‘The Slaughter of the Innocents’ refers to the story in the Gospel of Matthew in which King Herod sends troops to Bethlehem to kill all the male toddlers in order to kill off the supposed threat to his throne. We’ll get to the details in a moment.
First, does God care about children? Both unborn and already born? Most people would answer without hesitation: Of course! Many will cite the well-known story found in Mark 10:13-16 (and also in Matthew 19 and Luke 18):
And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.
What a touching scene! Of course Jesus loved the children. There’s even a song about it: ♪ Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world…♪ Perhaps you sang it in Sunday School? And therefore so does God, right? But the Bible stories do not always reflect such an idea. Let’s get to the Christmas story as found in the Gospel of Matthew. Young Mary, engaged to Joseph, conceives a child through the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18-25). She gives birth and names the child Jesus. Then some magi (wise men, possibly astrologers/astronomers) from ‘the east’ (a specific country name would have been helpful) arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” (Matt.2:2) Now, why would magi in the East care about a newborn king of the Jews, the Jews being a relatively small and insignificant nation? Were they in the habit of visiting newborn kings of the Jews? For example, did they visit when Herod was born? I suspect not. Anyway, Herod consults his priests and is told the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem of Judea[1]. So Herod sends the magi on their way and asks them to report back to him. Now, we know from the Jewish historian Josephus that Herod was cruel and cunning, and it is hard for me to believe that he would send the magi on their way without even a single soldier to escort them, who could then easily dispatch this supposed future king if they found him. But we have to stick to the story as told.
So, the star the magi are following leads them right to the home of Jesus. Wow, several problems here. First, go outside at night and pick out any star (or planet or comet) and try to determine which home it is hovering over. Clearly this must refer to some miraculous event, not a true star. But if this ‘star’ could lead them right to Jesus’ house then why did they have to stop off in Jerusalem to ask for directions? I think it is just a ploy by Matthew to get Herod’s attention to set up the rest of the story. And did you notice that Jesus and his family are living in a house? Where’s the stable with a manger and the lowing cows and bleating sheep and their shepherds? That is in Luke, of course, not Matthew (actually, no mention of animals there, either). In Matthew Jesus’ family lives in a house in Bethlehem; they did not come on a temporary basis because of a census as in Luke.
The magi find Jesus, worship him and give him gifts. But God warns them in a dream not to return to Herod, so they do not. Joseph is also warned in a dream to take the family and flee to Egypt because Herod is going to come after them. And so he does and Herod does.
When Herod realizes the magi are not returning he sends his soldiers to kill all of the male toddlers (2 and under) in Bethlehem. This is the so-called ‘Slaughter of the Innocents.’ Matthew uses this incident to invoke another passage of scripture as if it is a prophecy of the event: “…Rachel weeping for her children…” (Matt.2:18) He is quoting from Jeremiah 31:15. Sounds very sad doesn’t it? But if you read the next verse (31:16) it is actually a passage of hope! It tells Rachel to stop weeping because the children will be returning home! It is referring to the people of Judah returning home from captivity. It is cause for rejoicing, not weeping! But by truncating the passage Matthew has turned it into a prophecy of slaughter in order to fit his story. Now, the good news is that only Matthew says that such a terrible thing happened. The historian Josephus who dishes the dirt on Herod in his writings makes no mention of this event. The Gospel of Luke ignores it; in fact, Luke has Joseph and Mary take Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem, right under Herod’s nose, where the prophetess Anna “continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). This seems unlikely if Herod was out to kill the child.
The Massacre of the Innocents
Nicolas Poussin, ca. 1626-1627
I don’t know why Matthew created such an improbable story about the birth of Jesus, but the worst of it is that it makes God look really bad (in my opinion). Was it necessary to allow Herod to kill the baby boys in Bethlehem in order to fulfill a ‘prophecy’ that doesn’t even fit the event? It did not have to be that way. God could have allowed the magi to return to Herod while Joseph and the family made their escape to Egypt. Herod’s soldiers would then go to their house only to find that the family had fled without knowing where; problem solved. And why did God warn His ‘own’ family to flee but leave the other families in Bethlehem to see their sons slaughtered? Was it worth having those children killed in order to make it appear that some ancient prophecy was fulfilled? Why didn’t God have Joseph warn the other families in Bethlehem so they could hide their sons and save them? God only cared about saving Jesus, but not the other children? That seems a bit selfish. Of course, this story could just be creative writing by Matthew in order to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of various Jewish prophecies, but they still make God look rather uncaring and perhaps cruel. And to think we tell this story to children every year at Christmas! What do those young impressionable minds take away from this story? That children are expendable in God’s eyes?
So, in this story God is willing to see young children killed in order to make a point. This is not the only such story in the Bible.
Consider the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his own son Isaac, in order to make some obscure and questionable point about faith (see Bible posts 4 & 5 for more on that story).
In the book of Job God allows Satan to kill off all of Job’s children in order to prove a point to Satan. To Satan!
