“Dad, why does Deuteronomy 20 talk about killing the boys and girls?”
My daughter wants to know. Even as a biblical scholar, I don’t have a good answer.
(Source images by Titian (public domain) and Mitchell Luo on Unsplash)
I recently felt heartbreak when my daughter, shortly after receiving her first Bible, stumbled onto Deuteronomy 20, which commands Israelites to kill all that breathes in Canaan (vv. 16–18). I’m a pacifist, and that chapter is probably the last one I would want her to read. It happened to be one of her first.
“Dad, why does it talk about killing the boys and girls?” As if that question wasn’t bad enough on its own, she asked it first thing in the morning, before I had any coffee.
“I don’t know,” I slowly replied.
