Old Testament Cherry-Pickers
Atheists and other skeptics will lob out-of-context verses at Christians like grenades. They think these passages are “gotcha” verses that prove that God and the Bible are evil; or that the Bible actually supports some cause that the atheist supports and which the Christian ostensibly opposes.
The skeptic typically lobs these passages with zero context. They often do not engage in careful exegesis, they simply quote the passage in isolation. It is supposed to silence Christians. Most Christians themselves are caught off-guard by them. But here is a problem with such objections: the skeptic stops at quoting the verse (in isolation and out of context) without engaging how these passages function in their broader context.
I like to call these bombs that they lob “cherry pickers” – because that’s exactly what the atheist and other skeptic has done. Let’s look at some cherry picks.
First, we must make an important distinction in categories:
Descriptive: What happened or what someone said.
Prescriptive: What God actually commands.
This is a category many skeptics don’t consistently engage in - they treat everything in the Bible as prescriptive rather than distinguishing between description and command. Failing to distinguish between these categories is one of the most common sources of confusion when reading the Bible.
Dashing Babies?
One of the big ones lobbed is Psalm 137:9. “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” The skeptics then claim 1) the Biblical God is a monster and 2) ask how Christians can oppose abortion in light of this passage?
Isolating this verse from its context is admittedly horrifying at first blush. I couldn’t believe what I had read, but that was because I had this bomb blown in my face, catching me off-guard. At that time, I was not versed in the Bible. However, reading the entire Psalm we get a completely different picture than what the atheist is trying to paint. This verse is not prescriptive! God is not commanding His people to dash children and babies against stones. Let us read the entire Psalm in context:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones (Psalm 137:1-9).
The speaker in verse 9 is not God. The speaker is not identified but is clearly someone in captivity in Babylon in verse 1. This Jewish speaker is in Babylon weeping and remembering the joy of living in Zion (Judah). In verse 3, he tells of how the Babylonians demanded songs and mirth from him and his other Jewish captives. He then gives a rhetorical question: “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?” (vs 4).
In verse 7, the psalmist asks God to remember the Edomites who, during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, said “Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof” (vs. 7). We know from the Prophet Obadiah that the Edomites cheered the Babylonians on when they sieged the holy city (Obadiah 1:12-14). They rejoiced upon Mount Zion after the city had been taken. God proclaims wrath on the Edomites in Isaiah 66, declaring that His sword would be bathed upon Edom.
In verse 8, the psalmist gives us a little more context. The Babylonians who took them captive will be destroyed. The psalmist, in anguish, is praying that the Babylonians would have done to them as they had done to Judah. “O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou has served us” (vs. 8). So we see that the psalmist is saying “happy he shall be” that does to Babylon as Babylon did to them. Whether a Christian should pray this way is another matter – but this is not a prescriptive passage. This is a passage of grief and anguish. This is a passage of a Jewish man who had seen the Babylonians dash Judah’s little ones on the stones. So now he declaring in verse 9, that as the Babylonians were happy to dash Judah’s little ones against the stones, so will be the foreign adversaries of Babylon who will likewise dash the Babylonian’s little ones against the stones.
Context, context, context!
But it’s in the Bible, so doesn’t that mean God approves of it?
No! Remember the descriptive/prescriptive categories. This psalm is an imprecatory poem by someone in severe grief. The Bible often records sinful or raw human emotion without endorsing them. The Psalms frequently include laments, protests and imprecations. These are prayers - not moral commands from God.
She-Bear Meat
The next cherry picker is the story of Elisha in the woods after the ascension of Elijah. Many skeptics, such as those at EvilBible.com, will use this story to attempt to make God and the Bible seem evil. The relevant passage is:
And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them (2 Kings 2:23-24).
Oof!
Well, not really. The Bible uses the term “little children” quite loosely and frequently refers to young adults as “little children.” Let’s look at some examples.
In Genesis 22:5 and 22:12, Abraham’s son Isaac is called a “lad.” Many assume that he was a little child. Actually, Isaac was likely between 15 to 30 years old at the time. The word used in Genesis 22 is na’ar which is elsewhere translated in the Bible as “young man.”[i] Na’ar is used of the trained men who went with Abraham to rescue Lot (Genesis 14:4); of the men of Sodom who surrounded Lot’s house (Genesis 19:4); of Joseph at age 28 (Genesis 41:12); of the spies whom Rahab hid (Joshua 6:23); of trained soldiers (2 Samuel 2:14); and of Absalom when he tried to usurp David’s throne (2 Samuel 18:32).
