Bad Theology

Text for today: Judges 1 xxviii-2 v

In the course of invading Canaan, the Israelites fail on several fronts to destroy the natives outright. Several cities and their dependent villages are incompletely wiped out, and the Amorites even force the tribe of Dan to retreat into the hills. Irritated at His chosen people's inefficiency in carrying out His genocidal decrees, God sends an angel to remind the master race of its obligations. The master race responds in loud and lachrymose fashion, makes sacrifices and calls the site Weeping.

God has commanded the Israelites to make no treaties with the Canaanites and to break down their altars. However, in His wisdom God has not bestirred Himself to give His chosen people the strength to obey His commands, and His angel accordingly conveys the Deity's annoyance that His will has not been done.

Presumably the source of God's displeasure is the Israelites' condescending to enslave rather than murder the populations of various cities and their surrounding villages. Doubtless it was the memory of this atrocious disobedience that caused the Saviour, who must have felt the injury as keenly as His consubstantial Father, to require a grovel or two from the Canaanites before deigning to exert His famously limitless compassion.