The Ben Shapiro Show – transcript provided by DeepCast.fm
My cmnt: Ben Shapiro interviewed Pastor John MacArthur on 06/09/24 on his show. MacArthur provided this insight into God’s command. MacArthur is addressing the issue of Israel today needing to utterly destroy and wipeout, NOT the Palestinian people, but their terrorist Amalekites known as Hamas and then probably to do the same to Hezbolah. Any people that have stated they want to wipe Israel (from the River to the Sea) off the map is under God’s most severe judgement.
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But secularism hates the truth, and it will do anything it can to label it and vilify it. And, you know, that’s what we have going on. You know, one other thing, Ben, I wanted to mention to you. There’s a story in the Old Testament that is pretty compelling. When Israel came out of Egypt after the captivity and they were headed toward the promised land, the first group of terrorists that attacked her, attacked the stragglers, it says, you remember, were the Amalekites.
You will remember that Amalek was the grandson of Esau. Esau had an axe to grind, obviously, because Jacob got the covenant right, and Esau sold his birthright for a meal. So there was some hostility there. But you go a couple of generations later, and you’ve got Amalek.
He’s the first terrorist, and he leads a group that raids them. And God says, they have to be destroyed. They have to be destroyed. And in Deuteronomy 25, verses 17 to 19, as Israel stands on the edge of going into the promised land, after wandering in the wilderness, God says to them, I want you to destroy the Amalekites. I want you to destroy all of them.
All of them. I want you to destroy their animals. And he goes through the whole litany of things because they are a deadly, deadly force in this world, and I need you to be my instrument of judgment. Well, I don’t know if you remember the story. They battled the Amalekites first, Samuel 15.
And Saul was the king. And Saul was told to wipe them out, and he didn’t do that. He allowed some of them to survive, and he allowed Agag, the Amalekite king, to live. And he didn’t kill him. He didn’t cut the head off.
Fast forward to the end of the 15th chapter. Samuel comes up, and Samuel says, Saul, you didn’t kill Agag. And then Samuel does this amazing thing. He hacks Agag to pieces, which is an amazing act, and he did it because God told him to do it. That group of people were so dangerous.
They were so destructive and so deadly and so threatening. To the plans of God for Israel that he wanted them wiped out. They didn’t do that. Fast forward to the Book of Esther a few hundred years later, and what have you got in Esther? You’ve got Haman, who is an Agagite, who is from the line of Agag the Amalekite, and he plans genocide for the entire Jewish race, right in the book of Esther, and Mordecai and Esther come to the rescue.
It wasn’t until the Persians completely wiped out the Amalekites that God’s will was fulfilled in that judgment. Now, you might not like the fact that God is a judge, but when God determines that I’m going to protect my people Israel, and you’re going to attack my people Israel, I have a plan for my people Israel, as the New Testament says, so all Israel will be saved. There’s coming a kingdom. He will fulfill every promise he ever gave to David, every promise he ever gave to Abraham, every promise ever coming through the prophets will be fulfilled. When Messiah establishes his kingdom, God is going to preserve that people.
And if you are a threat to that people, historically speaking, God says you need to be removed. And I think about that story so often. When I think about Hamas, this is like the modern version of Amalek. And until they are wiped out, this is just going to go on and on and on and on. And I know, I don’t want to be callous about things, but God has, in his sovereignty, made a decision for the preservation of Israel into the future, into the kingdom of Messiah.
That’s his plan. That’s his promise. You can be a part of that by coming to the Messiah and being a part of his kingdom. But if you attempt to destroy the very people that are the heart and soul of God’s plan, then you come under the judgment of God. And I think Israel is acting, even though they’re a secular nation in the large sense, because salvation is individual, not national.
I think their desire to protect and preserve them and to fight in, really a terminal way against those who would destroy them follows the divine pattern of God for the preservation of that people until he fulfills his plan for them. Your point with regard to Hamas is particularly true, and I just want to clarify here. When you have a force that is dedicated to the extermination of every Jew on the planet, which is what Hamas openly says, if you are a member of that terror group, the moral position for anyone would be to end that terror group and destroy them wholesale. And Israel has done actually an extraordinary job in attempting to distinguish civilians, even civilians who are sympathetic to Hamas from members of Hamas themselves. The fact that there are so many people in the west who seem to lack moral clarity in what is easily the most morally clear conflict of our time is a source of astonishment to me.
