Why do certain people seem to be evil from the moment of birth and others have good deeds throughout their lives? Could it be that there is an inherited evil that passes down through the family tree? Is their actual DNA affected? For instance, if we consider the mindset of Hamas, we have examples of this evil being cultivated in the schools and by the parents, but is it only a cultivated evil? What if the children were adopted and raised in a peaceful environment? What then? Or would they still have tendencies to kill and deceive? Why do Arabs in the Middle East, for the most part, hate the Jews and desire to eliminate them? Has this attitude come down from Ishmael and Esau and the other sons of Abraham’s concubine Keturah? As one Christian Arab explained recently, people in the West do not understand the mindset of Arabs in the Middle East. They do not think like Westerners. These people often kill their own children and wives for any little disobedience or assumed disgrace. There is no compassion. Stealing is rewarded with cutting off a hand, and second occurrence cuts off the other hand. Then, of course they cannot feed themselves so they die. Women who are suspected of indiscretion with another man are killed even when there is no proof. Fear reigns where there is no mercy.

Maybe this seems like a judgmental or even racist attitude, but what about Biblical texts that seem to go along with this?

Sodom and Gomorrah:

Abraham begged the Eternal to consider saving Sodom if only 10 righteous people were found there, hoping to prevent the destruction. As we can imagine, little children and babes were wiped out by the fire and brimstone along with all the guilty adults, except the five rescued by the two angels who visited Lot the night before. Those kids were not the innocent victims of God’s wrath—The Eternal knows what He does! And as we see later even the two daughters of Lot produced, through incest, two nations that continually provoked the sons of Jacob. What was the inherent evil of Sodom that cursed that generation to carry the same evil to the extent that there was no escaping the doom of a fiery destruction? Incest and immorality are like a cancer on society. Killing, rape, thievery…all these bring evil upon an entire population.

The Flood:

When the Creator saw before the flood that the thoughts of men on the earth were “only evil continually;” He declared to Noah:

Gen 6:13: “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

Was there really no redemptive cure for the little ones who had not yet tasted the pleasures of outright evil? According to the story, there was no man, woman or child who boarded the ark with Noah and his family of eight. And regarding the account that Noah preached for 120 years to try to save some, this is not part of the story as given in Genesis. Noah and his family were the only living humans who were counted as worthy to be saved by the Eternal. What happened that the entire remainder of humanity had corrupted themselves to the point of being unredeemable? It is interesting to note the two lineages and their descendants. Cain’s lineage and Seth’s lineage. The sons of Seth were the ones who carried the line of the righteous…Enoch, Methuselah, Noah. And it seems that after the flood, the sons of Noah were split into the lineage of the righteous and the lineage of the evil Canaanites. Did Canaan do something that corrupted his lineage to the point that Israel was commanded to exterminate all of the Canaanites in the land? Why good lineage and bad lineage? Are some sins so evil that the following generations are cursed to the point that few if any escape?

Are there peoples on the earth today who are unredeemable? Is there something that has conquered the minds of the multitude so that they cannot choose good over evil? In the current was with Hamas and the atrocities that have been committed against innocent children, women, and elderly, as well as soldiers and civilian men, it is apparent that the evil is foremost in their thinking. There is nothing good left in a person who one brags about personally raping and killing innocent people. The person who does these things has gone beyond the ability to repent. A power of evil controls him and he is subject to this power of destruction. He is tied by the cords of his own sins and cannot release himself. He/she has gone too far.

Sin Passes Down from Generation to Generation:

When God gave the commandments at Sinai, he declared that He would “visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Exo 20:5. If the parents do not repent of their sins, is there hope for the children? There are rare instances for sure, but the tendencies to continue in the path of evil are overwhelming. Maybe there is such a thing as corrupted DNA. The science of how evil takes over a mind from habitual abuse and sin is horrific. Would I dare say there is no escape? There are examples of repentance, but few. No one knows the exact level at which a person cannot escape—nor repent.

On the other hand, it is written in Ezekiel:

Eze 18:20 – “The soul that sins, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”

I have always quoted this verse as giving hope for those with bad parentage, but this is not saying that the children will be righteous without an intense struggle. Perhaps it gives an inkling of hope that a son or daughter can mend his ways and turn from the evil of his parents. And we see that though the sins of the fathers are not charged to the children, their own sins continue to abound unless they find personal strength to resist. Finding strength in the outstretched Hand of the Most High God is the only path to overcoming.

The outlook of earth’s decline from morality to outright evil is grim. Are we to the point in earth’s demise that there is no returning from the evil rampant among us? Is there hope that a few bright lights will stand for truth and bring a final repentance and return to righteousness such as has not been seen for many generations? Or will Divine wrath again be necessary to cleanse the earth of the evil and prepare a home for those who hold onto the Divine Covenant which insures righteousness and justice in the land?

Yours in the Hope of a Better World…Soon!

Ariella