Tag Archives: Military

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.

Moral legacy of war

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There’s an interesting book that’s being written, called “The Moral Legacy of World War II.” It’s being written by Ted Grimsrud, who teaches theology and peace studies at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. He is posting rough drafts of each chapter on the web. You can see the table of contents here, with links to the chapters that have been made public.

It’s an interesting topic. While the impact of the war on society as a whole is interesting, I’m particularly aware of the impact on the church in the United States. Our fellowship, the churches of Christ, transformed almost overnight from a predominantly pacifistic movement to a movement that broadly supports military involvement.

I overstated my case the other day by saying that this country has basically been at war for the last 70 years. Nick rightly corrected me on this. If you want to get technical, the last declaration of war by the United States Congress was in 1942, when the U.S. declared war on Romania. What may have seemed like wars since then have merely been military actions. What is unquestionable, however, is that the U.S. geared up militarily in the 1940s and never “geared down” after that. We became, and remain, a militarized society. And our churches, the churches of Christ at least, became and remain a militarized religious movement.

So Grimsrud’s study should be interesting. I’ve only read the first chapter. I hope some of you will read his writings and comment on them. His bias is obvious, which can often be helpful. Studies done under a pretense of objectivity can be deceiving. Every story has a slant, and it’s useful to know ahead of time what that slant is going to be.

Deadly mirage

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It came out in a paper in the U.K. last month. I didn’t see much coverage here, but I thought the news to be rather significant. Let me quote a couple of paragraphs from the article:

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

How many times will history have to repeat itself before we are convinced? When humans go to war, we don’t have all the facts. The citizens, those called upon to lay down their lives, don’t have all the facts. In this case, even those calling for war didn’t have the correct information.

I continue to marvel that people who complain about putting their tax dollars in the hands of the government seem so willing to put the lives of their sons and daughters in the very same hands. We don’t trust them with our money, but we trust them with our children.

Even when time and time again we find out that what we thought we knew about the reasons for fighting turns out to be a mirage. A deadly mirage.

Wars are fought on lies and deceit. I for one want to have no part of it.

Good money after bad

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$720 million a day. That’s what the American Friends Service Committee estimated as the cost of the Iraq war. That finding was published in September 2007; I doubt it’s exactly the same today. And we have to admit that the Quakers have an anti-war bias. But I don’t expect them to be grossly dishonest with numbers, even to support their views.

The Washington Post article that reported the finding stated, “The $720 million figure breaks down into $280 million a day from Iraq war supplementary funding bills passed by Congress, plus $440 million daily in incurred, but unpaid, long-term costs.”

Some accept that figure as the cost of “doing business” in the modern world.

Me, I can’t help but wish that Caesar put my tax dollars to better use.