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Why Did God Command Saul to Eliminate the Amalekites?
Mercy Hill Church – August 21, 2017
My cmnt: The conquest of Canaan by Israel served several purposes of Yahweh. First, the land had been promised to Abraham nearly 500 years earlier. Second, the land had become cursed because of the sex cult of the Canaanites where they worshiped their gods (i.e., Satan and the demons) by having sex with temple prostitutes and then when the babies were born sacrificing them into the fire. This type of religion is particularly abominable to God. Our modern Canaanites also worship Satan through sex as their religion and abortion as their sacrament. And third, because people who do these things become so hardened in their hearts that they have passed beyond redemption and hate God so much that they strive to wipe out the people of God.
My cmnt: I’ve edited the following for clarity and content.
This past week, Pastor Andrew discussed the fall of Saul and had to deal with 1 Samuel 15:3. This verse records the words of God through the prophet Samuel to Saul, “Now go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have. Do not spare them. Kill men and women, infants and nursing babies,[1] oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.” The immediate reaction of most people, non-Christians and Christians alike, is to ask, “How could God command this? I don’t know if I want to believe in a God that would do such a thing.” And many have walked away from the faith because of things like this. Indeed, death should not gladden our hearts. Even God’s judgment on evil should bring grief along with the joy of justice. God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). Our heart posture should be the same.
But since many of you may still have questions, I wanted to summarize one of the best reflections on this issue. It comes from renowned Old Testament scholar, Christopher J. H. Wright, in his book The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith. It is a masterful work, carefully considered and not cold, academic prose. Rather, Wright is quite human in his admittance that these areas still trouble him. But he is sure that Christians can find solace in fitting these questions into the grand narrative of Scripture. I cannot fit everything I want into this blog from his chapters, so I highly recommend checking out the book.
Wright’s main focus is the Israelite conquest of the Canaanites, which ended somewhat with Joshua, but Saul’s battle with the Amalekites certainly fits the scheme as it is a later extension of the battle for peace in the Promised Land. Wright offers that there are three common “explain-aways” that people use to ignore the weight of these commands from God, but he proves that these objections will not do and gives three frameworks we can use to help us bear the full weight of what occurred. I will here consider the most common explain-away and then summarize all three of Wright’s frameworks.
Explain-Away #1: It’s an Old Testament Problem, which the New Testament Puts Right
You’ll hear many people say that they don’t like the God of the Old Testament; he’s all wrathful and angry. The God of the New, revealed in Christ, is all peaceful and loving. Wright shows this is false because not only does the OT often speak of God as loving, compassionate, and willing to be merciful (e.g. Gen. 18; Ex. 34:6-7; Ps. 103:8-14; 145:9, 13, 17; Jer. 31:3, 20; Hos. 3:1), but the New Testament—Jesus especially—does not shy away from speaking of God’s judgment (e.g Matt. 10:15, 13:40-42, 18:34, 22:13, 25:41). Take this illustrative passage from Hebrews 10:26-31:
For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy, based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know the one who has said, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
This argument of a change in God’s attitude from one testament to the next cannot hold water. Wright quotes bible scholar John Wenham who summarizes things well:
It is fallacious to regard this as essentially an Old Testament problem, and to set the “bloodthirsty” Old Testament over against the “gentle” New Testament. Possibly the phenomenon is more crude in the Old Testament than in the New, but of the two the New Testament is the more terrible, for the Old Testament seldom speaks of anything beyond temporal judgments . . . whereas the Son of man in the Gospels pronounces eternal punishment.
So, really, there is no way to get around this. 1 Samuel is a historical narrative that seeks to establish the truth of what really happened. Anyone who is serious about the Bible being God’s word is going to believe that God both commanded Saul to eliminate the Amalekites and empowered him to have the victory. The weight is heavy; so, how do we carry it?
The Framework of the Old Testament Story
Many of us in the modern day want to equate what happened in the OT with the Holy Wars of the crusades and the ethnic-cleansing genocide of tribe upon tribe in Africa, but the Canaanite Conquest was unique. This was a Yahweh War. These were not just enemies of Israel, but enemies of God. God was the “commander-in-chief,” and he decided how the people and the spoils of war were to be dealt with because it was his own war accomplished through human agents (in this case, Saul and his army). In fact, after these wars, they were seen as an act of God (Ps. 44). These wars were a unique act of God to fulfill his promises to Abraham and the Israelites. These wars were limited and are in no way meant to be a model for the people of God after they settled in the Promised Land or for God’s New Testament people.
