• Background: The Corrupted Seed
• God’s Judgment on the Corrupted Seed
• Preventing the Destruction of the Line of the Messiah
• God’s Redemptive Plan

When I am communicating with people, especially people online, one of the most common complaints against the God of the Bible is “Why would a good God kill everyone on earth, except 8 people, in the flood?” and “Why would a good God command the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child in Canaan?” Sometimes people will even say that they believe and follow the loving God of the New Testament, but don’t like or follow the wrathful God of the Old Testament. Are they the same or different somehow?

§Background: The Corrupted Seed

Although there are some reasons for God’s judgment that can be relatively easily understood (like being misled by to worship false gods), there is one reason that people rarely see. It will take a bit of background to see how God’s seemingly hateful judgment is actually a merciful protection of mankind. To understand this, we have to go back to the very beginning. After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God’s only commandment, to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He describes the punishment for Adam, Eve, the serpent (Satan) and the world. He also makes a promise of redemption.

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:15) {emphasis mine}

According to God’s promise, the redemption of mankind depends on the seed of woman—human descendants of Eve. A few chapters later, we read about fallen angels trying to corrupt the seed and prevent this redemption.

that the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. … The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of mankind, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:2,4)

Every time “sons of God” is used in the Bible, this refers to angels who are created by God, but don’t reproduce according to their kind like most living creatures. These angels disobeyed God’s design for them and chose to have sex with women (“daughters of mankind”) and have offspring (Nephilim). These were creatures born with both human and angel DNA. They were a corrupted form that was no longer the seed of woman and therefore no longer usable by God as kinsmen redeemer for mankind. The following verse used to confuse me. It seemed to contradict other verses where the Bible is clear that there is none righteous, not even one, but this verse says:

These are the records of the *generations*** of Noah**. Noah was a righteous man, **blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. (Genesis 6:9) {emphasis mine}

The previous chapter, Genesis chapter 5, had gone through the ancestry of Noah through his human fathers (not angelic). The word here translated “blameless” also means “complete” or “perfect.” His “generations (genetic ancestry) were perfect and not contaminated by the fallen angels. He was chosen to propagate the human race before the whole human line was contaminated by non-human DNA. Therefore, besides evil of the human race rejecting their God and Creator, they were punished by death in the flood because many (most? All?) were no longer truly human. The worldwide flood, instead of being a sign of a heartless God, is in fact a mercy that enabled the purity of the human race and allowed Jesus to come as a kinsmen redeemer (a blood relative), to redeem mankind and to reconcile them to Himself. The question that follows is “Did any corrupted Nephilim DNA survive the flood?” This is impossible to answer definitively, but there is evidence suggesting that some may have survived through Ham’s wife, corrupting mankind once again. (I’ll admit that it is possible that there was a new contamination of humans, but likely predominantly among the descendants of Ham and his son Canaan .) After the flood, we are told of an incident when Ham sees his father drunk and naked and tells his brothers about it. When Noah realizes what his son did, he declares a curse, but the curse is not on Ham, but on Ham’s son, Canaan.

So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.” (Genesis 9:25)

I used to wonder why Noah cursed one particular son of Ham and not Ham himself or all of Ham’s sons, but if we consider the corrupted seed, we may find the reason. Could it be that a bit of Nephilim seed survived in Canaan? Could it be that Canaan’s descendants were corrupted by fallen angels like those before the flood? We see more evidence of this corruption when Israel is about to enter the promised land (Canaan) after their exile in Egypt.

§God’s Judgment on the Corrupted Seed

When Israel was about to enter Canaan, Moses sent out twelve spies to investigate the land. Ten of the twelve gave a bad report.

So they brought a bad report of the land which they had spied out to the sons of Israel, saying, “The land through which we have gone to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are people of great stature. We also saw the Nephilim there (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” (Numbers 13:32-33) {emphasis mine}

There were Nephilim, human fallen-angel hybrids, in the promised land. Satan was again trying to corrupt humanity and to prevent God’s redemption of mankind. Satan knew of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to receive the land of Canaan and that the world would be blessed through them. If he could corrupt the promised people, then he could prevent the Messiah from being born and redeeming mankind. He sent his corrupted seed to the promised land to try to corrupt and lead astray God’s chosen people. Of course, nobody, including the fallen-angel Satan, can thwart God’s plans or His promises. When Israel returned to the promised land 40 years later, God commanded the destruction of the corrupted seed.

