DOES THE BIBLE DESCRIBE A GOD OF MERCY? XI.
IS it possible to conceive of a more jealous, revengeful, changeable, unjust, unreasonable, cruel being than the Jehovah of the Hebrews? Is it possible to read the words said to have been spoken by this Deity, without a shudder? Is it possible to contemplate his character without hatred?
"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh."—Deut. xxxii.
Is this the language of an infinitely kind and tender parent to his weak, his wandering and suffering children?
"Thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." Psalms, lxviii.
Is it possible that a God takes delight in seeing dogs lap the blood of his children?
22. "And the Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.
23. "But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.
24. "And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them."—Deut. vii.
If these words had proceeded from the mouth of a demon, if they had been spoken by some enraged and infinitely malicious fiend, I should not have been surprised. But these things are attributed to a God of infinite mercy.