Old Testament - Is God Vindictive?
Old Testament - Is God Vindictive?
One idea of God in the Old Testament is that he is a wrathful being, a vengeful being with very little forgiveness in Him. Take, for instance, the first murder. Cain murders Abel and God does not forgive him, or show mercy on him, but brands him and sends him off into the world for all to see and know that he was a killer. Next, is the flood. God sees man as evil in all he does and thinks, and therefore plans to kill man and all living beings, save those that he put with Noah, the one mortal to be in favor with God.
In the first murder, Cain was a tiller of the ground and Abel, his brother, was a keeper of sheep. There came a time when Cain did bear the fruits of the earth and his Brother Abel did the same from the sheep, they both brought there offerings before God, and God favored Abel’s offering over Cain’s. This made Cain full of anger and his face darkened. God said to Cain “Why are you angry and downcast? If you are doing right, surely you ought to hold your head high! But if you are doing right, Sin is crouching at the door hungry to get you. You can still master him” (Genesis 4:6-7). This is an obvious reprimand by God to Cain. He might have well said you must do better to gain my approval. There were no words of encouragement; there was no comforting, just cold hard rejection. Cain was obviously upset at God and directed his anger at his younger brother Abel. “Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out’; and while they were in the open country, Cain set on his brother Abel and Killed him” (Genesis 4:8). God did hear the blood of Abel crying up to him from the ground and questioned Cain on where Abel was, Cain said he was not his brothers keeper, and God did grow very angry for he knew what Cain had done. God then cursed Cain from the Earth, and branded him for all to know what Cain was, and that no man was to kill Cain for he was, in a sense, protected by God so he could suffer his punishment.
In the story of...