From the perspective of the Western world, the understanding of war and its
ethical issues must consider the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament as a starting
point. This is not merely because this source has been used as a primary means
of justifying all stances on the moral question of war throughout history, but
also because the Hebrew Bible preserves a tradition that continues in an unbroken
connection from a period of time removed from the present day by millennia.
This perspective serves two purposes. First, it allows the student to consider
the questions of war in an ancient and different culture and time, and thereby
to evaluate the validity of modern arguments from the additional dimension of
another age. This assists in minimizing the prejudice that everyone has, limited
as we all are by our own culture and experience. The second purpose, however,
is equally important. A fresh examination of the teaching of war in the Hebrew
Bible allows the Westerner to consider just how much has changed in the view
of war between the ancient times and the modern age.
The nature of this topic is vast in scope. Virtually every one of the thirty-nine
books of the Hebrew Bible
mentions the subject of war and some deal with it in great detail (Ruth and
the Song of Songs may be excepted, according to Rodd 2001: 185). Further, there
is no unanimity regarding the view of war. It varies from book to book and,
at times. from page to page. Indeed, war in the Hebrew Bible is assumed from
the outset as a natural and necessary part of the world in which the ancients
found themselves. Neither the speeches of God nor the actions of those deemed
saints as well as sinners ever assumed the absence of war in the world. It is
true that passages such as Isaiah 2: 2-4 and Micah 4: 1-4 looked forward to
a time of universal peace and the complete cessation of hostilities. This is
not unlike the harmonious relationship ascribed to the first human couple in
the opening two chapters of Genesis. However, neither of these ideals were historical
realities in the periods in which the writers of the books of the Bible lived.
Every generation knew war.
In light of the complexity of this subject and the issues involved, the purpose
of this essay will be to survey recent studies on the subject of war in the
Old Testament and to evaluate their contribution. In so doing, the essay will
limit itself to some contributions related to the ethic of war that is described
in the Hebrew Bible. This will require a focus on those studies that examine
questions related to the moral view of warfare in the ancient world, as distinct,
for example, from those studies that consider the materials and strategies used
in ancient warfare and in biblical battles. Even with this limitation it will
be seen that the questions related to war in the Bible remain complex and multilayered.
While the issue of whether or not war in principle is "right" or "wrong"
is never asked, it is not correct to assume that the Bible presents all wars
from a similar perspective. Nor is it correct to assume that war was either
good or bad according to the extent to which it served the purposes of God or
some other key character.
Instead, there are at least three levels on which warfare must be examined.
First, there is the question of the
nature of God as a warrior who leads his people in battle. This perspective
forms a foundational role for most of the understanding of war in the Hebrew
Bible. Its examination is necessary, for the people who worshipped the God of
Israel were surely influenced and guided by the character of the God whom they
so honored. Second, there is the question of the types of war as described in
the Bible and the explicit reflection on that war as suggested by the text.
While this itself is complex and multifaceted, it provides the most important
layer of understanding for appreciating the role of Israelites at war and what
ethics may have governed their prosecution of battle. Third, there remains the
critical evaluation of the purpose behind the text's presentation of battles.
This raises questions of ideology and propaganda. To what extent is warfare
as presented in the Bible a distortion of the historical events, designed to
serve the political purposes of the power elite of Jerusalem?
What is war as it is found in the Bible? The verbal term, to make war (l?m),
occurs in its customary niphal
stem formation some 164 times in the Bible. The noun form, mil?Åmâ,
appears about 320 times (Preuss 1997: 334, 343). This relatively high frequency
reflects the importance of the subject in the Bible. As others have noted (Preuss
1997: 336), the practice and ideology of war was shared between the Israelites
and other peoples of antiquity. Most references to war concern Israel's experiences
with fighting in the Wilderness, in the entrance into Canaan, and against various
enemies of the nation (e.g., Philistines, Amalekites, Arameans, and later powers).
The role of Israel's God Yahweh as warrior also contains a significant usage
of the term, and it is to this usage that we now turn.
