have no delight in her, then thou shall
let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all
for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou
hast humbled her.

The children of Israel, having been sent out by Jahweh to punish the
Midianites, "slew all the males." But Moses was wrath, because they had
spared the women, and he ordered them to kill all the married women, and
to take the single women "for themselves." The Lord allowed this
brutal act--which included the murder of all the male children--to be
consummated. There were sixteen thousand females spared, of which we are
told that "the Lord's tribute was thirty and two."

The Cruelty Of Jehovah

I could find in the Bible more instances of Jahweh's cruelty and
barbarity and lack of mercy than I can find room for.

In Deuteronomy, the Lord hardens the heart of Sihon, King of Hesbon, to
resist the Jews, and then "utterly destroyed the men, women, and little
ones of every city."

In Leviticus, Jahweh threatens that if the Israelites will not reform
he will "walk contrary to them in fury, _and they shall eat the flesh of
their own sons and daughters_."

In Deuteronomy is an account of how Bashan was utterly destroyed, men,
women, and children being slain.

In the same book occur the following passages:

When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither
thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before
thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites,
and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and
the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee;
thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt
make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them.

That is from chapter vii. In chapter xx. there are further instructions
of a like horrible kind:

Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off
from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth
give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing
that breatheth:

But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and
the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites,
and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.

And here, in a long quo