Close, but not quite. They were commanded to kill those who worshipped the Golden Calf (a capital crime). They weren’t commanded specifically to kill their relatives, but not to let the fact that a relative was guilty of the crime stand in the way of the punishment for the crime.
Zev Steinhardt
Right. Call the shrink immediately, that’s my first course of action.
Although we consider these people insane, it does happen.
Here’s a news story about a woman who stoned her two children to death because she says God told her to.
So I guess some people will kill their children if God tells them to do it.
So how do we know when we’ve reached the Messianic Age? Do prophets reappear? Do we discount them because we haven’t reached the Messianic Age?
How do we know?
I’m not trying to be snippy, I’m just curious.
Not at all, Lord Ashtar.
There are definite requirement for a messiah. Those requirements are listed by Maimonides (and in other places). In short (and simplified), if the exiles all return to Israel and the Temple is rebuilt and the Davidic monarchy is restored, then you know that the messiah has arrived.
Zev Steinhardt
I’m surprised Zev didn’t address this aspect…
it’s BECAUSE of the Abraham-Isaac account that we know that any voice commanding the sacrifice of one’s child is NOT the Voice of God. In ancient Mideast culture, child-sacrifice, while perhaps not common, was also not a big news story either. YHWH was not asking anything any other local god’s devotee would find shocking- especially since the kid was a Divinely miraculous gift anyway. Deities give & take back. But now YHWH calls off the sacrifice & commands a substitute animal, thus setting the precedent of animal sacrifice on behalf of/in ransom for humans.
Btw, because of this, it is NOT at all certain that Jephthah’s vow had to be fulfilled in the killing of his daughter. Various Bible scholars have noted that the law against child sacrifice takes precedent over any vow, that an animal replacement &/or the daughter being devoted to lifelong virginity & service at the Tabernacle would have sufficed, and that Jephthah is listed in the NT book of Hebrews Ch 11 as a hero of faith.
No.
Like many others have written, if I get such a decree, it’s time to find a competent mental hospital and check myself in.
Second, my understanding is that in Abraham’s time, in the surrounding cultures, sacrificing one’s child happened. That’s what several of the other god’s did. The request (as painful as it was after waiting so long for Isaac) was not altogether outlandish. Abraham’d surely heard of other gods, other ceremonies, in which children were brought to be sacrificed. That the God who had just dragged him halfway to nowhere would ask such a thing wasn’t completely unthinkable.
At the mountain, God was making the point that He is not like the other gods. He doesn’t want dead children. He has no intention of having us kill our children. We’re not supposed to sacrifice children “for God.” That’s wrong. (Jepthah was wrong, and had no business sacrificing his daughter.) Wrong wrong wrong.
So, no, assuming I had children, any voice telling me to kill them is not from God.
Stupid slow typing.
The point to be made here is that if you will refuse a direct order by God based on your ethics, how can you possibly justify following all His orders that you recieve second hand (i.e. the Bible)?
God gave Moses the 10 Commandments 2000+ years ago and Moses then told everyone else, but why follow those?
Think of all the rediculas things people do or don’t do in the run of a day because they think God commands it of them.
You can’t really see the difference between my refusal to eat pork, or to work on Saturday, or to put mezzuzos on my doorpost and the possibility that I might kill my own child?
Zev Steinhardt
**
Indeed. One cannot vow anything to the Altar. If I vow that I will sacrifice a pig on the Altar my vow cannot be fulfilled. I may be required to give the monetary equivelant of a pig to the Temple Treasury, but a pig is most definately not brought on the Altar. The same applies for any non-kosher animal (or human).
**
And that’s not even necessary. That’s why Jeptath is roundly criticized in Rabbinic literature.
Well, we (Jews) view him as a hero too, but one (like Samson) with flaws. He saved the Jews of his day from their enemies, but he (like many other leaders and heros in the Bible) was not perfect and had his flaws and made some (extraordinarily) bad decisions.
Zev Steinhardt
I’m really surprised that more people aren’t in the child sacraficing camp. Maybe I misunderstand the OP, but this is how I was thinking the question was framed:
Assume there is an all-powerful God in the Judeo/Christian tradtion. Doesn’t have to be a beared Guy on a cloud, but assume that He does in fact intercede in human events at times.
Asssume that the story of Abraham is literally true. Maybe some of the other stuff in the Bible is alegorical, but the Abraham story transpired as written.
Now, assume that God comes back to you in a similar fashion today. You are absolutely certain that He’s the real God. He tells you that you must sacrifice your son.
Now, is that what the OP is asking, or am I reading too much into it?
Nope, that’s exactly what he’s asking.
Zev Steinhardt
To the OP: not a chance; suppose it was actually a demon pretending to be God, you’d have no way of knowing.
Wait a minute-if it was wrong, then why did God grant him victory? Why didn’t God make a squirrel walk through Jepthah’s tent first, or why didn’t God some how tell Jepthah not to kill his daughter?
My understanding of Judges Chapter 11 might be flawed, but to me it seems as though God is just fulfilling his part of the bargain. It’s not like Jepthah instantly killed her either, he sent her away to lament about her virginity for two months.
I don’t know, it just seems as though in this particular incident, God either wanted a human sacrafice or didn’t mind one in his name. Neither of which is very good.
Then again, I could have the totally wrong idea about this (such as my golden calf idea-thanks Zev 
).
I suppose that is a possibility. But I’m postulating that whoever the request is being made of is absoultely, 100% sure (apologies to O.J.) that it is God who is making the request.
Is God still ‘good’ if God demands an innocent suffer?
If God is not still good then why worship God?
I’d think I was schizophrenic. 
I should have added that it’s more complicated then my two sentences seem to let on.
Perhaps it’s my modern eyes that are to blame when reading the bible, but there seem to be a lot of atrocities in the bible. I’m not trying to derail the OP, but I’m coming up with a lot of questions that do seem to fit (however vaguely)…
I’d submit that that is a stupid conclusion to draw. Several people have basically said that they’d give up their immortal soul/afterlife/whatever to save their child. That doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in it, it just means that their children are their priority.
I gotta say I agree. Also, any God that would command such a thing is clearly such a prick that I could never follow him.