You’re reading through the Bible and suddenly hit a passage where God commands an entire people group to be wiped out. You pause. You read it again. Something feels off. Is God allowing suffering? Is this really the same God who claims to be all-loving?
Why is the Old Testament so violent? It’s one of the most difficult tensions in the Bible: a God who commands wars, destruction, and judgment in one part of Scripture, and then in the New Testament, a God who says, “Love your enemies.” It can feel confusing—even contradictory.
Instead of ignoring or dismissing the violence in the Bible, what if we wrestled with it? What if the uncomfortable parts of the Old Testament reveal something deeper—not about God’s cruelty, but about his justice, his patience, and his long-term plan to redeem what’s broken?
Violence in the Old Testament: God’s Judgement vs. Human Evil
To understand God’s violence in the Old Testament, we need to look closer at what he was responding to. Many of the societies that came under God’s judgement were deeply broken and violently oppressive.
The Caananites, for example, practiced child sacrifice, ritual prostitution, and systemic abuse that went unchecked for centuries.
The wrath of God we see in the Bible is aimed at evil, and it’s preceded by generations of warning and patience. In fact, God tells Abraham in Genesis 15 that his descendants will wait 400 years before judging the Amorites “because their sin has not yet reached its full measure.” That’s not quick-trigger anger. That’s divine restraint.
Was God more violent in the Old Testament?
At first glance, it might seem like the God of the Old Testament is harsher than the God of the New Testament. But when we take the bible as a whole, we realize it isn’t a story of two different gods—it's a story of one consistent God revealing himself in different ways over time.
The differences in the Old Testament and the New Testament don’t reflect inconsistency, but progression. Early in the Bible, we see God confronting evil in a brutal world. But later, through Jesus, we see that same God taking the consequences of that evil onto himself.
Hyperbole, Genre, and Historical Context
Another important factor in understanding violence in the Bible—especially in books like Joshua and Judges—is recognizing the use of ancient war language and hyperbole.
Phrases like “they left no survivors” or “destroyed every man, woman, and child” were common military expressions in ancient Near Eastern cultures. They often signaled complete victory, not literal extermination. We know this because later passages in the same books mention survivors and ongoing enemies. The biblical writers weren’t being deceptive—they were using the language of their time.
So when we ask again, Why is the Old Testament so violent?—part of the answer is this: some of what we read sounds harsher to modern ears than it did to ancient ones. Understanding the historical and literary context helps us see that these stories are about more than conquest—they’re about God reclaiming what evil corrupted.
The Bible’s Violence Is a Mirror, Not a Model
In the end, the violence in the Bible isn’t something we’re meant to imitate—it’s something to learn from. It holds up a mirror to humanity’s brokenness and to God’s unwillingness to let evil win.
And it ultimately points forward to Jesus. At the cross, we see God’s justice and mercy meet. All the wrath, all the judgment, all the violence caused by sin is taken on by Jesus himself. The God who once judged sin from afar now steps into the story to deal with it face to face.
So, why is the Old Testament so violent? Because it tells the truth about how deeply broken the world is—and how far God will go to heal it.
If parts of the Bible make you uncomfortable, that’s okay. Wrestle with them. Ask questions. Because within those tensions, you’ll often find a clearer picture of God’s justice, his grace, and his relentless desire to restore what’s been lost.
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There’s more to the Bible that can help us understand the violence we encounter in the Old Testament. This episode of The Evidence Podcast dives in and reveals more of the surprising truth.
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