Israel is at war.

On October 7, Hamas terrorists attacked without warning, but this was no spur of the moment action. It is part of an ongoing attack against the very existence of a people who have a covenant relationship with God.

Since their very beginning, acts of violence have been perpetrated to essentially exterminate all Jews everywhere for the simple reason that they are God’s people. In like manner, Christians have suffered persecution for their faith. Unfortunately the world view of Christianity and the relationship between these two peoples has not been accurate. Many Christians for example accused all Jews for crucifying Jesus and that too is untrue, but these things are other matters. We want to share some interesting thoughts on this page as to the root cause or the motivation of this and similar terrorist groups. In this instance, we focus on Hamas.

The word Hamas is a positive Arabic word ḥamās that speaks of gaining financial, political and popular support. In Arabic, it means zeal, strength and bravery.

In fact, the word of God states that it means exactly the opposite.

We can turn to Genesis chapter six to see what it really means.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

We could pause here for a moment. One man found grace. God desires all men to walk with Him and to find grace in His sight and He has provided the means for this to be experienced. I encourage you to visit the various salvation pages on this web site for more information.

In the midst of all that evil and chaos, Noah pleased God. He was not a perfect man in that sense and for that matter, neither are we, but he had something God saw and wanted. What he had going for him was that he had a relationship of some kind with God whereby he “walked with God”. We can all do that.

This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. Genesis 6:5-12

We shall focus on the closing paragraphs where in Genesis 6:11, God told Noah that He was going to destroy the world by flood, giving the reason.

The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence.

Perhaps a definition of violence is required. In simple terms, it means unrestrained physical or verbal force designed to hurt others, or to gain mastery over them. It means exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse (as in warfare effecting illegal entry into a house), an instance of violent treatment or procedure, injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation: outrage, intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force such as the violence of the storm, vehement feeling or expression, a clashing or jarring quality and undue alteration.

This is very interesting because in the original language the word used for violence is hamas. Whilst the simple translation is  violence, there is a deeper meaning that describes brutal acts, aggression, falsehood and manipulation. We are witnessing all of these now.

There is more to this than we think. It is not about Palestine at all. It existed before both Palestine and Israel existed. This is why I advocate searching beyond the obvious and determining truth for yourself.

Additional reading:

Genesis 6:11-13, 49:5; Judges 9:24; 2 Samuel 22:3, 49; Job 16:117, 24:2-4, 30:18; Psalm 11:5, 55:9; 74:20, 139:19; Proverbs 13:2, 19:26, 21:7 21:7, 24:2, 24:15; ; Ecclesiastes 5:8; Isaiah 59:1-8; Jeremiah 22:3; Ezekiel 7:23, 22:26, 45:9; Daniel 11:14; Micah 2:1-2; Hosea 12:1; Zephaniah 3:4; Malachi 1:13, 2:16.