And – the word na’ar is used in 2 Kings 2:23. These are not little children at all! These were young men, consistent with the rest of the Old Testament’s use of the word na’ar. The same word is used of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:7. “And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.”
These young men were mocking Elisha and telling him to go “up” as Elijah had done. They were harassing him. Additionally Elisha was on his way to Bethel when this happened. Bethel had become a center of idolatry where Jeroboam had set up golden calves in rivalry to Jerusalem’s temple (1 Kings 12:25-33). The worship of these calves continued into Elisha’s day; the entire northern kingdom followed this pattern of idolatry.
The fact that 42 of them are struck is significant. This isn’t a gang of marauding children teasing Elisha, this is a large, hostile group confronting a prophet of God.
So we have Elisha approaching the nexus of the northern kingdom’s idolatry to begin his ministry after the ascension of Elijah and is opposed by a group of young men. Elisha himself was likely not much older (around 30 years old at the time) as his ministry spanned approximately five decades. So this is not a case of a grouchy old man cursing kindergartners. This is a prophet beginning his ministry and being opposed by the young men of Bethel. The fact that Bethel was also a center of idolatry likely means these young men were aligned with Jeroboam’s calf worship.
“The sons of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho knew of Elijah’s ascension to heaven (2 Kings 2:3, 5, 15), and word would have reached the false priests at Bethel’s idolatrous shrine. So when Elisha came near, they taunted him and challenged his office and his anointing as prophet of Yahweh. The presumption of the youths and their blaspheming the Holy Spirit brought down judgment upon them. It was not pretty, and it was not trivial.”[iv]
In other words, this is a covenantal judgment moment tied to rejecting Israel’s prophets - not slaughter for name-calling. In that context, the issue is not mere insult, but the public rejection of God’s authority represented in His prophet.
Did God Instruct How To Perform Abortions?
Pro-choicer folk will point to Numbers 5:11-31 and claim that it is a detailed instruction by God on how to perform an abortion. They will claim, “see, the Bible is pro-choice.” They will make memes with this passage cited and plaster them all over social media and few will actually read it to see what it actually says.
Let’s do just that!
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner; And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled: Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance. And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord: And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water: And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse: And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter. Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before the Lord, and offer it upon the altar: And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled; Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law. Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.
The above test is called the Test of Jealousy. If a man suspected his wife of committing adultery, he could have her drink the special water. If she lied, her belly and thigh would rot. There is nothing – nothing – to indicate the woman was pregnant. This was not an instruction on how to commit an abortion. It was a test to see whether a woman had cheated on her husband or not. There is no pregnancy mentioned, no babies, nothing of the sort.
Skeptics will argue the belly swelling and thigh rotting implies miscarriage. However - the text never mentions a fetus or a child. The outcome is not framed as loss of a child but a supernatural judgment on the woman’s stomach and thigh as a curse for guilt. This is a supernatural judgment, not a medical procedure. The results affect the woman’s body generally, not explicitly a pregnancy.
The priest does not perform an abortion.
The outcome is conditioned on guilt.
And the judgment mechanism is divine, not human.
In addition, why would God give instructions on how to perform an abortion when He very clearly condemned harming a baby in the womb?
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe (Exodus 21:22-25).
Conclusion
These are few examples of cherry picks that skeptics like to throw up as “gotchas” for Christians. These passages are not obstacles to understanding the Bible. They are invitations to read it more carefully.
[i] Op. cit.
[ii] Daniel Hoffman, “Elisha and the Bears (2 Kings 2:23-25), Knowing Scripture, July 7, 2020 https://knowingscripture.com/articles/elisha-and-the-bears-2-kings-2-23-25
[iii] Op. cit.
[iv] Op. cit.
[v] David Blease, “Does the Bible Condone Slavery?” Gateway Center for Israel, https://centerforisrael.com/article/does-the-bible-condone-slavery/
[vi] Op. cit.