Ask Pastor Mike Live

Guest (Male): Good afternoon, Pastor Mike. How are you doing?

Focal Point Ministries: I’m doing well.

Guest (Male): My question is on 2 Kings chapter 3, verse 27. Israel was at war with Moab, and scripture says that the King of Moab, in order to be able to break free, had to sacrifice his son on the wall. The Bible says that there was great indignation against Israel. I want to understand that part of scripture. Was that indignation against Israel from the Lord? What did it mean?

Focal Point Ministries: I remember this passage, and it certainly is a crazy text. Let me just read it for everyone. 2 Kings 3, verse 27: “He took his oldest son, who was to reign in his place, and he offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel, and they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.”

Here is the deal: God has expressly said that offering a person in a sacrifice—unless, of course, it's the one human sacrifice that can actually relieve us of our sin penalty—is detestable. Even the picture of it in Genesis 22, God stops Isaac from being sacrificed by Abraham. All of this, including the practices of the Canaanites, was a thing that God said is detestable to Him. Doing this was a desperate act to try and intervene because of the gods that required the human sacrifice, which, of course, is not the God of the Bible.

The Moabite god here is trying to be appeased, and it was done to where everyone could see it in an attempt to try and get to deliver the Moabites. Well, there was great indignation against Israel. Why was there great indignation against Israel? That’s really the question. How does it end up the way it does? There are a couple of options. Possibly this is God's anger, but it's unclear that He would act against Israel in response to a pagan sacrifice. That’s the problem. Why would that happen?

This is probably the anger. It doesn't say that this was God's anger in this case. This could be the anger of human beings. Maybe the Moabites responded with renewed passion to kill the Israelites. Or perhaps the Israelites, as some commentators have said, were so horrified by the sacrifice that they said, "We’re done, we’re out." It's a lot like when they were afraid of the Ark during Samuel’s day, when Eli's sons took the Ark out into battle.

When God's glory had left and the Ark was being used as a good luck charm, like a rabbit's foot, they took the Ark out into battle hoping that they could defeat the enemy. The enemy was scared because they said, "Oh, they're bringing their gods out." So they were scared, but God had left. He’s not using that Ark. If you know that story from 1 Samuel 3, here's the idea. Why did they run away? Well, they ran away because they thought that the gods of the Israelites would hurt them, would kill them, overcome them in battle.

In other words, the offering of the son did not do anything because it doesn't do anything for God. God is not going to say, "Okay, see there? The sacrifice is accepted. Now God is angry with Israel," so they all left. The question is, why was there anger against Israel? That's what the word wrath means. We often think wrath because in English we always think of God's wrath, but it could be human wrath in the sense that a lot of people were mad at Israel.

Maybe it was the army that was upset and they said, "We’re done. We’re not going to do this. They’re offering their own kids in battle." Or maybe it was the Moabites, and they had a reinvigorated anger to kill the Israelites, and therefore the Israelites fled. On a first-blush reading, we might think that human sacrifice worked; it turned God against them. That's not what's happening here. Everything else in scripture would not allow that interpretation of this passage.

I have to look at an interpretation of this passage that's consistent with all we know about God. God is not going to back down because some king killed his son. It's not going to happen. It may make the pagans fearless and bold and intrepid in their battle, or it could freak out the Israelites and they could run away. But the bottom line is someone was mad at Israel, and they ran away.

I don't think it was God because God is not going to respond that way to some pagan ritual. He’s going to be mad at the Moabites, not at the Israelites. Do you follow that? I remember reading that passage many, many times, but at first blush you think, "What in the world is going on here?"