The Fierce Lover

If someone were to by accident to stumble upon this page they might wonder if I have come back from the dead. No posts since August! I must be the most unintentional blogger ever. Yet, to gratify my own selfinterests, I am publishing a paper a wrote for college. Though it is form written to fulfill the needs of a assignment, I still think it might be somewhat interesting.

Ryan


The Fierce Lover: :Yahweh's as the Divine Warrior in the Old Testament


One of the great challenges Biblical theology faces is how to make sense of a God who says “love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44), but also commands his people to devote nations to complete destruction (Deut. 7:2). Can the same God speak both these commands? Not only does God sanction his people to wage holy war, but also directly commands genocide be committed in His name. For those who believe in the Bible, throwing out the first two thirds of the book is not an option. Neither can one claim that God has evolved from the time of the Old Testament to the incarnation of God in the New Testament. The Christian interpreter must somehow justify the wrath of God against the nations in the Old Testament with God’s radical mercy and love throughout the Bible. What follows is an attempt to show not only the righteousness of God, but also the mercy of God through Israel’s wars. God’s Righteousness is vindicated because he has the supreme creator rights over all people, and all people are infinitely worthy of death. He demonstrates his mercy in His covenant relationship with Israel.
First, one must rule out the option that God is not at fault because he is either uninvolved or did not initiate Israel’s wars. God’s sovereign control over all human and natural events is made clear in many different places throughout the Bible. God had command of all nations and peoples. More specifically the Lord taught Israel that He was an abiding presence with them always. It took the visible form of the pillar of cloud and fire during the wilderness journey (Exodus 13:21). The Ark of the Covenant became a more permanent symbol of God’s immanent and close presence (Longman, Reid 1995). The Ark also became the symbol of the Lord’s presence and intervention on the battlefield and in the camp; being brought with whenever the Israelites went out to battle. God was with them and involved in their fights. Moses states: “the Lord our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we struck him down until he had no survivor left” (Deut. 3:3). Even before the people lifted a hand against the Canaanites, God was fighting on behalf of Israel. The Lord repeatedly identifies Himself as the “Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Exod. 20:2, see also Lev. 11:45, Num. 15:41, Deut. 5:6, Psalms 81:10). In so doing, the Lord is proclaiming himself as the warrior Lord of Israel (Longman, Reid 1995; House 1998). God also promises to continue as Israel’s divine warrior (Deut. 7:17-26). Paul House writes: “The issue as the book begins is not whether the Lord intends to fight on Israel’s side but on what terms and in what way this divine aid will happen” (1998: 201). One cannot, then, object that God only passively watches.
The other error that must be avoided is the idea the God merely responds to Israel’s actions. Someone holding this view might say that Israel instigates war and God, because Israel is His people, responds with divine aid. This view simply does not fit with scripture. As Longman, Reid says: “Holy war was always initiated by Yahweh, never Israel” (1995:33). “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites (Num. 31:1). Yet, Yahweh never gives Israel a blanket license to kill anytime, anywhere. The Lord speaks and then Israel acts, never the other way around (House 1998:187).
The Lord also does not go to war with Israel as some sort of local, super powered sidekick. Yahweh’s vision is not parochially limited to Israel. Nor does He aim to get glory through the might and power of Israel as a nation. The Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser the first was commanded to go out and fight by his gods. He also gave them credit for his many victories. The picture that Pileser paints in his royal records, though, is shifted in its focus. He does not do the work for the sake of the gods, rather the gods work for him. Although Tiglath Pileser pours many praises and accolades upon all his gods, giving them glory for the victory, the focus remains upon Pileser himself. His religious fidelity seems to directly correlate to his military fortunes. He tacks more gods onto his religious experience to gain more battlefield victories. He offers parts of the loot to his gods, as do the Israelites. Yet, the gods’ portion remains much smaller than his own, and the narrative focus of his records is on his own gain, his own land, and his own name (Arnold, Beyer 2002:137-144). God does not do business like this. Yahweh is not interested in making Israel’s name great, He desires His name be made great. Nor is Yahweh interested in expanding his territory. He owns all territories and lands. God is providing Israel with a promised land, a land promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob many generation previous to the conquest. The Lord shows this is His only purpose by forbidding the people to fight against those whom He hasn’t handed over to them. The Lord picks Israel for His people not because of size, or military strength. The Israelites do not get rich from their wars in Canaan. Rather all the plunder belongs to the Lord (Joshua 6:24).
What does Israel stand to gain by going to war then? First, they will gain a promised land to dwell in forever. Secondly, they will obey the voice of the Lord in utterly destroying the people living in the promise land. The Lord commanded them to dispossess the nations (Deut. 9:1-2). It was not only a civic service but it was an act of trust and worship to fight for Yahweh (Longman, Reid 1995). Going out to war was not some dirty job done away from God’s presence. Rather, the symbol of God’s presence with his people, the ark, was brought with them to battle. The camp of war had the same regulation concerning cleanness, as did the wilderness camp (Longman, Reid 1995). Warfare was initiated and directed by God and was done in obedience and trust in God.
