Why does God give contradictory commands in the Bible?

[Compassionist]

The Bible presents a serious moral contradiction. In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17), God explicitly says:

“Thou shalt not kill” (or more accurately in Hebrew, *lo tirtsach* — “you shall not murder”).

Yet, throughout the very same scriptures, this same God commands genocides and mass killings. For example:

Deuteronomy 20:16–17:

“You shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them — the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

1 Samuel 15:3:

“Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

Numbers 31:17–18:

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”

If “murder” means intentionally taking a human life, then these divine commands directly violate the very moral law God is said to have given.

Apologists often respond in one of three ways:

1. “Killing in war isn’t murder.”
But these passages go far beyond war — they include killing infants and non-combatants. Calling it “warfare” doesn’t make it morally right, especially when commanded by an allegedly all-good being.

2. “Those people were wicked and deserved it.”
But collective punishment of entire populations, including children, contradicts basic moral justice — even within the Bible itself. Ezekiel 18:20 says:

“The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father.”
So how can innocent children deserve death for their ancestors’ actions?

3. “God’s morality is beyond human understanding.”
This argument essentially abandons moral reasoning. If God’s morality can justify genocide, then anything — slavery, rape, torture — could be justified as “God’s higher purpose.” That makes morality arbitrary and destroys the very meaning of good and evil.

In short:
If the command “Thou shalt not murder” is absolute, then the genocidal commands are immoral.
If the genocidal commands are moral because God gave them, then “Thou shalt not murder” has no fixed moral meaning.

Either way, the Bible presents a contradiction that cannot be ethically reconciled without abandoning either moral consistency or divine goodness.

[JehovahsWitness]

..

the reason God commanded the Jews to destroy Jericho was to teach them about himself and instill or install his very own likeness and very own mind, thought and his ways into them

Well nothing could be instilled by the destruction of Jericho in the inhabitants of Jericho because they were all dead. That said, yes, surrounding nations, the Israelites themselves and even later generations could learn lessons about God from the destruction of Jericho (and the survival of Rahab).


JEHOVAHS WITNESS

FURTHER READING She was declared righteous by works
https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines ... the-bible/

To learn more please go to other posts related to ...

ARMAGEDDON, DIVINE WAR and ...KILLING IN SCRIPTURE

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #1]

The Bible presents a serious moral contradiction. In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17), God explicitly says:

“Thou shalt not kill” (or more accurately in Hebrew, *lo tirtsach* — “you shall not murder”).

Yet, throughout the very same scriptures, this same God commands genocides and mass killings. For example:

Deuteronomy 20:16–17:

“You shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them — the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

Murder is unlawful killing. God didn't say never kill, but don't kill unlawfully. BTW, I think most all the stories in the OT are stories and not historical events, though some historical events take place within the stories. The purpose of the stories are to teach us the kind of faith we ought to have.

If “murder” means intentionally taking a human life

It doesn't mean that. Self defense is intentionally taking a human life. It clearly is not murder.

If the genocidal commands are moral because God gave them, then “Thou shalt not murder” has no fixed moral meaning.

Don't kill unlawfully.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #1]

The Bible presents a serious moral contradiction. In the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17), God explicitly says:

“Thou shalt not kill” (or more accurately in Hebrew, *lo tirtsach* — “you shall not murder”).

Yet, throughout the very same scriptures, this same God commands genocides and mass killings. For example:

Deuteronomy 20:16–17:

“You shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them — the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”

Murder is unlawful killing. God didn't say never kill, but don't kill unlawfully. BTW, I think most all the stories in the OT are stories and not historical events, though some historical events take place within the stories. The purpose of the stories are to teach us the kind of faith we ought to have.

If “murder” means intentionally taking a human life

It doesn't mean that. Self defense is intentionally taking a human life. It clearly is not murder.

If the genocidal commands are moral because God gave them, then “Thou shalt not murder” has no fixed moral meaning.

Don't kill unlawfully.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #163]

Thank you for clarifying your position. Your response is internally consistent — but it comes at a significant moral and conceptual cost.

Murder is unlawful killing. God didn't say never kill, but don't kill unlawfully.

This move empties the commandment of independent moral content.

If “unlawful” simply means “whatever God permits or commands,” then the prohibition reduces to:

“Do not kill unless I say so.”

