Was God Cruel? 6 Old Testament Verses Everyone Gets Wrong
Updated: Oct 3
The short answer: No. When the hardest Old Testament passages are read in their full context and in the Hebrew, they show justice, protection and mercy, not cruelty. In Part 2 of this series on the character of God, Pastor Chris and Josh walk through the death of Egypt's firstborn, Pharaoh's hardened heart, the bears, Uzzah, Numbers 31 and the laws critics quote most, and show that the God of the Old Testament is the same Father who gave His own Son.
Read the chapter before
Pastor Chris gives one rule for every hard verse: never judge a passage by a single line. Read the verses before and after, and if a chapter is confusing, read the chapter before it. Then go back to the Hebrew. Almost every accusation in this episode falls apart once that rule is applied. And he is clear about the spirit of the teaching: the critics who raise these verses are loved by God, and the goal is to bring them home, not to win an argument.
1. The death of Egypt's firstborn
Exodus 12 describes every firstborn in Egypt dying in a single night, and critics call it infanticide. But Exodus begins much earlier. In Exodus 1:22 Pharaoh commands that every Hebrew son born be thrown into the Nile. For years Egypt drowned Israel's baby boys, and God did not strike back. He is slow to anger.
When the tenth plague comes, it is a courtroom verdict: Egypt is judged at the level it judged Israel. Pastor Chris points to the Hebrew word bekhor, firstborn. The bekhor was more than a child; he was the heir and future head of the household. In striking Egypt's firstborn, God was dismantling the next generation of the system that had spent years killing Hebrew children. As Yeshua taught, the measure you use will be measured back to you.
And the judgment had a way out for everyone, Egyptian or Hebrew: put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, and death would pass over. That is the Gospel two thousand years before the cross. Colossians 1:15 calls Yeshua the firstborn of all creation. The Father who took Egypt's firstborn as judgment gave His own Firstborn as the rescue. The verdict and the rescue come from the same throne.
2. God hardened Pharaoh's heart
Philosophers argue that God forced Pharaoh to do evil and then punished him for it. The Hebrew word translated hardened, chazak, means to strengthen or make firm what is already in motion. And the order of events matters. The first five times Pharaoh's heart is hardened, it is Pharaoh hardening his own heart (Exodus 7:13; 8:15; 8:19; 8:32; 9:7). Not until Exodus 9:12 does the text say Adonai hardened Pharaoh's heart.
Pharaoh hardened his own heart five times before God ever touched it. God didn't make Pharaoh evil. He made Pharaoh consistent with his own evil desires.
Pastor Chris compares it to a man who chooses to walk off a cliff: at some point gravity finishes the choice he started. That is not gravity being cruel; it is gravity being honest. God did not override Pharaoh's free will. He honored it all the way to its conclusion, giving him over to the desire of his own heart.
3. Elisha and the bears
In 2 Kings 2:23–24, a crowd mocks the prophet Elisha, shouting "Go up, baldhead!" He curses them, and two bears maul forty-two of them. English Bibles often say little children, but the Hebrew word na'ar can mean young men. Joseph is called a na'ar at seventeen, and Solomon used the word of himself as king. This was a large group of young men, not toddlers.
The mocking was not random either. Elisha's mentor Elijah had just been taken up to heaven in the chariot of fire. "Go up, baldhead" mocked that ascension: fly away too, prophet, we don't believe any of it. It was a public attack on the God of Israel through His prophet. Pastor Chris adds that the Greek Septuagint reading describes them throwing stones, making it an attempt on a lone prophet's life on an isolated road. The bears were not divine cruelty. They were divine protection.
4. Uzzah and the Ark
In 2 Samuel 6, as David moves the Ark of the Covenant, the oxen stumble, Uzzah reaches out to steady it, and he dies. Critics ask what kind of God kills a man for helping. The Hebrew word for holy, kadosh, does not just mean morally pure; it means set apart, separated. The Ark was the resting place of God's presence. Touching it carelessly was like grabbing a live power line. You do not die because the power line hates you.
Numbers 4 spells out how the Ark must be moved: carried by Levites on poles, on their shoulders, never touched. David was carrying it on a cart, the way the Philistines had moved it in the previous chapter. And Josh points out that Uzzah grew up in the house of Abinadab, where the Ark had been kept for years. He knew the rules. This was human error crossing a boundary that had been warned about for years.
