Contemplation

I’m listening to the Bible in a year.  Max McLean, the well-known artist, reads each chapter.  If you’re interested, you can download each day’s reading at http://www.answersingenesis.org/answersmedia/audiobible/  You don’t have to start in January.  You can start now if you like.
In any event, I am at the place in the Old Testament book of Joshua where Israel crosses over into the Promised Land and destroys the civilizations that are living there.  I was struck again by the utter destruction and extreme bloodshed that occurred at that time.  Israel was under orders to kill everything that breathed…man, woman, child, and in many cases, animals.  I take those events to be true as written, and believe that the God of the universe ordained the destruction.  I leave our sense of outrage, fairness, and “how can a loving God do that?” for another discussion at another time.
I tried to imagine myself as a part of the army that was to “ethnic cleanse” the land of Canaan.  I tried to imagine myself with a sword in my hand, ready to strike a helpless woman dead.  I wondered what it would have been like to kill children, animals, women, girls, and “all that breathed.”  I wondered what it would be like to spend a day doing that, then going back to my tent, to my own wife and children.  Then I tried to multiply that by months of the same.  I couldn’t go there.  It was beyond my comprehension.
I am contemplating what I heard today.  I have no answers, only more questions.  In all my years of knowing what is in that part of the Bible, I have never been touched by this as I was today.  And I’m not sure I want to be touched in this way again.