I. Yahweh as Warrior
From the text of Exodus 15 onwards, the picture of Yahweh is one of a warrior
who leads his people in battle and fights for them. It is essential to understand
that this is the manner in which Yahweh first reveals himself to Israel as it
is born out of its liberation from Egypt. The role of Yahweh as a warrior creates
the model by which all further examples of fighters and their warfare are measured.
This is the first model that Longman and Reid propose in their discussion of
God as a warrior (Longman and Reid 1995: 31-47). It is also the oldest model
in the Bible as an image for war.
The text of Exod. 15: 1-18, celebrating God's defeat of the Egyptian army in
the waters of the Re(e)d Sea, is as follows (NIV translation):
Ex. 15:1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD: “I will
sing to the LORD, for he
is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.
Ex. 15:2 The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He
is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
Ex. 15:3 The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.
Ex. 15:4 Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The
best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea.
Ex. 15:5 The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone.
Ex. 15:6 “Your right hand, O LORD, was majestic in power. Your right hand,
O LORD, shattered the enemy.
Ex. 15:7 In the greatness of your majesty you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble.
Ex. 15:8 By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up. The surging waters
stood firm like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.
Ex. 15:9 “The enemy boasted, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake them.
I will divide the spoils; I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword
and my hand will destroy them.’
Ex. 15:10 But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank
like lead in the mighty waters.
Ex. 15:11 “Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you —
majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?
Ex. 15:12 You stretched out your right hand and the earth swallowed them.
Ex. 15:13 “In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.
Ex. 15:14 The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of
Philistia.
Ex. 15:15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be
seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away;
Ex. 15:16 terror and dread will fall upon them. By the power of your arm they
will be as still as a stone — until your people pass by, O LORD, until
the people you bought pass by.
Ex. 15:17 You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance
— the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord,
your hands established.
Ex. 15:18 The LORD will reign for ever and ever.”
Consider this text in light of what it has to say regarding warfare. The focus
is on Yahweh as the leader of the army and the prosecutor of the war. Twice
at the beginning and once in the middle the poem emphasizes the destruction
of the Egyptian army (vv. 1, 4-5, and 7). Again, in vv. 10 and 12 there is reference
to the waters and then the earth covering over the enemy. Here it appears as
a response to the boast of the enemy in v. 9, where they claim superiority to
Israel and, by implication, to its God. The central text of this construction
is v. 7 where the expressions do not so much describe the specific event of
the drowning of the Egyptians, but use general and universal terms to outline
God's victory over all opposition. By this means the psalm becomes more than
an account from early Israel. It is a picture of Israel's God that, from the
beginning, affirms his superiority over all rivals, whomever they might be.
Of special interest is the dominant theme of the first twelve verses of the
passage. It is not a focus upon the battle itself, but a hymn of praise to God.
Vv. 1a, 2-3, 6, 8, 11, and 12a all describe the greatness of Yahweh
in terms of his roles as Savior of his people, as greater than any surrounding
deities, and as possessor of
might and power. The latter is affirmed through the use of the image God's right
hand (vv. 6 and 12), as
well as his mighty breath (vv. 8 and 10). The image of the right hand, known
as well in the Psalms, is found
in contemporary and earlier Egyptian literature to describe the military security
that pharaoh provides.
Therefore, Exodus 15 creates an intentional polemic against pharaoh, as Yahweh
is shown superior in his
defeat of the Egyptian army and in his subsequent appropriation of Egyptian
honorifics and expressions to
describe himself as Israel's superior deity.
Vv. 13-18, the second half of the hymn of praise, emphasize that the purpose
of the victory is not the
destruction of the enemy but the salvation of Yahweh's people. He leads Israel
through the midst of
enemies and he settles them in the secure mountain of his choosing. Far from
a focus on war, the ultimate
purpose of this psalm is peace. God leads Israel and ultimately settles them
in peace.
Thus, although God fights on behalf of his people, the aim of the warfare here
is to overcome obstacles that
would otherwise not permit him to achieve the purpose that he has for his people.
