Category Archives: peace

The Bible & War: Old Testament Prophets

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It should be obvious to anyone and everyone by now that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in this whole endeavor of walking through the Bible gathering insights about war and violence. Nowhere will that be so apparent as in my analysis of the prophets.

The Old Testament prophets lived during the time of the divided kingdom. War was a constant reality for God’s people, usually an ugly reality. Because of their lack of trust in Him, God punished the descendants of Israel through foreign invaders. The prophets make it clear time and again that it is God’s will that these foreigners oppress His people (Isaiah 10:5-6, 22:1-8, 28:1-22, 29:1-4, 30:8-17, Amos 3:1-2, 5:18-20). The prophets don’t call for the Israelites to arm themselves and throw off these invaders; they call for the Israelites to return to God. Would they then be called to take up arms in defense of their people? That question goes unanswered. The key is that they get God to fight for them.

God is seen at times as a warrior God, leading the hosts of heaven against His enemies. (Joel 3:9-11, for example) The understanding is that one day He will march against His enemies. For now He uses earthly armies, both human and insect (see the imagery in Joel of the locust invasion).

The prophets foresee a day when war will be no more (Isaiah 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-3; Hosea 2:18; Zechariah 9:10). God will destroy all weapons and declare peace throughout the world.

What other themes relative to our discussion can you think of that come out in the Old Testament prophets?

The Bible & War: The Divided Kingdom

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Where united Israel had been able to hold its own against the surrounding nations, the divided kingdom of Israel and Judah had little chance of survival. Even the kings that came to have some military success could only boast of reclaiming the territory which David had previously conquered.

While God often acted on behalf of his people, neither righteousness nor faithfulness related directly to military success. Some evil kings were successful warriors. Some good kings lived through very difficult times. It is true, however, that when a king truly sought God, God would bring deliverance (though, interestingly enough, that deliverance rarely involved Israelite or Jewish fighting forces).

The regional powers were Assyria and Egypt, with Babylonia waiting in the wings. Even under David, Israel had only been a power in its own neighborhood. Whereas God used foreign powers to punish Israel, He rarely used Israel and Judah in the same way. God’s prophets could denounce foreign powers, but God’s people were not sent as agents of punishment against them. Violent punishment was carried out, at times, against the unfaithful within the borders of the Promised Land.

This period is a bloody period, principally because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. Because they were untrue to the Covenant, they lost the protection that Covenant promised and received the foretold punishment.

The time of the divided kingdom provides the historical context for the prophets, that we’ll look at later.

The Bible & War: The Psalms

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I won’t try and look at all of wisdom literature. I think our most pertinent information comes from the book of Psalms. Many, if not most, of the psalms were written by David, so it’s appropriate to look at this material after having talked about David.

When reading wisdom literature in the Old Testament, we must never lose sight of its humanity. One of the functions of the poetic books of the Old Testament is to accurately reflect the thoughts and feelings of God’s people, even when those thoughts and feelings don’t reflect God’s views. The psalms can speak of abandonment by God, even when it’s not true. The psalms can speak of God being inattentive to their prayers, even when it’s not true. It is true that they felt abandoned and neglected.

I feel that some of the violent, vengeful psalms reflect the same style of writing. They show us the depth of pain that God’s people were feeling, but I don’t know that it was God who wanted to see Babylonian infants dashed against rocks (Psalm 137).

That being said, the psalms talk quite a bit about war:

  • God is a warrior God, even known to fight personally against His enemies (see Psalm 18:14, for example)
  • God prepares His people to fight (Psalm 144:1)
  • God protects His people in battle (Psalm 140:7)
  • In fact, all that matters in battle is that God be on your side (Psalm 33:16ff; Psalm 20:7)
  • God also puts an end to wars (Psalm 46:6ff; Psalm 76:3)
  • The people who delight in war are not God’s people

As you see, it’s a broad view. For the psalmists, theology is not at all separate from war.

The Bible & War: United Israel

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The next stop along our way through the Bible is the united kingdom of Israel. If we’re extremely generous in defining this period (including Samuel and maybe Eli), Israel was truly united for all of 150 years. There is a disproportionate amount of material in the Old Testament about this time period, so it can seem longer.

During this time, especially under David and Solomon, Israel had great military success. The borders of Israel were expanded to basically take in all of the land which had been promised to Israel. Under David’s rule, idolatry was suppressed, if not eliminated.

We find some interesting comments on war in this section:

  • In 1 Chronicles 20:1, we find the comment “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war…,” with an implied criticism of David for not going out with his army. There’s no record of Solomon ever going out with the army, so it’s hard to know how strong of a custom it was that kings went to war in the spring. But we can imply, at least, that it was David’s custom.
  • 1 Chronicles 22:8 “You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.” Solomon, in 1 Kings, says that David couldn’t build the temple because there was no peace in his lifetime. David, however, says it was because of the blood he had shed. (See also 1 Chronicles 28:3) That is not an implication of guilt; I think it has more to do with the ceremonial cleanness needed for those dealing with the tabernacle/temple.

Some have also pointed to the celebrations of victory during this time as being parallel to Christians celebrating military victories today. I’ll throw that out there and see if anyone has any comment on it.

Maybe someone can help me with this: I can’t remember a time when David fought battles outside of the promised boundaries of Israel. (Num 34:3-12) I’m open to correction on that one. My theory is that his warfare was only for securing the Promised Land; please poke holes in that if you are able.

The Bible & War: The time of the judges

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Continuing our look at what the Bible has to say about war, we come to the time of the judges.

As we mentioned, the Conquest had been incomplete. As horrified as we may be at the instructions God gave the Israelites, we should be just as horrified at the cost of their not following those instructions. The Promised Land did not become what it was meant to be, because the Israelites spared some of the people that were living there and because they failed to destroy the idols of those people.

During most of the period of the judges, Israel was a nation only in the loosest sense of the word. The best description is “the twelve tribes of Israel,” for this was basically a loose confederation of tribes. The Law established no government, and, as the writer of Judges describes it, “there was king over Israel and each man did what was right in his own eyes.” It wasn’t meant to be that way, of course. As Gideon rightly recognized, God was intended to be the ruler of Israel, and each man should have done what was right in God’s eyes. But that didn’t happen.

They were basically polytheistic, with brief moments of revival and turning to God. During most of this time, they were oppressed by other peoples. God would raise up judges, deliverers of his people who would fight the enemy and free Israel from this foreign domination. At times the judges basically acted alone, like Samson. At other times, they led the entire nation, like Ehud. Most of the time, they directed a few of the twelve tribes, leading them to military victories.

Most of the fighting in the book of Judges is defensive, trying to expel foreign invaders. Some of it, particularly at the beginning of the book, is a continuation of the Conquest. That can be said for almost all of the fighting we see in the Old Testament.