The Framework of God’s Sovereign Justice
To understand much of these dealings, one has to understand God’s covenants with his people. He made a covenant with Abraham to give his people the Promised Land. But it wouldn’t be until the “fourth generation” because “the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (Gen. 15:16). God knew that the people of the land of Canaan would continue in their sin, but he was not yet going to exercise judgment on them because their sin had not reached the level to which he was ready to administer judgment. There is a lot of mystery here, but I think we must understand that God never commanded the Israelites to attack any peoples whom he had not considered it morally right to judge because of the pure evil of their actions. We have to trust God in this.
This brings us to the particular situation of the Amalekites. Their story is that they, unprovoked, attacked Israel from behind as they had just finished crossing the Red Sea, and Israel went to war with them. Because of this and their many other sins, God vowed to blot them out from under heaven (Ex. 17:14). Moses also reminded the people that once they are settled in the Promised Land, they are to wipe out the Amalekites (Deut. 25:17-19). Once again, unless we trust that God is just and would only do such a thing once a people had reached a certain level of wickedness, then this will not satisfy us, but this is the God the Bible presents. Like Pastor Andrew said, this wasn’t genocide, this was divine judgment. There was no injustice in God with his commanding Saul to do this.
The Framework of God’s Plan of Salvation
Finally, we must remember the overarching narrative of scripture in order to view these things rightly. God’s plan in his covenant with Abraham was that his people would be given the Promised Land and all nations would be blessed through him (Gen. 15). These wars were waged by God in pursuit of this goal. But in an unsuspected way, by the Jewish leaders, the promised seed of Abraham came, that is Jesus Christ, who had the war waged on him for all the fullness of the sin that the nations had accumulated. Every nation should be struck down by God’s angels because of their wickedness, but it was placed on Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for those who put their trust in his life, death, and resurrection. And those who believe are now engrafted into the true Israel and have become partakers in the promises made to Abraham, and therefore people from all tribes, tongues, and nations are blessed through Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. This is how the nations were blessed through Abraham.
Evil and the death due to it should grieve us, but let it never stop us from praising God for his justice. His love is wrapped up in his justice; judgment came upon Christ, so that all nations, tribes and tongues might be the beloved people of God.
-Alex Nolette (Community Groups/Equip Coordinator)
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My cmnt: Now fast forward to the time and ministry of Jesus. A Canaanite woman, who nearly had the status among the Jews of a leper, entreats Jesus to help her demon possessed daughter. What Jesus does and says next is remarkable.
The Syrophoenician Woman – Matt 15:21-28
21Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.” 23But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.” 24But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” 28Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.
Commentary from: Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary – Biblehub
Mark 7:24
And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.
Mr 7:24-37. The Syrophoenician Woman and Her Daughter—A Deaf and Dumb Man Healed. ( = Mt 15:21-31).
The Syrophoenician Woman and Her Daughter (Mr 7:24-30).
The first words of this narrative show that the incident followed, in point of time, immediately on what precedes it.
24. And from thence he arose, and went into the borders—or “unto the borders.”
of Tyre and Sidon—the two great Phoenician seaports, but here denoting the territory generally, to the frontiers of which Jesus now came. But did Jesus actually enter this heathen territory? The whole narrative, we think, proceeds upon the supposition that He did. His immediate object seems to have been to avoid the wrath of the Pharisees at the withering exposure He had just made of their traditional religion.
and entered into an house, and would have no man know it—because He had not come there to minister to heathens. But though not “sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 15:24), He hindered not the lost sheep of the vast Gentile world from coming to Him, nor put them away when they did come—as this incident was designed to show.
but he could not be hid—Christ’s fame had early spread from Galilee to this very region (Mr 3:8; Lu 6:17).
For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:
25. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit—or, as in Matthew (Mt 15:22), “was badly demonized.”
heard of him—One wonders how; but distress is quick of hearing.
and fell at his feet:
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.
