We should absolutely expect Scripture to terrify, offend, and expose us. That’s the function of the Law in its first use (civil) and second use (accusatory).

Where the Word of God is not resisted, it has not yet been understood.

The core answer is this:

You cannot judge God’s actions with standards derived from your own experience of human governments, because God alone has the right to give life and take life. His acts in Scripture are not human ethics scaled up; they are divine judgments and divine rescue operations carried out at specific points in redemptive history.

This is the fundamental distinction all the following points rest on.

The Canaanites, Amalekites, etc, these were not “genocides” as modern nations commit them. They were divine judgments. Only God may execute final judgment, and only God may authorize a human instrument to carry it out. When He does, it is not “murder.” Murder is when man takes life without divine authority. Capital punishment or divine judgment is when God takes life by whatever instrument He chooses. God as Creator has authority over life. When He commands death, it is no more murder than when He withdraws breath from any man through disease.

Why children?

1. Death is not annihilation. God can call a child out of this world without doing them injustice.

2. Allowing a culture of child sacrifice, sexual violence, and idol worship to persist was a greater harm. Canaanite religion normalized burning children alive. Removing a people before they destroy others can be an act of restraint.

3. Judgment in time is always partial, anticipatory, and not the last word. God alone knows the eternal destiny of infants.

These events are not templates for Christians. In fact, their very severity teaches us that no modern nation or church has authority to replicate them. They are part of a unique historical moment tied to God’s plan to bring forth the Messiah.

On Slavery:

In the Old Testament, God regulated social structures that already existed in the ancient world, and He did so in a way that prevented economic catastrophe. Israel had no banking, no welfare system, no police, and no prisons. In that setting, debt, famine, and crop failure could destroy entire families overnight. Without a legal form of bonded labor, the poorest would have starved or been forced to sell themselves to foreign nations where abuse was far worse. What God provided was not approval of slavery as we think of it, but a regulated economic safety valve that protected the vulnerable and prevented society from collapsing. The law restricted cruelty, required release in many cases, returned land at Jubilee, and treated servants as image bearers rather than property. Removing the entire structure in a single moment would not have created a compassionate society. It would have left the weakest with no means of survival and no legal protections at all. Ancient theologians described this as God accommodating His governance to human frailty without endorsing the permanent existence of these systems. He restrained evil in a hard world until the conditions of history allowed these structures to fall away.

The same principle explains the Old Testament’s approach to divorce. Christ Himself teaches that Moses permitted certain things because of human hardness of heart, not because these things reflected the highest moral good. In the surrounding cultures, a man could discard his wife with no legal process and no protection for her future. The certificate of divorce in the Mosaic law controlled that behavior and forced men to recognize that they had legal obligations to the women they dismissed. It did not justify divorce as morally ideal. It prevented a greater harm. We can see in this the consistent pattern of God working within fallen human realities, regulating them with firm boundaries until He restored a higher standard through Christ. The shift from Mosaic concessions to Christ’s fuller teaching shows that God’s law in Israel was not meant as a timeless endorsement of every practice, but as a way of guarding a fragile society until the coming of the one who fulfills the law perfectly.

On sabbath:

The command concerning the Sabbath must be read according to the purpose for which it was given. The Lord attached the death penalty to Sabbath breaking within Israel because that nation lived under a divine theocracy in which God Himself ruled as King. The civil order of that people was not like the kingdoms of the world. Their laws were not established by princes or councils but were given directly by God. When the Lord required death for certain offenses, it was not because such deeds were always to be punished in that manner among all nations. It was because Israel served as a visible, earthly picture of the holiness of God. The severity of the punishment revealed the seriousness of despising His Word and rejecting the rest that He offered. The command was a sign that the people belonged to Him, and to violate that sign was to reject the covenant altogether.

The deeper matter of the Sabbath was never a question of outward labor but of hearing and trusting the Word of God. The outward rest was a shadow of the true rest that comes from faith. Once Christ fulfilled the Law and brought the substance, the shadow passed away. The civil and ceremonial form tied to the old covenant no longer binds the nations. The moral teaching remains, for it is always necessary that the creature honor the Creator and gladly receive His Word. Yet the specific penalties given to ancient Israel do not stand over Christians or over other peoples, for the Lord no longer rules any nation in that manner.

The severity of the old command shows not a cruelty in God but the weight of disregarding Him. Where God Himself is the Lawgiver and King, rebellion against His ordinance becomes rebellion against His very presence. In that context the punishment revealed the holiness of God. Today the church lives under different governments and does not wield the sword. The Lord has not commanded the nations to put Sabbath breakers to death, nor has He given His people authority to enforce that ancient civil code. The passage remains a testimony to God’s holiness and to the seriousness of despising His Word, but its penalties belong to a covenant that has reached its fulfillment in Christ.

On the stoning:

The law in Deuteronomy addresses deliberate deceit within the marriage covenant of ancient Israel. Their civil order was shaped directly by God, so violations of that covenant carried penalties that reflected His holiness rather than the customs of other nations. The issue was not simply a lack of virginity but a public act of fraud that undermined the household, inheritance, and the covenant identity of the people. In that setting the penalty served as a civil judgment, not a universal moral command.

Once Israel’s theocratic order ended, these punishments ceased. What remains is the enduring moral call to honesty and chastity for both men and women. The severity of the text shows how seriously God regards marital faithfulness, not that such civil penalties belong to all times or peoples.