CYOA - Dt. 7 - Experience and the Attributes Of God

¹ When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— ² and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.^[a] Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. ³ Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. ⁵This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles^[b] and burn their idols in the fire. ⁶ For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

⁷ The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. ⁸ But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. ¹⁰ But
those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction;
he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
¹¹ Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.
¹² If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. ¹³ He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. ¹⁵ The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. ¹⁶ You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
¹⁷ You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” ¹⁸ But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt.¹⁹ You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. ²⁰ Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished.²¹ Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. ²² The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you.²³ But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. ²⁵The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God. ²⁶ Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

This passage deals with several themes including imperialism, enemies, inter-marriage, obedience, faithfulness, coveting and so on, but it is also packed with several attributes of God that tell us about his nature - this is what I want to focus on.

I have highlighted four clear attributes that present themselves in this text:

- God is loving. He "set His love on you" (v. 7,8).

- God keeps His promises. He "kept the oath which He swore" (v. 8).

- God is faithful. "He is God, the faithful God" (v. 9).

- God is merciful. He keeps "His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation" (v. 9).

Before my experience in Africa and poignant encounters with Evil, failure, and abandonment I accepted the loving nature of God without question. No matter the gravity of the devastation I saw or felt God was always good and loving. This past year, I have developed a fervid passion for deconstructing the nature of God as well as spent a great deal of time wondering if in fact God is who he says he is. When I was overseas, I experienced a distant God, a God who abandoned his people and a God who refused to comfort and provide in times of deep pain, struggle, conflict and hurt. I have held on to my feelings of suffering in hopes of remembering what I lived so that I can prevent myself from ever having a similar experience. Since my return, I have held my negative experiences as truth. I was abandoned and therefore God became an abandoner. I did not feel or see intimacy, love, justice or provision therefore God cannot possibly posses any of these attributes. I am coming to realize (with the help of wise individuals) that holding my experiences as truth places myself at the centre of the universe, which is rather arrogant. Simply because I did not experience God’s love for a time, see him as faithful or regarded him as a promise-keeper does not mean that those attributes are not a part of his nature. There were several factors that influenced how I felt and experienced God during my overseas term. Some of my experiences were traumatic. The result of this trauma has influenced the way I think about God.

When I read this passage I was immediately angry with God for seeking to destroy the seven other nations. I couldn’t help but wonder where the justice and mercy was in those acts and how those nations were experiencing Yahweh when they were faced with destruction. Surely they were not experiencing his love or mercy. What is the relation between experience and truth? Can experiences both support and undermine truth? How did the Israelites react to God’s instructions for entering the land? What does our experience have to do with our belief and understanding of God? Do we take God at his word, though his actions do not always seem to align? How has your experience of God supported or undermined God’s loving nature as presented in the Bible and how has this affected your faith?