Exodus 4:21-
"I will harden his heart" -KJV
"I will harden his heart" -NIV
"I will make him stubborn" - Living Bible
"I will harden his heart" - RSV
Why does god kill children?
by Comatose 269 Replies latest watchtower bible
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adamah
Yup. Here's where Biblehub is handy:
http://biblehub.com/exodus/4-21.htm
Note that EVERY OTHER TRANSLATION renders the Hebrew as, "I (YHWH) will harden his heart", and the NWT is the ONLY outlier who blatantly inserts concepts into the translation in order to cover the tracks of God's outrageous behavior: so why change it, if there's nothing to defend? So add "lying translators" to the ranks of "lying scribes", indeed.
Unfortunately, it's not the only example of WTBTS letting their doctrinal needs drive the Hebrew translation, eg they start in Genesis 3:6, listing only two of the three reasons why Eve saw the fruit as desirable to eat. Of course, they omit the most IMPORTANT reason, the THIRD one: Eve saw the fruit as desirable to eat in order to "gain wisdom". So why remove that one? Because wisdom-bestowing fruit seems fruity to MOST modern readers, and the concept opens a can of worms (people ask, "Why doesn't God want mankind to possess wisdom?" Why not, indeed?).
BTW, note how verse 22-23 contains the prediction of death of Egypt's firstborns, so the account reads like a set-up, with God in the role of a psychopathic killer who gets some twisted thrill out of making people dance for their children's lives, and then pushes them to the floor so he can claim they didn't dance and he can feel justified in killing their children in front of them. That's just SICK, no matter who's doing it.
God got into a "mine's bigger than yours" ego battle with the Pharoah (who WAS considered not just a mortal, but as the living embodiment of the Egyptian Gods), and infants are going to die as a result.
Exodus 4 (NASB):
21 The LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Israel is My son, My firstborn. 23 “So I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”’
As an aside, verse 24 is interesting, as it's a fragmentary eye-brow-raiser that translators and interpreters (eg rabbis) have wrestled with for millenia:
24 Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.25 ThenZipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, “You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.” 26 So He let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood”—because of the circumcision.
The traditional reading is that God wanted to KILL Moses, but he used the blood of the foreskin of his newborn son to cleanse himself of his sins; God didn't kill Moses, after all. A more plausible reading though is that YHWH seeking the death of the NEWBORN, since Moses had delayed his circumcision: God loves him sum' fresh foreskin, and he doesn't like to WAIT for it! God was satiated when he got his foreskin, and didn't have to kill Moses' son.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipporah_at_the_inn
Much of the intricacies and significance of the details have been lost on 99.99% of readers, when intuitively such passages can be seen to be just so goofy as to be clearly related to long-extinct cultural beliefs, eg do you think God should KILL an infant who isn't circumcized on the 8th day after birth?
It doesn't help to have translators who try to "update" the Bible by burying the more embarrassing examples that somehow got "lost in translation", in their attempt to keep the Bible relevant to modern people.
Adam
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cofty
it was not the voice of my Lord. He does not tell anyone anything that is not from love, or truth. He certainly does not tell anyone to kill another person - Tammy
Abraham? - Cofty
Still waiting on an answer Tammy.
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AndDontCallMeShirley
18 hours ago, Tammy: I have not been ignoring Cofty and his question, btw... just concentrating on other things. Will get to it as soon as I am able.
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The answer is painfully obvious, which is why Tammy hopes you'll forget you asked, Cofty.
A predictable response (more accurately, lack of response) by someone who cannot support their beliefs without looking really, really bad in the process.
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Comatose
Great points Adam. Thanks for contributing. Those verses on the circumcision I had never considered before. I have read them and I just blew over them. Crazy wacky story and morals shown there.
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tec
Okay... Abraham.
I would first like to point out the 'oddness', at least I find it quite odd... how some of you look at the bible, and then defend your position on it.
Because this is what i hear from you:
"This event never happened to begin with... but it must be taken EXACTLY as written, because it is inconceivable that there could have been ANY errors creeping into the account as it was passed down and copied and re-copied, and also translated from one language and people to another language and people... in the 3000 years or so and who know how many generations* since it was first written."
So... Abraham:
First... Abraham did not kill Isaac, nor did God permit him to lay a hand upon the son of the promise; the son that God gave him, the son Abraham would not have had and who would not have existed without God to begin with.
That is the lesson that should warn anyone that it is not God who has led people to kill their children. Something one would know if one was looking at Christ.
But in taking the story as is, as you seem to want to do, here are a couple of verses that are most overlooked:
Early the next morning Abrahaham got up and saddled his donkey. he took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham look up and saw the place in the distance.
He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."
And also:
As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"
"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
"The fire and the wood are here," Isaac said, "But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"
Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son."
Are you assuming that Abraham was lying to Isaac? If so, where is your evidence for that? Or are you just believing what you WANT to believe? Because instead, Abraham spoke in FAITH.
Everything that Abraham said... came to pass as he had said it. He and Isaac did return. God did provide the sacrifice.
Abraham spoke in faith... and acted in faith... in God, and the promise God had made.
"Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him."
Peace,
tammy
* may or may not be overlapping ; )
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cofty
it was not the voice of my Lord. He does not tell anyone anything that is not from love, or truth. He certainly does not tell anyone to kill another person - Tammy
“Take your son , your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. ” - Gen 22:2
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. - Hebrews 11:17-19
1. God told Abraham to kill Isaac.
2. Abraham fully intended to do so.
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tec
But at the same time, spoke the truth in his words... in faith.
Peace,
tammy
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cofty
Did god tell Abraham to kill his son or not?
Did Abraham fully intend to carry it out or not?
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iCeltic
Hi Tec
id say most folk here are aware of the bible story of Abraham and what the outcome was in the story, I don't think that was the question. Going by what you said there would indicate to me that Abraham went about what he was doing in the FULL knowledge that god would step in and stop him, as if playing along with gods game as it were? Until god decided to show tell him that he wasn't to murder his son. I can't say I've ever had that impression when I read that story.