Further, the battle is
portrayed as a defensive one. It is initiated by the Egyptians who boast of
their ability to attack and
destroy his people. Clearly, the view of the psalm is that this victory is not
one of the slaughter of
innocents, but the containment of violence that otherwise would be directed
at God's people.
The image of Yahweh as a warrior forms the basis for God's presence with his
people in leading them to
success in their battles. Repeatedly, in the wilderness Israel fights as a result
of being attacked in a manner
that far outweighs any provocation that they might have brought against the
enemy. Thus the Amalekites
initiate attacks against Israel (Exod. 17: 8-16). Other examples may be found
in Numbers 21 where the king
of Arad (v. 1), the king of Heshbon (v. 23), and the king of Bashan (v. 33)
all initiate battles against Israel.
The nation's successes are seen as a defensive response to aggression on the
part of the enemies.
This perspective culminates in the dynastic oracle given to king David in 2
Samuel 7. There Yahweh
identifies with the line of David and their rule in such a way that the wars
of Israel become the wars of
God. While this is described in the oracle and reflected in many psalms that
celebrate the line of David
(e.g., Pss. 2, 78, 110), the narrative accounts of battles in the succeeding
generations do not often exemplify
this approach.
There is another aspect of Yahweh as warrior that Longman and Reid discuss,
one in which Yahweh fights
against his people. This is frequently found in the prophetic books of the Old
Testament. However, it also
appears in the historical books of Kings in their analysis of the destruction
of the Northern and Southern
kingdoms. Thus the writer of 2 Kings 17 describes the fall of the northern kingdom
in moral terms that
suggest a direct relationship between Israel's sin and God's allowing the kingdom
to fall into the hands of
their enemies:
2Kings 17:21 ¶ When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made
Jeroboam son of Nebat
their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused
them to commit a
great sin.
2Kings 17:22 The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not
turn away from them
2Kings 17:23 until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned
through all his
servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland
into exile in Assyria,
and they are still there.
Notice that it is not weakness on the part of Yahweh that permits this destruction
and deportation. Instead,
it forms part of his will for the people who have turned against him. More than
a century before these
events, the prophet Amos had affirmed that Israel held no privileged place in
the divine evaluation:
Amos 9:7 “Are not you Israelites the same to me as the Cushites?”
declares the LORD. “Did I not
bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from
Kir?”
This same prophet and other like him would pronounce Yahweh's words of judgment
against the enemies
of Israel, and in the same breath turn to the people of God and launch the fiercest
and most sustained attack
upon them. The fact that Yahweh as a warrior could turn against his people was
not a late development,
however. It had already been in place at the beginning of the nation's history
according to Exodus 32-34.
There at Mt. Sinai, when Israel turned away from God to pursue other deities,
God was prepared to
destroy the nation until Moses and other faithful Israelites intervened.
The two pictures of Yahweh as warrior, both for Israel and against Israel, are
consistent only if it is
recognized that Yahweh warfare forms part of his commitment to preserve his
holiness. When his people
join in that holiness through faithfulness to him, they experience his battle
on behalf of them. However,
when they turn away from him and no longer observe his covenant agreement with
them, they face
Yahweh's wrath and the threat of the loss of their land and national identity
(Deut. 28: 49-68). The prophets
capture this theme in their understanding of the Day of the Lord in which God
will visit judgment on all
peoples, both Israel and the other nations, in such a manner that terror and
destruction will come to those
who have turned their backs on God; whereas hope and salvation will be found
for the faithful (e.g., Joel;
see further on other important texts in Longman and Reid 1995: 61-82).
In this manner the picture of Yahweh as warrior developed from traditions regarding
divine acts of
salvation on behalf of his people to a God who discriminates even among his
own people, and finally to a
deity who is the embodiment of judgment for righteousness. This takes us away
from the issues of the
ethics of warfare among historical nations. However, the theme that resonates
in the reality of war for Israel
is that their success depends upon their relationship to the divine warrior.
Beyond this, Craigie comments
that, despite the sinfulness of war as a human activity (Craigie 1978: 41),
the role of God as warrior
provides hope. He notes that for Israelite and for the faithful who understand
the nature of God as warrior
(Ibid, p. 43):
…even in his human dilemma, with the concomitant human sin, he may seek
God and find him.