26. The woman was a Greek—that is, “a Gentile,” as in the Margin.
a Syrophoenician by nation—so called as inhabiting the phoenician tract of Syria. Juvenal uses the same term, as was remarked by Justin Martyr and Tertullian. Matthew (Mt 15:22) calls her “a woman of Canaan”—a more intelligible description to his Jewish readers (compare Jud 1:30, 32, 33).
and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter—”She cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil” (Mt 15:22). Thus, though no Israelite herself, she salutes Him as Israel’s promised Messiah. Here we must go to Mt 15:23-25 for some important links in the dialogue omitted by our Evangelist.
Mt 15:23:
But he answered her not a word—The design of this was first, perhaps, to show that He was not sent to such as she. He had said expressly to the Twelve, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles” (Mt 10:5); and being now among them Himself, He would, for consistency’s sake, let it be seen that He had not gone thither for missionary purposes. Therefore He not only kept silence, but had actually left the house, and—as will presently appear—was proceeding on His way back, when this woman accosted Him. But another reason for keeping silence plainly was to try and whet her faith, patience, and perseverance. And it had the desired effect: “She cried after them,” which shows that He was already on His way from the place.
And His disciples came and besought Him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us—They thought her troublesome with her importunate cries, just as they did the people who brought young children to be blessed of Him, and they ask their Lord to “send her away,” that is, to grant her request and be rid of her; for we gather from His reply that they meant to solicit favor for her, though not for her sake so much as their own.
Mt 15:24:
But He answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel—a speech evidently intended for the disciples themselves, to satisfy them that, though the grace He was about to show to this Gentile believer was beyond His strict commission, He had not gone spontaneously to dispense it. Yet did even this speech open a gleam of hope, could she have discerned it. For thus might she have spoken: “I am not SENT, did He say? Truth, Lord, Thou comest not hither in quest of us, but I come in quest of Thee; and must I go empty away? So did not the woman of Samaria, whom when Thou foundest her on Thy way to Galilee, Thou sentest away to make many rich!” But this our poor Syrophoenician could not attain to. What, then, can she answer to such a speech? Nothing. She has reached her lowest depth, her darkest moment: she will just utter her last cry:
Mt 15:25:
Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me!—This appeal, so artless, wrung from the depths of a believing heart, and reminding us of the publican’s “God be merciful to me a sinner,” moved the Redeemer at last to break silence—but in what style? Here we return to our own Evangelist.
But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.
27. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled—”Is there hope for me here?” “Filled FIRST?” “Then my turn, it seems, is coming!—but then, ‘The CHILDREN first?’ Ah! when, on that rule, shall my turn ever come!” But ere she has time for these ponderings of His word, another word comes to supplement it.
for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs—Is this the death of her hopes? Nay, rather it is life from the dead. Out of the eater shall come forth meat (Jud 14:14). “At evening-time, it shall be light” (Zec 14:7). “Ah! I have it now. Had He kept silence, what could I have done but go unblest? but He hath spoken, and the victory is mine.”
And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.
28. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord—or, as the same word is rendered in Mt 15:27. “Truth, Lord.”
yet the dogs eat of the children’s crumbs—”which fall from their master’s table” (Mt 15:27). “I thank Thee, O blessed One, for that word! That’s my whole case. Not of the children? True. A dog? True also: Yet the dogs under the table are allowed to eat of the children’s crumbs—the droppings from their master’s full table: Give me that, and I am content: One crumb of power and grace from Thy table shall cast the devil out of my daughter.” Oh, what lightning quickness, what reach of instinctive ingenuity, do we behold in this heathen woman!
And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.
29. And he said unto her—”O woman, great is thy faith” (Mt 15:28). As Bengel beautifully remarks, Jesus “marvelled” only at two things—faith and unbelief (see Lu 7:9).
For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter—That moment the deed was done.
And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
30. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed—But Matthew (Mt 15:28) is more specific; “And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” The wonderfulness of this case in all its features has been felt in every age of the Church, and the balm it has administered, and will yet administer, to millions will be known only in that day that shall reveal the secrets of all hearts.
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Commentary on Matthew 15:[10-20] 21-28
Carla Works – Working Preacher
Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman is unsettling.
Jesus is less than eager to help this woman, explaining that his mission is first to the house of Israel. However, Jesus is the one who has left Jewish territory and invaded this woman’s world. Furthermore, this Canaanite woman — an unclean, outsider — demonstrates that she has a better grasp of Jesus’ identity than the hand-selected disciples do at this point in the narrative. Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman unsettles boundaries and calls into question definitions of clean and unclean.
