Perhaps death means something different to God than it does to us. Mortals may see death as the end of everything, and if that is true, God is indeed cruel in cutting a person's life short. But from God's perspective, perhaps death is merely the gateway to a different form of life, just as birth is the gateway to mortality. Both birth and death involve a certain amount of pain. But in the the eternal scheme of things, that pain is short-lived.
As for the "vengeful" part, I personally believe, that God did not write the Bible. People with limited knowledge and experience wrote the Bible, and they are the ones who describe Him as vengeful.
From a child's point of view, a parent's discipline may seem "mean, unfair" or even "vengeful." When the child gains more knowledge and experience, he/she can begin to see that the parent really had his/her best interest in mind all along.
This of course, was my point in a nutshell.
A loving benevolent omnipotent God, could not rationally be anything like the descriptions of him in the Old Testament.
This is exactly my point of discussion with our fellow OWK. Our human based POV is limited to the physical realm. Here, our comprehension of the spiritual has sustained only cosmetic scratches effected by human's attempts of religious beliefs...
Az