Boiling Water

I was reading through some old comments on another blog today and I came across a point that I'd made when arguing about the origin of suffering and God's response to it. It's a small fragment of the Problem of Evil.

God could have prevented thousands of years of people's suffering without infringing on any person's free will if he had simply said that boiling water makes it sterile. He didn't have to explain why, all he had to do was say somewhere in the Bible that wounds should be cleaned with water that had been boiled and then allowed to cool. This would have allowed thousands if not millions of people to survive sepsis or infection. It would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives but wouldn't have prevented humans from stabbing, killing, or otherwise being evil to each other.

Further, boiled water is safe to drink (safer, that is). Why didn't God point that out somewhere? If he really loved us, shouldn't he have included in his many laws and instructions the best way to make water safe for everyone to use?

At the time I made that point, I ended with: "I’ll leave you to direct me to those passages of the Bible but I’d be waiting forever. They’re not there." That is about all there is to it.