Jesus has entered into Tyre and Sidon where the Canaanite woman instantly greets him. It is remarkable that enough word about Jesus had spread to this region that this woman would somehow know who Jesus is (cf. Mark 3:8). The text does not say that he performed any signs in Tyre and Sidon before meeting her (see 11:20-24), yet she somehow recognizes him, not just as a roaming healer but as a rightful king.
The woman greets Jesus as the “Son of David.” Her recognition is all the more remarkable because the disciples have been a bit slow in recognizing Jesus. In Matthew 14, after the walking on the sea, they do recognize Jesus as the Son of God, but it is not until 16:16 that Peter declares Jesus as Messiah. Yet, this woman hails Jesus as the Son of David, begs his mercy, and entreats his power over a demon that has “severely” possessed her daughter (v. 22). How is it possible that this woman has more insight into Jesus’ identity than his disciples? She is, after all, an unclean outsider, part of a people who are remembered as an old enemy of Israel.
Jesus’ response is, perhaps, the most perplexing piece of this narrative. At first, he does not say a word to her, but he refuses to send her away. Only after her persistence does he converse with her. Twice, he explains to her that his mission is first to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Indeed, the narrative has emphasized that the “house of Israel” has provided Jesus with more work than one laborer could feasibly handle (9:35-10:6). The need in Israel is indeed great.
The disciples, too, seem to think that Jesus should stay focused on the needs of Israel. They kept telling him to send her away because they are tired of hearing her cries for help (15:23).
Perhaps, Jesus’ refusal to listen to the disciples gave the woman hope that her request would be heard. She does something that is significant in this Gospel: she kneels before him. The author of Matthew uses this action as one befitting a king. The magi, who are also Gentiles, are the first to offer worship to Jesus in this way (Matthew 2:2, 8, 11). The unrepentant slave bows before the king in the parable of unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:), and the mother of James and John kneel before Jesus as a king of a kingdom (Matthew 20:20). For the woman to treat Jesus in this manner is in keeping with her earlier declaration of Jesus as the Son of David.
Kneeling is not only a sign of kingship, but also recognition of power. There is a connection between those who kneel before Jesus and the healings that Jesus performs. A leper kneels before Jesus and asks to be made clean (Matt 8:2). A ruler kneels and asks for his daughter’s healing (9:18). At the end of this Gospel, when the resurrected Lord appears, the disciples bow before him, and Jesus says that all authority in heaven and earth is his (28:17-18). Bowing in worship also recalls Jesus’ command to worship only the Lord God (4:9). This woman kneels before one whom she recognizes as having authority not only to sit on the throne of David, but to wield power over evil.
Jesus’ response to her second cry for help includes a reiteration of his mission to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He even likens her status as a Gentile to the status of the small, pet dogs who long to be fed from the table (15:26).
The woman, however, is not deterred. She claims a place in the household, but it is a not a position of privilege or even the position of an insider. She accepts the status of a family’s dog by claiming that even the dog enjoys crumbs from the table.
Her statement is striking. She places hope in what others have discarded. This Son of David has so much power that there is enough power for the house of Israel and more than enough left over for her. She is not trying to thwart his mission. She just wants a crumb, recognizing that even a crumb is powerful enough to defeat the demon that has possessed her daughter.
Jesus praises her faith. This woman seems to understand what the members of the household of Israel have yet to grasp. Jesus is not just hope for Israel, but hope for the world.
In the passage that immediately precedes this story, Jesus responds to challenges from the scribes and Pharisees by reframing the boundaries of clean and unclean. In 15:18, Jesus declares that what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and what comes out of the heart determines what makes one clean. What comes out of the Canaanite woman’s heart is faith — certainty that Jesus has power enough for Israel and power enough to save her non-Israelite daughter.
Her words demonstrate that the boundary separating her from the house of Israel must be reconsidered. With a faith so pure, how can she be deemed unclean? The encounter with the Canaanite woman prepares the reader for Jesus’ great commission to go and to make disciples of all the nations (28:20).
Reading Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman during Pentecost reminds the church that God is constantly entering new territory and breaking boundaries. This God is in the unsettling business of meeting outsiders and granting them not just a crumb, but a place at the table.
Lord Buckbeak: "Will you come into my parlor?," said the Spider to the Fly. 