by blondie 6 Replies latest watchtower bible
When Israel was faithful to God and fighting wars, where are there scriptures detailing how many Israelite soldiers died.
Did God giving them them the victory mean he protected them from dying?
I know the answer to this is no, but can't find any specific scriptures.
Thanks for your help.
Blondie
I can't find any either. There are a lot of scriptures regarding Israelite soldiers dying when unfaithfulness was involved but I can't find any regarding them dying when the king, the nation or the army was faithful.
It’s kind of like how one nation’s history book will be a bit different from another nation’s history book on any given subject. The author will always skew the events to favor his own particular country. Therefore when the Israelites needed punished you were sure to hear about it, however when they suffered while doing the will of god, well that’s not so important to mention.
Most of the passages I remember reading have to do with God punishing the Israelites as consequence for various acts committed on their way to the Promised land, but it seems that God did protect the Israelite army in their battles.
1 When the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming along the road to Atharim, he attacked the Israelites and captured some of them. 2 Then Israel made this vow to the LORD : "If you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy [a] their cities." 3 The LORD listened to Israel's plea and gave the Canaanites over to them. They completely destroyed them and their towns; so the place was named Hormah. [b]
4 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, [c] to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!"
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, "We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us." So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
1 While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, 2 who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. 3 So Israel joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD's anger burned against them.
4 The LORD said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD's fierce anger may turn away from Israel."
5 So Moses said to Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshiping the Baal of Peor."
6 Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them—through the Israelite and into the woman's body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
8 The son of Pallu was Eliab, 9 and the sons of Eliab were Nemuel, Dathan and Abiram. The same Dathan and Abiram were the community officials who rebelled against Moses and Aaron and were among Korah's followers when they rebelled against the LORD. 10 The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them along with Korah, whose followers died when the fire devoured the 250 men. And they served as a warning sign. 11 The line of Korah, however, did not die out.
48 Then the officers who were over the units of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—went to Moses 49 and said to him, "Your servants have counted the soldiers under our command, and not one is missing. 50 So we have brought as an offering to the LORD the gold articles each of us acquired—armlets, bracelets, signet rings, earrings and necklaces—to make atonement for ourselves before the LORD."
hope this helps a bit.
What about this account?
(2 Samuel 11:14-17) 14
And it came about in the morning that David proceeded to write a letter to Jo´ab and send it by the hand of U·ri´ah. 15 So he wrote in the letter, saying: "PUT U·ri´ah in front of the heaviest battle charges, and YOU men must retreat from behind him, and he must be struck down and die." 16 And it came about that while Jo´ab was keeping guard over the city he kept U·ri´ah put in the place where he knew that there were valiant men. 17 When the men of the city came on out and went fighting against Jo´ab, then some of the people, the servants of David, fell and U·ri´ah the Hit´tite also died.
It seems to indicate that Israelite soldiers were dying.
Yeah, it does. I take it this was after David's affair with Bathsheba?
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then [a] she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
then take notice again of this verse:
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die."
had David not instructed Joab to do this, would Uriah have lived?
I just did a hunt and I couldn't find any. Boy, sometimes you really can tell that MEN wrote the accounts of these battles. Not a WORD of any casualties on the WINNING side.