So then, God had four purposes or reason for waging war through Israel. The first was to punish sin. The Lord states: “It is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you” (Deut. 9:4). The first part of the verse clarifies that it is not because of Israel’s great righteousness that they are being given the land. The people who were killed in Israel’s conquest of Canaan were not innocent people. They had grievously sinned against God, and God was just and right to destroy them. Israel was not a superior people to the Canaanite, rather it was the mercy of God that they were chosen. Nor was there a double standard. When Israel sinned and turned from the Lord, the Lord did not fight for them (Packer 1980:172). God Turned away at Ai for the sin of one man and ultimately gave all of Israel over to other nations. Both Israel and the Canaanites deserved death. What should surprise the reader of the Old Testament is not the wrath of God, but the great mercy of God.
The Second reason is the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and later renewed with corporate Israel. The reason why God has mercy upon Israel and not any other nation is because Israel is the “treasured possession” of the Lord (McConville 2002). Deuteronomy 9:5b explains: “that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” The Lord always fights in behalf of the covenant He made with Israel. The Lord is a God who keeps his promises. It is important to note here that the promises Yahweh makes with Israel always have blesses and curses. Specifically, the promise to lead Israel into battle and to drive away all her enemies is always conditional (Deut. 7:12, 8:18, 9:7). When Israel is faithful and obey Yahweh, they do very well in battles. However, if Israel disobeys Yahweh and turns from Him, the Lord turns away (or worse, against) His people. God’s curses are not empty warnings; He is faithful to all his promises. When Israel disobeys and turns from Yahweh, the Lord turns against Israel. “Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them” (Judges 2:15). More than just hatred of evil and failed trusts, the Lord’s wrath against Israel was meant to draw them back to a covenant relationship. His wrath was always intermingled with mercy. The dominant theme of the book of Judges is Israel’s sin, Yahweh’s severity, and Yahweh’s salvation. Time and time again God provides a means of salvation for Israel. Even after the ultimate reversal against Israel as the divine warrior, when God raises up the Babylonians and Assyrians to carry away His people, the Lord provides prophets to turn the people back to Him (Longman, Reid 1995). Yet, when looking for the justice of God it is important to see that he only redeems after He has punished.
Thirdly, the Lord fights for and against Israel because, as His covenant people, God chose Israel to be a holy nation (McConville 2002). This reason best answers why God demands that the people be utterly destroyed. It is because the Lord does not want them to turn away from Himself. It is out of love for his people that He commands the great carnage of Canaan. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God” (Deut. 7:6). There is again conditionality in this provision: “you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it” (Deut 7:26). If the people do abominable things, they will be devoted to destruction just like those who where there before Israel.
Fourthly, This season of ethnic fighting is one season in the greater plan of salvation (Longman, Reid 1995). God’s highest aim through history is to glorify his name and to gather a people to himself. It does not look very missional to kill all of one’s neighbors. Still, who is he who knows the mind of the Lord? Several good things are accomplished in the scouring of Canaan. First, God proves that He is not a parochial deity, but rather that He is Lord over all the earth (House, 1998). Second, the Lord establishes a people on the earth, who, for a time, are devoted to serving Yahweh. In doing this God provided a witness for the entire world. Thirdly, the Lord demonstrates His great loving kindness, patience, and forgiveness in His dealing with Israel. This contribution was not valuable just for the ancient world, but remains a strong witness to today’s world as well. Fourthly, God showed the great need for His program of salvation by demonstrating the severity of His wrath against sin.
It may be seen that God is just in His dealings and warring with the people of the ancient world. He was and took responsibility for both Israel’s wars and those of her enemies fighting against disobedient Israel. Yahweh did not go up to war for vain, pretentious, or merely ethnic reasons. The Lord went to war to justly judge sinful man, to fulfill his covenant with his people, to keep His people holy to Himself, and to accomplish His redemptive plan. Yahweh is not an angry deity ravaging the earth for pleasure or vanity. He is a fierce lover, whose love may at times hurt and be hard to understand, but who will never leave His beloved.

References Cited


Arnold, Bill, and Bryan Beyer
2002 Readings from the Ancient Near East. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.


House, Paul
1998 Old Testament Theology. Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press.


Longman, Temper, and Daniel G. Reid
1995 God is a Warrior. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.


McConville, J. G.
2002 Deuteronomy. Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press.


Packer, J. I., Merril C. Tenney, and William White Jr.
1980 The World of the Old Testament. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.