God's presence in such a situation (war, for example) will not justify it or
make it holy, but it does
provide hope in a situation of hopelessness.
Thus already the ethics of war are relativized in the Judeo-Christian tradition
in the presence of God.
II. Israel at War
Most discussion of the ethics of warfare as described in the Hebrew Bible considers
the types of warfare in
which Israel indulged as of primary importance. Among these the best known is
that of the "holy war" as
initially described by the theologian, Gerhard Von Rad (for an English translation
see Von Rad 1991). The
basic elements may be summarized as a summons to battle, consecration of the
warriors, sacrifices and the
receipt of an oracle, Yahweh's movement in front of the army, loss of courage
by the enemy, enactment of
the ?‰rem or "ban" (Deut. 20: 10-18 or some variation), and a
dismissal of the warriors of Israel (Rowlett
1996: 51; Rodd 2001: 187-188). Although this form may occur in texts such as
Joshua's attack on Jericho
(Joshua 5-6) and later Israelite wars as described in Chronicles (especially
2 Chronicles 20), there was no
consistent usage of the form. Despite the tendency of some to refine or expand
the idea of holy war (Wood
1998), Craigie finds no basis for seeing anything particularly holy about any
war (Craigie 1975: 49). In fact,
no war was entirely secular. Despite its horror, the ancient world understood
all its wars as sacred, if not
holy. That is, war involved the powers of heaven as well as earth. Therefore,
every war that was
prosecuted by an ancient people, whether great or small, was dependent upon
the favor of the gods for its
success. The case was no different in Israel. Thus, while the demand for a precise
form and the particular
terminology of Von Rad's holy war may be criticized as inaccurate, he was certainly
correct to connect the
prosecution of war with the larger picture of Israel's God as a warrior.
The already mentioned ?‰rem or "ban" appears in Deut. 20: 10-18
as the guidelines for the engagement by
Israel with enemies on the territory that God has given to the nation. This
"ban" required the total
destruction of all warriors in the battle and in some way the consecration of
everything that was captured
to Yahweh. Niditch goes to some length to portray this activity as initially
related to a sacrifice to God,
part of a larger picture of human sacrifice (Niditch 1993: 28-55). However,
she writes that this changed (p.
45):
…the dominant voice in the Hebrew Bible treats the ban not as sacrifice
in exchange for victory but
as just and deserved punishment for idolators, sinners, and those who lead Israel
astray or commit
direct injustice against Israel.
While it is true that the ninth century stele of King Mesha of Moab describes
his destruction of an Israelite
town and its sacrificial devotion to his god Chemosh as a ?‰rem, this does
not prove that the same
theology dominated in Israel. And indeed there is no explicit evidence for human
sacrifice to Yahweh in
the early texts. The fact that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis
22 must be balanced
against the description of the text that denies that any such sacrifice was
ever performed. God explicitly
stopped it and provided an animal substitute. Therefore this is not a strong
case for the adoption of human
sacrifice as an approved form of Yahweh worship.
Nevertheless, the ban as an enactment of God's justice is seen in these texts
as well as one such as 1 Samuel
15, where the prophet criticizes Saul for allowing Agag, the king of the Amalekites,
to live. All must be
destroyed. This is the first type of warfare that Niditch discusses. It is portrayed
as an "us vs. them"
mentality in which "a group that fears loss of its identity attempts to
define itself" by eliminating
"foreigners" outside and within the group who are perceived as a threat
(Niditch 1993: 74). The latter is
exemplified by Achan in Joshua 7, who although an Israelite must be put to death
for not observing the
absolute demands of the ?‰rem.
A related type is what Niditch (1993: 78-89) calls the priestly ideology of
warfare. In Numbers 31 Moses
allows the virgin daughters of the defeated to live. This is contrary to the
?‰rem in which they should have
been killed. See also Judges 21. Although these texts tend to reduce women to
the level of chattel for
trading, they also recognize the uncleanness that must be associated with the
brutality of war.
