What does the Bible say about cruelty?

The words cruel and cruelty occur only a handful of times in the Old Testament and not at all in most English translations of the New Testament. The Hebrew word most often translated as "cruel" has the root akzar and is sometimes also rendered as "violence," "oppression," or "ruthless." 

Use these prefiltered searches to craft sermons and prayers, offer pastoral care, or plan worship services around the theme of cruelty. 

• Exodus 6:6–9, the cruelty the Israelites experienced in Egypt
• Leviticus 19:14, do not curse the deaf or cause the blind to stumble
• Psalm 71:4, asking God for rescue from the wicked, the unjust, the cruel
• Jeremiah 6:23, the cruel have no mercy

Sermon ideas about cruelty

Evil oppressors

What can our sermons say about the Bible's descriptions of cruelty? Most of the time in the Bible when a person or group is described as cruel or as inflicting cruelty, the guilty party is a non-Israelite who oppresses God's people. The Egyptians are the prime example, as they enslaved the Hebrews and treated them as non-humans, working them to death, lashing them with whips, and killing their newborn babies.  

But other groups are similarly described, especially in the psalms, when they pursue a course of ruthless oppression without end and apparently without any consideration of the effect such actions have on fellow human beings. Although the Bible doesn't elaborate on this, it is clear that cruelty is what happens when one group decides to deprive another group of their human status. During times of war, the enemy is often caricatured as less than fully human—as vermin or rats, for example. Once we blind ourselves to our shared humanity, it becomes easier to kill, torture, and maim the enemy without remorse because our ability to empathize with and feel the pain of the other has been cut off at the root, thus allowing for relentless violence that cannot be deterred by understanding what it feels like to those on the receiving end of it. 

Petty cruelties

What does the Old Testament say about cruelty? Although not labeled specifically as examples of cruelty, the Bible has injunctions (such as Leviticus 19:14) warning God's people against petty cruelties such as purposely tripping a blind person by putting an obstacle in their path. To belittle, insult, poke fun of, or generally be mean to those whose station in life due to disability or injury or any other reason makes them vulnerable and unable to resist or respond is considered a particularly grave sin in that it reveals the sinful person's heart as calloused. Cruel people seem unable to perceive other people as fellow image bearers of God and, for the Christian, as potential sisters or brothers in Christ. Similarly, the Bible frequently warns against cruelty toward animals as well, because though they don't share our humanity, they are creatures of God's own making whom God cherishes. 

How do we see cruelty referenced in the New Testament? Though the words cruel and cruelty do not occur in the New Testament in most English Bibles, the New Testament and Jesus himself do have things to say on the subject. If cruelty is fueled by an inability to empathize with the victims of ruthless violence, and if that lack of empathy is fueled in large part by denying the true humanity of those who are so victimized, then a great deal of what Jesus taught applies.  

Jesus repeatedly asked that cycles of violence be snapped by going beyond the old practice of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." Jesus said that no matter how cruel a persecutor may be, love and forgiveness—not vengeance and more violence—need to be extended to even these enemies of the faithful. The nerve of cruelty is cut when we can look into the eyes of every person in the world and see a cherished human being.  

A vignette about cruelty

What illustrations of cruelty can we use in sermons today? In Steven Spielberg's searing film Schindler's List, we are introduced to the loathsome Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Göth (played to chilling precision by Ralph Fiennes). Göth has been raised to view all Jews as subhuman rats, so killing them means no more to him than dispatching a troublesome rodent. In the film he casually sits on the balcony of his home and picks off Jews with his rifle as a kind of target practice. He is relentlessly, lethally cruel to Jews because he does not see them as fellow humans with hopes, fears, and feelings—except for Helen Hirsch, the Jewish woman who serves as his maid. Helen is lovely, and Göth is attracted to her. The first time Oskar Schindler begins to think that Göth senses true humanity in Helen is when Helen silently clears a plate of cookies and Göth makes a point of saying, "Helen. Thank you." The contradiction between Jews as rats and Helen as a real person is finally too much for Göth. In an intense scene, he argues with himself as Helen stands silently before him. "I ask you, is this the face of a rat?" he says as he strokes her cheek. "Are these the eyes of a rat?" But then the contradictions become too much for Göth, and he strikes Helen in a cruel outburst of violence as his mind returns her to the status of rodents, vermin, and lice.