Go back to Genesis 6. God decides to wipe our humanity and start over, so He sends a flood that kills off all the pregnant women and children, other than Noah’s family. I suppose you could justify it if it had worked out, but immediately afterwards God admitted all that killing didn’t accomplish anything, human nature being what it is (Genesis 8:21).
The Deluge, Gustave Doré, 1865.
How many children died in the Flood?
Remember the Ten Plagues that God and Moses set upon the people of Egypt in order to get Pharaoh to let the Hebrews leave? Recall the final plague: killing off the firstborn children of all the families in Egypt. Those children weren’t keeping the Hebrews captive; Pharaoh was. But those children end up being killed in order to get to Pharaoh. That was the best God could come up with? And it didn’t really work, as Pharaoh came after them anyway.
When the Hebrews leave Egypt Moses takes them to Mt. Sinai to receive God’s law. Regarding false gods the Law says: “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me” (Exodus 20:5). So, the children are punished for the sins of their parents, even for 3 or 4 generations to come. Does that sound right to you? What would you think of our justice system if a man committed a crime and they put his son in jail for it? Even the Jews specifically forbade such a thing in their law: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.” (Deuteronomy 24:16) Did they have a better sense of justice than God? And later yet the prophet Ezekiel seems to contradict God, saying “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.” (Ezekiel 18:20) Do people have a more refined sense of justice than God Almighty? (By the way, did you ever notice that the Ten Commandments provide no specific mention of protecting or nurturing children? House, slaves and livestock get mentioned but not children.)
Numbers 5 contains an interesting procedure to determine if a wife has been unfaithful. The upshot is that if she is guilty, her womb will wither, presumably killing any fetus within her that was conceived by adultery (Numbers 5:27). This seems to run contrary to those who claim that fetuses produced by rape or incest should not be aborted but deserve to live. This Biblical procedure suggests otherwise.
Speaking of adultery, you probably know the story of David and Bathsheba. David’s wandering eyes see beautiful Bathsheba bathing and he arranges a sexual tryst with her. She gets pregnant, David ends up arranging for her husband to die in battle to get him out of the way. So what happens as a result? God kills the baby! (2nd Samuel 12:15) David continues as king, Bathsheba gets to be one of his queens (David had at least eight named wives, plus concubines!), and their next son gets to inherit the throne (thanks to Bathsheba’s manipulation, see 1st Kings 1). But the baby, who had no say in the matter but is the product of adultery, is killed. Yes, God loves the little children. Unless their parents are sinners. Now, some may say losing their baby was an awful punishment for David and Bathsheba, but they went on to live their royal lives together. The baby did not. I’d say the baby got the worst end of that deal.
Consider the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, the first city being Jericho. The soldiers of Israel are told to go into the city and slaughter every man, woman (including pregnant ones), and child (Joshua 6:21). This pattern is repeated numerous times. Imagine going into Jericho and you find a family cowering in the corner of their house. Do you kill the children first so they don’t have to watch their parents die, or do you kill the parents first so they don’t have to watch their children die? Are these the commands of a God who loves children?
Battle of Jericho, by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1609–1684)
Battle? The text simply says, “They utterly destroyed everything in the city,
both man and woman, young and old…”
Apparently this disregard for children rubbed off on the people of Israel. In Psalm 137 we read a lament about their captivity in Babylon, and it concludes, “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” What a lovely sentiment! Let’s dash the infants against the rocks, as if it’s their fault.
Let’s fast forward to one of the later prophets. Hosea says that he was to take an unfaithful wife to serve as an example of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. (I wonder if he created this story simply as an illustration, or perhaps he had an unfaithful wife that prompted him to come up with this metaphor.) But he makes this statement: “Also, I will have no compassion on her children, because they are children of harlotry.” Similar to the adultery law in Numbers 5 or the David-and-Bathsheba situation, if children are the products of adultery or harlotry they are not to be shown compassion. Really? Is it the children’s fault? If you knew someone who was born to a sex worker or adulterer would you hold that against them? As if they had any choice about how or to whom they were born?
I suppose you could say many of these passages are just symbolic or metaphorical. Or that it is just the prophets expressing their own feelings, not necessarily the mind of God. But these passages are supposedly inspired by God, right? (At least, according to conservative Christians.) And there are plenty of stories in which God Himself kills infants and children (like the Flood), or commands them to be killed (like Jericho), or just doesn’t bother saving them (like in Bethlehem).
So, does the God of the Bible truly care about children, whether unborn or already born? Or are children like the rest of us in God’s view: just pawns to be used to achieve His purposes, whether it be to make a point (like to Pharaoh or to Satan) or to fulfill some obscure ‘prophecy’ (like the Slaughter of the Innocents), or just to be gotten out of the way (as in the Flood or in Jericho). What do you think about God’s attitude toward children? Add your comments and questions below.
[1] Matthew uses rather questionable interpretations of scriptures as prophecies of Jesus. The passage in Micah 5 referring to Bethlehem actually refers to a clan of people, not a city, and the leader who arises from that clan will save the people from the Assyrians, and the term ‘Messiah’ is not even used in that passage.