The Bible
Why is God so violent in the Old Testament?
Short answer
These are some of the hardest parts of the Bible. Context helps a lot, and the same God shows patience and mercy throughout.
Some passages are disturbing, and you don't have to pretend otherwise. But context matters. Many are judgments on nations that burned their children as sacrifices, after God had waited hundreds of years. He told Abraham the sin of the Amorites was not yet complete.
The God of the Old Testament is the God we meet in Jesus: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but wants them to turn and live.
And at the cross, God took judgment on Himself instead of pouring it out on His enemies.
If a passage troubles you, read the chapters around it, use a study Bible, and bring your questions to God.
My verses
In the fourth generation your descendants will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.
It is not because of your righteousness or uprightness of heart that you are going in to possess their land, but it is because of their wickedness that the LORD your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’