
The Flood — A Global Reset Button
Let’s not forget the biggest genocide in the Bible — Noah’s Flood. According to Genesis 7, God looked down, saw too much wickedness, and decided to kill everything that breathes on Earth.
Men, women, children, animals, all wiped out — except for Noah’s family and some lucky pairs of animals.
People like to paint this story as a cute kids’ tale with rainbows and animals boarding a boat. In reality, it’s the mass drowning of the entire human race. Babies in cribs, pregnant women, innocent creatures — gone.
If Satan had done it, Christians would call it evil. But since God did, it’s called “divine judgment.”
The Firstborn of Egypt — Murder to Prove a Point
In Exodus, when Pharaoh refused to free the Israelites, God sent ten plagues. You’d think frogs and locusts would be enough. But no — the final plague was the slaughter of every firstborn Egyptian.
“From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on the throne to the firstborn of the captive who is in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle.”
Yes, even the prisoners. Even the cows.
Imagine the sound of thousands of families waking up to dead children. God did that — to prove He was powerful.
And then, people still call Him merciful.
“Modern believers selectively forget that the Bible’s heroes committed atrocities that, if done today, would be prosecuted as war crimes. Yet in scripture, they’re celebrated as models of faith.”
— Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, New Testament scholar, University of North Carolina
Justifying the Bloodshed
Whenever you bring these stories up, believers rush to explain them away.
“They were wicked!”
“It was God’s judgment!”
“It was a different time!”
But none of those excuses change what the text says. Killing kids and animals isn’t justice — it’s cruelty. If your morality depends on who gives the order, then you don’t have morality — you have obedience.
If a human ruler did what God did in these stories, Christians would call him a monster. But since it’s in their Holy Book, it becomes a lesson in faith.
When Faith Becomes a Weapon
Here’s the scary part — people have used these stories to justify real-life atrocities for centuries.
From the Crusades to the conquest of the Americas, believers have quoted these genocidal verses to prove God was “on their side.” Colonizers saw Native Americans as new Canaanites. Missionaries called their slaughter “purification.”
It’s not just ancient history — it’s the blueprint for holy war.
If your religion can turn mass murder into a sacred act, you’ve got a problem.
The Mental Gymnastics
Modern theologians try to soften it up. Some say these genocides were metaphors — lessons about removing sin, not people. Others say the victims were so corrupt they deserved to die.
But what kind of god writes “love your neighbor” in one chapter and “kill them all” in another?
The only way to excuse it is to cherry-pick. Ignore the gore, highlight the grace. Talk about the Good Samaritan, forget the slaughtered Canaanite.
It’s not faith at that point — it’s selective reading.
God’s Selective Compassion
The Bible often praises God’s mercy — but it’s a strange kind of mercy that comes with so many exceptions. If you’re not on His team, you’re toast.
The Canaanites, Amalekites, Midianites, Egyptians — they were all people with families, culture, and history. They weren’t demons. They just had the wrong gods.
Apparently, the Almighty can create galaxies but can’t handle religious diversity.
What If It Happened Today?
If someone today said “God told me to wipe out this village because they worship differently,” they’d be called insane, arrested, or worse. But in the Bible, that same behavior earns you sainthood.
It’s funny how morality changes when the killer is divine.
And that’s the real issue — these genocides reveal a double standard baked into religion itself. What’s unforgivable when done by humans becomes righteous when done by God.
The Bigger Question
The problem isn’t just the violence; it’s that believers are taught to admire it. The Old Testament doesn’t just record these events — it celebrates them. The writers describe them as victories, not tragedies.
But if you strip away the “holy” label, these are stories of ethnic cleansing, slaughter, and domination.
So here’s the question every believer should face:
If your god’s justice looks exactly like human cruelty, what’s the difference?
The Silence in the Pews
You’ll rarely hear a sermon about the genocide of the Canaanites or the Midianite girls kept as spoils. Churches prefer to stick to Noah’s rainbow, not the bodies floating beneath it.
They say the Bible is a moral guide. If that’s true, why does it teach obedience over empathy?
Why does it glorify people who kill on command but condemn those who question it?
Maybe the real moral of these stories is that religion and morality don’t always walk hand in hand. Sometimes, religion is the excuse people use to silence morality altogether.
Last Thoughts
The Bible isn’t all love, grace, and forgiveness. It’s also full of blood, conquest, and genocide. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make those verses disappear.
Whether you see them as history, myth, or morality tales, they show a god who demanded total devotion — even if it meant wiping out entire peoples.
And if that’s holy, maybe it’s time to ask — holy to whom?
Sources and Further Reading
Joshua 6 (Jericho and herem)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+6&version=NRSVJoshua 8 (Ai “utter destruction”)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+8&version=NRSVJoshua 11 (Hazor destroyed and burned)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+11&version=NRSV1 Samuel 15 (Amalekite extermination order)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+15&version=NRSVNumbers 31 (Midian: kill the boys; keep the virgin girls)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+31&version=NRSVDeuteronomy 2–3 (Sihon and Og narratives)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+2-3&version=NRSVDeuteronomy 7 (Ban/herem against Canaanite nations)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+7&version=NRSVDeuteronomy 20:10–18 (Leave alive nothing that breathes)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+20%3A10-18&version=NRSVGenesis 19 (Sodom and Gomorrah)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+19&version=NRSVGenesis 6–9 (The Flood)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6-9&version=NRSVIs God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God — Paul Copan
The Human Faces of God — Thom Stark
The Violence of Scripture — Eric A. Seibert
Laying Down the Sword — Philip Jenkins
The Bible and the Sword: Violence in Biblical Tradition — John J. Collins