A third type of war is the bardic tradition (Niditch 1993: 90-105). This is
found in the story of David and
Goliath and in other stories of the life of David before he became king. Expected
rules of warfare are
assumed and attached to it. They formed the best stories that would have been
recited. Niditch identifies
their origin in which "a courtly bardic tradition produced in glorification
of a young nation state, it king, its
"mighty men," and the heroes of previous generations" (1993:
105).
Tricksterism describes a type of battle in which the Israelites or their representatives
are at a military
disadvantage and must use some sort of clever ruse to overcome their weakness.
Niditch finds many
stories of women in this category, including the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34,
the victory won by Jael in
Judges 4-5, and the story of Esther (Niditch 1993: 106-122).
A fourth category is the ideology of expediency in which whatever force is necessary
should be used to
eradicate the enemy and thus render it unable ever to fight again. Niditch cites
many examples of this from
the life of David after he became king, but also includes Judges 18, where the
Danites wipe out the
inhabitants of the town of Laish in order to take it for themselves. Accounts
of the ideology of expediency
with David include the manner in which David captures the Ammonites (2 Sam.
12: 30-31) and makes them
laborers, while placing the crown of their deity on his own head. The pragmatic
and bloody intrigues and
wars of David have received much discussion and the various view have been summarized
by Halpern in
his 2001 work, David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King.
Niditch concludes her perspectives on war from the Hebrew Bible with what she
calls an ideology of
nonparticipation (Niditch 1993: 134-149). This study includes the critique of
the prophet Hosea (1: 8) at the
bloody purge by Jehu of Ahab's dynastic house, despite its sin. It includes
the implicit teaching of the
problems with the expedient approach as found in the tale of Abimelech in Judges
9. Other critiques
include Jacob's negative evaluation of the rape of Dinah in Gen. 49: 5-7 and
the injustices perpetrated by
various nations in their martial activities in Amos 1-2. Although there are
exceptions, the accounts in
Chronicles tendency to omit many of the cruelties of David and other blood-filled
war traditions that are
preserved in Samuel and Kings. God's protection of the weak and the future anticipation
of a millennial
age without war also fall under this perspective.
III. Accounts of War as Propaganda
A further issue that must be considered is that of the purpose of the writing
of accounts of warfare in the
Hebrew Bible. Why did the authors record their battle stories? Niditch has already
hinted at this in the
bardic tradition where she observed the role of entertainment and, by implication,
the passing on of
values. However, she also describes the universal need in human society to justify
the killing of other
people. War accounts provide a justification for this when they establish the
legitimacy and even the
necessity of the taking of human life. The Bible, as noted above, also contains
implicit criticism of warfare.
This is especially found in the prophets. This has led some to find in the role
of Yahweh as warrior a
substitution for human involvement in war and thereby assert a pacifist stance
(Lind 1980). While accounts
such as the victory over the Egyptians in Exodus 14-15, and some later wars
of Israel (e.g., 2 Chronicles 20)
support the noncombatant status of Israel as it merely bears witness to Yahweh's
victory over its enemies,
both the legal prescriptions for war in Deuteronomy 20 and the actual wars fought
by Israel under divine
direction clearly presume the involvement of the nation in the taking of human
life. Thus there is neither a
total and complete ban on war for Israel nor is there permission for the nation
to fight however it wishes.
Nelson (1981; 1997) and Rowlett (1996) represent examples of scholars who have
found in the war accounts
of the book of Joshua what can only be described as a fundamentally propagandistic
purpose (cf. more
broadly Coote and Coote 1990). Denying or ignoring any significant historical
basis to these texts, they
identify their purpose as a means to support the later reforms of King Josiah
by describing the ideal
warrior Joshua and the military successes that he and the nation of Israel enjoyed
in the conquest of the
land. This literary fantasy then forms the basis for Josiah's call for religious
reform coupled with his
commitment to restore the borders of ancient Israel in a series of campaigns
in the final decades of the
seventh century B.C. Rowlett advances this thesis farther by arguing that the
word pictures and rhetoric of
battles in Joshua 1-12 were created in Josiah's court by scribes who drew upon
Neo-Assyrian models of
recording war campaigns. These annals of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.
preserve verbal images
(just as Neo-Assyrian reliefs preserve pictorial images) of violence and torture
of defeated opponents.