Only in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave anything that breathes alive. Instead, you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that they will not teach you to do all the same detestable practices of theirs which they have done for their gods, by which you would sin against the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18) {emphasis mine}

It is true that these people worshiped false gods and would have led Israel astray if they had intermarried, but God’s harsh judgment was because of the corrupted seed. Normally God protects the stranger in the land. We read:

When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. (Leviticus 19:33)

and

You shall not oppress a stranger nor torment him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 22:21)

and

So show your love for the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:19)

There has to be something different about these people groups whom God demands be completely destroyed.

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to take possession of it, and He drives away many nations from before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God turns them over to you and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them. You shall not make a covenant with them nor be gracious to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them: you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, and they will serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. (Deuteronomy 7:1-4) {emphasis mine}

These seven nations are treated differently by God. Why? They are corrupted seed that would have corrupted the line of promise. They were Satan’s attempt to thwart God’s plan. Israel was told to:

• Utterly destroy them
• Not make a covenant
• Not be gracious to them
• Not intermarry with them

If these nations were not destroyed, they would corrupt both the seed and morality of God’s chosen people. The people of Israel were to utterly destroy these corruptions of God’s design. They were not to make a covenant with evil, nor with these people of Satan’s seed. They were not to have mercy on them because they were no longer people made in the image of God. They were not to intermarry with them, which would corrupt the line of the Messiah.

§Preventing the Destruction of the Line of the Messiah

There is at least one more time that God calls for the complete destruction of a people group. This one may have a different cause (or it may be the same cause plus another cause). God had promised that the Messiah would come through Israel and through King David. If Satan was going to stop God’s redemption of mankind, he needed to destroy God’s chosen people. God knew Satan’s plan and worked preemptively to stop it. He made this command through Samuel to King Saul:

Then Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore, listen to the words of the Lord. This is what the Lord of armies says: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, in that he obstructed him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and completely destroy everything that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” (1 Samuel 15:1-3)

Amalek had tried to stop Israel from entering the promised land. It had fought with Israel. It would later try to annihilate Israel (we’ll get to that in a minute). God told Saul to completely destroy all Amalekites, but Saul only destroyed some.

But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the more valuable animals, the lambs, and everything that was good, and were unwilling to destroy them completely; but everything despicable and weak, that they completely destroyed. (1 Samuel 15:9) {emphasis mine}

This action not only led to the end of Saul’s life and reign, but also almost led to the extermination of the Israelites. Pay attention to what Saul spared. He spared Agag. This becomes very important later. Many years later, we see Israel in exile in Persia. Esther, an Israelite, has become queen. We are then introduced to Haman the Agagite:

After these events King Ahasuerus honored Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and promoted him and established his authority over all the officials who were with him. (Esther 3:1)

This descendant of the Amalekites, who were supposed to have been destroyed, was one of the most powerful officials of the great Persian empire, and he was still holding a grudge against the Israelites. He was ready for payback, and unlike Saul, he wasn’t planning on showing mercy to anyone.

But he considered it beneath his dignity to kill Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were; so Haman sought to annihilate all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were found throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus. (Esther 3:6) {emphasis mine}

Luckily for mankind, God’s plans can’t be stopped, even when His people fail to do as they are told. God used Esther to protect the Israelites from Haman’s plan, leading to the total destruction of Haman and his sons, as had been commanded to Saul hundreds of years earlier. Nobody, not even Satan, can stop God’s plans. It would’ve been much better for everyone if God had been obeyed initially.

§God’s Redemptive Plan

God may have planned to give us His Messiah through His chosen people, Israel, but this redemption wasn’t just for the Jews. God’s redemption was for every tribe, people, and language.

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; (Revelation 7:9)

God’s plan was for all the people around the world from the very beginning.

and [God] said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand, which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:16-18) {emphasis mine}

All the nations will be and have been blessed by Jesus, the seed of Abraham. Through Him, everyone can be reconciled to Jesus and made right with God. Is God’s judgment cruel? Not at all! He has been working for our good since the beginning of creation. He has protected us from Satan’s scheming. He has protected us from destruction. We truly serve a merciful and just God. To Him be the glory forever and ever. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob draw you to Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ. May He guide you to the truth communicated to mankind through His Word—the Bible. May He open your eyes to His goodness, justice, and mercy. May you trust in Jesus and come to see your Creator in Heaven someday soon. Trust Jesus If you do not yet know Jesus, I beg you to trust in Him. Below are some verses that will tell you what you need to know to be saved. If you have any questions, I’d love to answer them. Just message me on Substack.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)

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For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

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But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

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that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; (Romans 10:9)

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If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:9-10)

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For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

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He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

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But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)

All verses are NASB unless otherwise noted.