What about all those other people?

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”  –Romans 11:33-34 (NIV)
 
Have you ever wondered about all those people in the Old Testament who weren’t Israelites? Why did God create so many people that He knew were going to be punished, conquered, and destroyed? What did they do that was so bad? The Israelites got all the breaks and it sometimes seems God had nothing but judgment for the other nations.
 
In the story of the exodus, we find God hardening the already-hard heart of Pharaoh. Did Pharaoh have a choice over whether He granted Moses’ requests to let the people go into the desert to worship? Or were his hands ultimately tied by God’s influence over his thought processes? And if the latter, how is that even fair?
 
We do well to remember that God is not only sovereign, but also omniscient. If He wanted to harden hearts and ruin nations for His own amusement, He would be justified in doing so – He made them, after all. Of course, that isn’t how He operates. Knowing the hearts of men and being aware of how things will turn out doesn’t equate to an override of free will. That said, He does bring that knowledge to bear when steering things in the direction of showing Himself mighty and merciful and blessing those who call Him Lord.
 
God knew Pharaoh would never repent and humble himself, never recognize the need to bow before any god other than himself. Knowing that, God allowed Pharaoh’s paranoia and arrogance to go to seed, taking him down a path that decimated Egypt, THE world power of that day. Each plague was a repudiation of one of the false gods of the Egyptians and added a chapter to the narrative for the Israelites that YHWH was great, YHWH was good, and YHWH was on their side.
 
That story and the annual Passover celebration served as needed reminders because God also knew His people would spend forty years wandering in the desert due to their own rebellion. Which brings us back to those other people groups. The nations who were to be displaced when God handed Canaan over to the Israelites were not nice folks minding their own business. Like Pharaoh, they were descended from people who at one time had known God and chosen to reject Him. Read Genesis – these were not innocents.
 
And they had time and opportunity to repent. In Genesis 15, God laid out a timeline of future events where He spoke of Abraham’s descendants emerging from captivity to return to this land God had promised. He mentions the Amorites, whose sin had not yet (but certainly would) “reach its full measure.” I believe the forty years in the wilderness, during which those other nations no doubt heard of what happened to Egypt, was a sort of “last call” for them to return to the God of their ancestors.
 
In addition, God was gracious toward individual foreigners who believed in Him and attached themselves to the people of Israel. Exodus 12 speaks of a mixed multitude that left Egypt. A few verses later, God provides instructions for the degrees to which foreigners were to be included in future celebrations of the Passover. Examples of non-Israelites playing positive and prominent roles in the history of God’s people are found throughout the Old Testament, including the stories of at least two foreign women who found themselves in the lineage of Messiah.
 
To be sure, the Israelites were the people of promise, the descendants of Abraham through whom all nations would be blessed. That doesn’t mean God hated those other peoples. Indeed, His mercy extends to all who would believe and follow Him, as it always has. We are all created by God, but we are not all children of God. We, like many who have come before, may choose to reject Him. And though He is patient, He’s never been blind.
 
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.  –Romans 8:14 (NIV)