God is many faceted. One thing He is is just; another is merciful; we first see this in the Garden of Eden where, because of their sin, Adam and Eve are cursed and kicked out of the garden (justice) but promised a saviour (mercy).
A couple of other attributes of God are his lovingness and protectiveness; He loved Israel and although He often punished her as a means of discipline He said this about her.
Yes, just as God gave Jesus in our ransom, just as Jesus died in our place, so God gave Egypt and Cush and Seba in Israel's place, other people died rather than Israelites.
I started to post this after reading 2Kings 19: firstly we have in God's own words "the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he (Rabshakeh) will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land" and the second God says because of "Sennacherib king of Assyria ... ‘For I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ Then it happened that night that the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men rose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead".
It's good to know that that's the type of protection God offers to us, his Church, even if we don't see it.
The title originally included '[warning ends with "Adult Content" - may offend some :) ]' which in itself may have offended some so I changed it.
Some numbers; they may offend those who have only heard of the "lovey dovey" side of God. This is the "Adult Content".
Now people who don't like the idea of God punishing evil get upset when God does it so some atheist has gone through the Bible and listed all the references to God killing people and added up the numbers (if only all Christians were that keen at their studies). They've unfortunately added the Apocrypha but we're looking at 2.5M on the numbers given in the Bible with their estimates where numbers aren't given taking the value up to 25M. There are maybe 130 occasions in the Bible where God kills people starting with the flood.
Even that low figure of 2.5M seems a lot but God was keeping alive the thread of people leading to Jesus, people of Israel whom He loved, and at the same time punishing evil people which He can justly do.
Here's the link for those figures
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot....-in-bible.html
And from
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendl...ng-every-kill/
How many did God kill?
Here’s the total, if you use only numbers that are provided in the Bible: 2,821,364.
Who has killed more, Satan or God?
How many did Satan kill in the Bible?
I can only find ten, and even these he shares with God, since God allowed him to do it as a part of a bet. I’m talking about the seven sons and three daughters of Job.
Not that any of this should cause you problems.