Are all the biblical (OT) stories about military campaigns and commands of genocide for Israel against various tribes (canaanites, edom's offspring, amalek -which is more a kind of mysterious hive-mind it seems- ) actually about rooting out sin from the person? For example the psalm about dashing "little ones" unto rocks -the little ones are sinful thoughts which are very minor thoughts and not much strong- so they must be defeated at once. Likewise the instructions to kill "suckling, cattle" etc refers to killing all various kinds of sins without relent. This was the explanation given by bishop barron ,I saw the video long ago but can't find it now. It does make sense because a literal view of these would lead to weird racial theories of identifying edomites and amalekites . we know how that goes And it makes sense this way, to know why God would punish a king for actively omitting a genocide ;it means he allowed sin to fester.