At that point, “Thou shalt not murder” no longer functions as a moral constraint on violence. It becomes a tautology: killing is wrong unless authorized.

I think most all the stories in the OT are stories and not historical events… The purpose of the stories are to teach us the kind of faith we ought to have.

This creates a new dilemma rather than resolving the old one.

If these genocidal commands are:
• historically false, but
• divinely inspired moral instruction,

then the moral lesson being taught is still that:
obedience to divine command can override ordinary moral prohibitions.

Whether or not anyone was actually killed is secondary. The ethical model remains.

It doesn't mean that. Self defense is intentionally taking a human life. It clearly is not murder.

This analogy fails.

Self-defense involves:
• imminent threat,
• necessity, and
• proportionality.

Genocidal commands involve:
• preemptive violence,
• collective punishment, and
• extermination of non-combatants.

These are not morally equivalent categories. Appealing to self-defense does not justify commands to “save alive nothing that breathes.”

Don't kill unlawfully.

This is precisely the problem.

If God defines law after the fact by command, then morality is no longer principled — it is procedural.

Under this framework:
• There is no action that cannot become moral by decree.
• Moral reasoning collapses into obedience.
• “Good” means “commanded,” not “just.”

That is not a limitation of human understanding; it is a redefinition of morality itself.

The core issue

Either:

1. “Do not murder” expresses a moral principle that constrains violence — in which case genocidal commands contradict it,

or

2. “Do not murder” means “do not kill unless authorized” — in which case it teaches nothing beyond submission.

You cannot preserve both moral meaning and unrestricted divine command at the same time.

Recasting murder as “unlawful killing” does not resolve the contradiction — it relocates it.

It saves divine authority by sacrificing moral coherence.

That may be a theological choice, but it is not a moral vindication.

[Avoice]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #153]

I didnt inherit my beliefs. I put aside everything I was told and made up my own mind.

[Compassionist]

[Replying to Compassionist in post #153]

I didnt inherit my beliefs. I put aside everything I was told and made up my own mind.

Please explain the basis for your position.

[Tcg]

[Replying to Avoice in post #135]

Its because God said DONT eat it.

So, you believe in divine command theory? In other words, you believe whatever God commands is morally right. Is that correct?


Tcg

[Tcg]

[Replying to Avoice in post #135]

Its because God said DONT eat it.

So, you believe in divine command theory? In other words, you believe whatever God commands is morally right. Is that correct?


Tcg

It looks like Avoice is avoiding my question. Is anyone else willing to address it?


Tcg

[RBD]

[Replying to RBD in post #144]

You have your own personal moral code. It's not the Bible God's nor mine.
Calling your moral code truth, and judging others by it, doesn't make it true, nor others guilty of evil.

Yes — everyone reasons from a moral framework.

False. God has no moral framework, nor do the righteous followers of God.

You're not everyone. Nor are you God.

That is not the issue.

False. That is the issue. You are the issue, when you declare your moral code is truth, and presume to speak for everyone as God.

In your self-moralizing, you are no longer able to understand that everyone is not like you.

The question is whether moral terms such as good, justice, and righteousness have any intelligible meaning beyond “whatever an authority commands.”

Good, justice, and righteousness are not moral terms. Man's morality is no good, unjust, and unrighteousness.

Isa 64:6
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our moralities are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Being moral in oneself is being against the good and just God of righteousness at all times.

I am not convinced that any God exists.

Well, duh, already. It's why only your morality exists, not the good and just righteousness of the true God.

All of man's own morality ends in the grave.

Please prove that the Biblical God exists. Then moral language no longer functions normatively at all.

Thank you. Now the true light is finally able to shine in to you.

If there is that perfectly good, just, and righteousness of God in heaven, then all of man's morality is filthy rags.

Therefore we conclude: Moral arguments only function to prove it contradicts Bible righteousness, not to prove any contradiction within Bible righteousness.

Bible inerrancy can only prove that the Bible God can be that truly good and just God of righteousness in heaven.

Psa 19:9
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

Psa 119:89
For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.

Psa 119:140
Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.

Psa 119:160
Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

Jhn 17:17
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.


And whether anyone wants to believe in such perfectly pure and eternal truth, the Bible is the only Book on earth that does declare it. Therefore, whether anyone wants to believe the Bible God or not, only the Bible God can be that perfect God in heaven.

