Love and be kind to them.
34 The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:34 NASB
(many more references)
Kill them.
All the strangers that he delivered to them.
1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you,
2 and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.
Deuteronomy 7:2 NASB
All strangers who came near his holy place (the tabernacle).
51 So when the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle encamps, the Levites shall set it up. But the layman who comes near shall be put to death.
Numbers 1:51 NASB
(3:10, 3:38, 18:7)
Intro
The critic sees a contradiction in the treatment of strangers: Be kind to them or Kill them.
This is a grotesque perversion of the facts by the critic.
General conduct
(Leviticus) Indeed strangers should be treated without discrimination in Old-Israel. All the references the critic could collect are overwhelmingly clear about that. And it is not questionable where modern rules against discrimination in the modern world come from, from the Word of God. Jews and Christians should be proud of that as well as eager to promote these rules.
Exceptions
(Deuteronomy) There are seven nations mentioned being excluded from the rule of concern and good neighborhood. They had no right anymore in Canaan. They would certainly not behave as the Israelites and be nice, on the contrary again and again the Israelites were warned for their hostile behavior. And this was directly connected with their religion of Baal and Astarte. Baal was a War-God with attributes of a sword or axe. They indeed opened the war against the Israelites, who defeated them (Joshua 11: 3, 19-20). It all happened as prophesied.
Rules of war
The Israelites had two commandments to fulfil.
1. To drive them away. (clear away) Many left the cities especially women, children and old people when a war was in preparation. Israelites had the rule to let them go, before hostilities occurred.
2. To defeat those who attacked them. According to the rules of that time: losing a war was losing life, so it was necessary to act quickly and to flee when a battle turned wrong. This often happened in case of bad leadership, especially in case of coalitions who did not obey foreign kings.
Rachab
Take note: Rachab said what many thought, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt,” (Joshua 2:9-10) Who wanted to live, could run when their own town prepared to war. They all knew what was going to happen.
Compare the articles: Is God good to all? Was Moses meek? Is God merciful or cruel?
Equal justice for all
It was a rule to keep safe the tabernacle especially the ark of the covenant. Only hostile strangers who would not respect the central sanctuary and entered, or touched the ark, could expect capital punishment. There is no indication that any stranger has ever been killed for this transgression. There have been several examples that Israelites died due to this rule concerning the tabernacle (1 Samuel 7:19, 2 Samuel 6:7).
No Bible Contradictions