Such horrific pictures were designed to reinforce obedience among the vassals
of the Neo-Assyrians and to
win respect for their empire. Josiah borrowed them in order to serve similar
purposes for his developing
empire.
This theory fails to convince one who has studied the ancient Near Eastern evidence.
First, the descriptions
in the Neo-Assyrian annals are designed to evoke terror in the defeated population
in a manner not found
in the book of Joshua. Rowlett points to the treatment of the five kings of
the southern coalition that Joshua
captured and killed in 10: 25-28. The text describes how he invited the army
generals of Israel to place their
feet on the necks of each king, how he killed the kings, and how he hung their
bodies on trees until evening
at which point he buried them in a cave, marked by a pile of rocks. Whatever
impact this may have made
on the nation of Israel, no enemy of Israel is described as witness to this
event. This is contrary to the
Neo-Assyrian method. Their brutality toward prisoners of war, and not just kings,
exceeded other nations.
They flayed their victims alive and they impaled others on poles; while heaping
up corpses of the
remainder of the population that they wished to kill. This was not just temporarily
visible to the army of
Assyria. Instead, there is no record in many cases as to how long these gruesome
spectacles continued.
Further, Assyrian writers and artists recorded the horrors in detail in both
visible reliefs and in their
annals. Few can read the accounts of the tenth century Assyrian king, Asshurnasirpal,
without shuddering
at the delight that he took in describing these atrocities. This is propaganda
on a level that far exceeds the
four brief verses in Joshua, which after all deal only with the five leading
kings and not with dozens or
hundreds of hapless prisoners of war. The same is true of the remainder of the
book of Joshua. Further,
neither the account of Josiah's reign in Kings nor the parallel account in Chronicles,
describes anything like
the atrocities that the Neo-Assyrian kings committed. Thus it is too much a
leap to ascribe similar
propagandistic motives to the biblical writers of wars such as those found in
the book of Joshua.
Having said this, however, it is not inappropriate to find in the description
of Joshua a model of leadership
that later kings such as Josiah emulated. However, the impression one gets when
comparing the accounts
of warfare in the Bible with those found elsewhere, and especially in the Neo-Assyrian
and
Neo-Babylonian empires, is that there is far less record of brutality in Israel's
practice of war. This is true
despite the formal similarities of war accounts in Joshua and elsewhere (Younger
1990). The biblical text
simply does not linger over the gruesome details. The prophets and other leaders
do express concern
about unnecessary brutality and bloodshed. There is little suggestion of war
as an act human sacrifice to a
god who demands such. Finally, although the Israelites do receive permission
to drive out the inhabitants
of Canaan as recorded in Joshua, they do not ever have divine authority to expand
their territories beyond
what is initially given to them. In this sense all wars subsequent to the taking
of the land in the book of
Joshua are wars of defense. This, of course, stands in stark contrast to the
battles of the all the major
empires surrounding them. Whether the Hittites and Egyptians of the second millennium,
or the
Arameans, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks of the first millennium,
Israel's military contact
with these groups in Canaan was always one of defense against an aggressor entering
into Israel's
homeland.
Having observed this fact, it is important to return to the account of Joshua.