Moral men committed only to their own personal morality, naturally must refuse to believe the Bible God and His perfect righteousness, goodness, and justice.

Moral arguments against eternal righteousness and true holiness are dysfunctional and meaningless. They only function to prove that a man's morality is not the eternal righteousness and true holiness in the Bible.

If righteousness is neither assessable nor intelligible, then commands to “do justice,” “love mercy,” or “walk humbly” are not moral guidance — they are imperatives divorced from meaning.

Yet Scripture repeatedly appeals to moral understanding as such. That creates an internal tension you have not resolved.

You must use human cognition, inference, and evaluative judgment to determine:
• Which texts govern others.
• Which readings are “undivine.”
• Which commands reflect righteousness.

That is not avoided by invoking authority. It is simply relabelled after the fact.

Calling one interpretation “divinely righteous” because it preserves divine righteousness is epistemic circularity, not a solution.

No external standard is permitted, yet judgment is constantly exercised. The circle remains.

Once you accept that, you have also accepted that:
• “Good” does not mean non-cruel.
• “Just” does not mean fair.
• “Righteous” does not mean morally admirable.

It means only: commanded by sufficient authority.

That is not morality. It is authoritarian obedience given theological language.

Then we are no longer debating ethics.

Exactly again and again and again and again on every point: We see how you're conclusion is accurate, that such moral arguments serve no purpose, but only to show what it is not, and there is no debate between the two.

Isa 55:8
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Arguing against perfect righteousness by morality, is as dysfunctional as arguing against perfection by imperfection.

All moralists themselves always willingly qualify their morality with: However imperfectly. They can never speak of anything being anything perfect, because they reject the perfection of holiness from above:

Exo 15:11
Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

Perfection does not cease to exist, just because the unholy choose imperfection. Nor is perfect righteousness proven false by any nonfunctional moral argument against it.

The accusation against the Bible by flawed morality was over when it began, because there is no such functional debate that proves anything, other than that morality is not the righteousness and true holiness of the Bible God.

[RBD]

5. “Jesus Lets Them Do Anything” Is a Strawman

The claim that Christians believe they can “do anything” as long as they believe is not accurate, even within Christianity.

Christian theology still includes:

• moral accountability
• judgment
• repentance
• ethical obligation

This is false. Some Christians do believe they can do anything, and be saved and justified with their Christ, by their faith alone.

Mat 7:21
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

They only deny they can do anything and get away with it on earth. Unlike how they can do anything and get away with no eternal consequences.

Only the most cultish Christian sects, along with other spiritual and mystical cults, believe they can do anything without consequences of nature's and man's laws.

You may think the system is incoherent or morally flawed —that’s a legitimate critique.

Correct. Which is your bailiwick. You have every right to challenge those Christians, that also replace the righteousness and true holiness of God, with their own moral standard. Whether it's their morality in the name of Christ, or your morality against Christ, both are man's own standard, and not the righteous judgment of the Bible God.

In fact, Jesus Himself has more respect for your flawed morality (not that it has any good in itself), but that at least you don't preach it as His law and judgement. In fact, He can appreciate an open enemy more than lip-serving hypocrites.

Rev 3:15
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

But portraying it as license without consequence misrepresents what Christians actually teach.

False.
Since they still believe there are consequences for anything they do against natural and man's law, then they escape the charge of saying there is no consequences for that what may do wrong.

And so, with nice duplicity, they do not call their 'Faith Alone' ideology a 'license' to do evil without consequence on earth, but rather an unconditionally secured license of Faith Alone, against any eternal consequences.

Rom 2:3
And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

Their Faith Alone is a free pass escape route from God's eternal judgment, though not from nature and man's temporal laws. They therefore have more respect to man's laws, than God's.

Either you were once a Faith Alone Christian, or you know them well enough to fairly ape their subtilty.

And so yes, you may no doubt have many moral debates with Faith Alone Christians, which they likewise debate with you, since all of you are your own moralists, whether naming Christ or not. IN fact, you may know some of your own veganarians that also call themselves Christian. Afterall, anyone can be a Christian, with their own moral standard, but only the few that repent of man's morality for God righteousness and true holiness, can become a born saint of God in Christ Jesus.

And you, who do not defile His name by preaching your morality as His righteousness, can be closer to repentance than them that do their own moral thing in the name of the Lord:

Luk 6:46
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?