David got the message. He went back to the instructions, and three months later he moved the Ark the right way, on the shoulders of the Levites, and no one died. God's holiness is never pettiness; it is a fence around His glory. Pastor Chris draws a lesson for today: many people reject God because of the failures of other people, but we put our trust in God, not in men.
5. Numbers 31 and the Midianites
This is the passage Pastor Chris says people lose their faith over: Israel is ordered to kill the Midianite men and the women who were not virgins, while the virgin girls are spared. The key is the chapter where the story starts, Numbers 25. Balaam, a prophet for hire, could not curse Israel, so he gave Midian another strategy (Numbers 31:16): if you cannot beat Israel by war, corrupt it from the inside.
Midianite women were sent into Israel's camp to seduce the men and draw them into the worship of Baal of Peor. It worked, and 24,000 Israelites died in the plague that followed (Numbers 25:9). The women judged in Numbers 31 were the ones who had carried out that operation. It was not a war on civilians; it was the dismantling of a coordinated spiritual attack.
And the girls who were spared were not kept as property. Deuteronomy 21:10–14 gave any female captive a full month to mourn her family, during which she could not be touched. If an Israelite married her, she had the full legal status of a wife. She could not be sold or treated as property, and if divorced she went free. In a world where captives were routinely abused and sold, God's law turned them into protected members of the covenant nation.
6. The laws critics quote most
Pastor Chris says reading the Bible only at the surface level, and without the Holy Spirit, is what produces these misunderstandings. He addresses the most common ones:
The rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21:18–21): the passage describes a hardened son who refuses correction over time, not a teenager talking back. The Talmud records the teaching that this law was never carried out; it served to teach parental responsibility.
Deuteronomy 22:28–29: in that world a violated woman had no future, no income and no protection. The law forced the man to pay the full bride price and take lifelong responsibility, and he could never divorce her. It was a lifetime liability for the offender, not punishment for the victim.
Leviticus 20:13: this set a covenant boundary around the design of marriage while Israel was preserved as the line through which Messiah would come. Under the renewed covenant the penalty was never carried out by the early assembly, because Yeshua took the penalty for every sin on the cross. The boundary still stands, but grace is greater.
Is God racist? Genesis 12:3 says all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham. Israel was chosen as the vehicle, not the favorite. Jonah 4 shows God's heart even for wicked Nineveh, and Matthew 1 names Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah the Hittite in Messiah's line.
Did Jesus invent calling God Father? No. The Hebrew av is used of God in Isaiah 63:16, Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 31:9, Malachi 1:6 and Psalm 68:5, a Father to the fatherless.
The Judge who took the defendant's chair
Pastor Chris closes with a picture. The God of the Old Testament was never on trial; He has been the Judge the whole time. And when the day came for the sentence to be carried out, He stepped down from the bench, walked across the courtroom, sat in the defendant's chair and paid the sentence with His own blood.
The God who flooded the earth is the God who opened the empty tomb. The voice that thundered from Sinai is the voice that spoke Mary's name in the garden after He rose. If someone has used a hard verse against you, set the shame down and come home. The Father is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Frequently asked questions
Why did God kill the firstborn of Egypt?
Exodus begins with Pharaoh ordering Hebrew baby boys drowned in the Nile (Exodus 1:22). The tenth plague was a verdict on that system, and it included a way out for anyone: the blood of the lamb on the doorposts.
Did God make Pharaoh evil?
No. Pharaoh hardened his own heart five times (Exodus 7:13 to 9:7) before Exodus 9:12 says God hardened it. God confirmed the choice Pharaoh had already made.
Were the boys in 2 Kings 2 little children?
The Hebrew na'ar can mean young men; Joseph is called na'ar at seventeen. They were mocking Elijah's ascension and attacking God's prophet.
Why did Uzzah die for touching the Ark?
Numbers 4 said the Ark must be carried by Levites on poles and never touched. Uzzah had lived near the Ark for years and knew the instruction. When David obeyed it, no one died.
Was Numbers 31 a war on women?
No. It judged those who carried out Balaam's plan to seduce Israel into idolatry, which led to 24,000 deaths (Numbers 25). Captive girls were protected by Deuteronomy 21:10–14.
Take the next step
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