Cruelty, God's attitude to

God condemns cruelty. As part of the work of redemption, God suffers cruelty from the world in order to redeem believers.

God reproves cruelty

Deuteronomy 23:15–16; Proverbs 14:31; Isaiah 10:1–2; Ezekiel 45:9 See also Exodus 22:21, Exodus 23:9; Leviticus 25:42–43, Leviticus 25:46, Leviticus 25:53; Proverbs 12:10; Isaiah 13:11; Jeremiah 22:3; Zechariah 7:10

Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you. Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him.

Whoever oppresses the poor taunts their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors Him.

Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their prey and orphans their plunder.

For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Enough, O princes of Israel! Cease your violence and oppression, and do what is just and right. Stop dispossessing My people, declares the Lord GOD.’

God allows cruelty as part of his judgment

Isaiah 13:9; Jeremiah 30:14; Lamentations 2:17 See also Deuteronomy 28:15–42 The LORD promises cruel judgment on those who disobey his laws; Isaiah 19:4; Jeremiah 6:22–23, Jeremiah 13:14, Jeremiah 20:16; Lamentations 2:2, Lamentations 2:21; Habakkuk 1:5–2:1

Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming— cruel, with fury and burning anger— to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it.

All your lovers have forgotten you; they no longer seek you, for I have struck you as an enemy would, with the discipline of someone cruel, because of your great iniquity and your numerous sins.

The LORD has done what He planned; He has accomplished His decree, which He ordained in days of old; He has overthrown you without pity. He has let the enemy gloat over you and exalted the horn of your foes.

God delivers from cruelty

Exodus 3:7–9; Nehemiah 9:27; Psalm 12:5 See also Judges 2:18, Judges 6:9; 1 Samuel 10:18; 2 Samuel 7:10; Psalm 72:4, Psalm 72:14; Isaiah 9:4, Isaiah 25:4–5, Isaiah 29:20

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings. I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey— the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen how severely the Egyptians are oppressing them.

So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

“For the cause of the oppressed and for the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the LORD. “I will bring safety to him who yearns.”