To what extent are the
conquests described there genocidal wars of extermination that would have no
place in any reasonable
ethic of warfare. It is this writer's view that such a description is inaccurate
and distorted. References to
the destruction of noncombatants in these wars, i.e., to "men and women",
occur only in Josh. 6: 21 and 8:
25, referring to Jericho and Ai respectively. However, there is reason to suspect
that these are stereotypical
phrases that emphasize the complete destruction of everyone. Rather than being
towns or cities, the initial
two sites of conquest, Jericho and Ai, may well have been military forts guarding
the routes from the
Jordan Valley up to population centers in the hill country such as Bethel and
Jerusalem. Evidence for this
includes (1) the complete absence of any references to specific noncombatants
such as women and children,
other than Rahab and her family who are not killed; (2) the lack of evidence
for settlement at Jericho and Ai
during the time of Israel's emergence in Canaan, suggesting that these were
not cities but military forts; (3)
the use of the term "king" (Hebrew melek) with the meaning of a military
leader in Canaan at this time; (4)
the absence of mention in the biblical text that these were large cities (unlike
Gibeon and Hazor which are
so described); and (4) the meaning of the name, Ai, as "ruin," which
suggests the reuse of earlier
fortifications for a temporary fort rather than a more permanent site of habitation
(see Hess 1996, loc. cit.).
The other major battles, against the northern and southern coalitions of Joshua
10 and 11 are represented in
the biblical text as defensive wars. In both cases they begin as the coalitions
mass against Israel or its ally
and therefore force the people of God into battle (Josh. 10: 3-5; 11: 1-5).
Note further that the eight or more
references to complete destruction of the cities represented by these coalitions,
in which nothing was left
alive (Josh. 10: 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 39; 11: 11, 14), could easily represent
stereotypical descriptions (so Younger
1990) that express obedience to the command to drive out the Canaanites. It
is possible that after the defeat
of the army, the populations would have fled rather than remain in a relatively
defenseless city. Further it
is known that many of these "cities" were used primarily for government
buildings, so that the common
people lived in the surrounding countryside (Hess 1996 loc. cit.). Therefore,
one may ask whether there
was a population remaining in these cities to be destroyed. There is no indication
in the text of any specific
noncombatants put to death (unlike the armies and their leaders). In any case,
there is clear evidence that
there were Canaanites remaining in the areas where Israel settled (Judg. 2:
10-13).
For purposes of this essay, it is not relevant to ask whether these battles
were truly defensive or whether
they were even historical. It is enough to observe that this is how the writers
of the Bible presented them.
As such, they were justified wars against combatants in every case. Does this
mean that biblical Israel
never killed anyone unjustly? Certainly not, the wars recorded in Judges become
increasingly brutal until
the final chapters depict civil war with killing that resembles a massacre.
However, like other battles
recorded in the Bible, there is no suggestion that many of these wars and atrocities
reflected the ideal that
the writers of Judges expected Israel to follow in accordance with its God,
the true warrior. The same can
be said of later battles, including those of David (especially after he became
king).
It must be emphasized that the distinction between a record of what happened,
or at least a story about it,
and a moral evaluation upon the account needs to be preserved in every case.
For this reason the writer
may stress the peaceful and defenseless nature of the city of Laish that the
tribe of Dan attacks (Judg. 18:
7-10, 27-29). However, it is wrong to argue that the writer of the account "sees
this as divine providence" as
Rodd (2001: 187) maintains. The writer nowhere says this. Instead, it is reported
that the tribe of Dan
determines that God has given the city into their hands. Whether this is true
or not, and whether they have
any right to murder the innocents in the city, are not discussed. This is in
keeping with the writer of Judges
who, especially in the final chapters, records events and discussions but leaves
moral and theological
evaluations to the readers. Indeed, a writer such as Rodd seems intent on offensive
interpretations of the
biblical texts about war where there are none. In a similar vein he notes regarding
David's slaughter of
Moabites and Edomites, that "There is no hint of any criticism of David's
military zeal". Like the writers of
Judges, those who composed the books of Samuel often reserved judgment and merely
described the
events. There is plenty of criticism of David's ethics, placed in the mouth
of Nathan the prophet and others,
but it is part of the narrative not a task of the narrator.
Rodd represents the postmodernist view of the biblical tradition which stresses
the differences between
various texts and argues that there are "many different strands within
the Old Testament, often
contradictory and difficult to harmonize" (Rodd 2001: 193). Other than
future hope of peace in some
prophecies, Rodd concludes that Deuteronomy's attempts to regulate war is idealistic,
that peace in the
Bible often implies total subjugation of enemies rather than anything positive,
and that the Old Testament
glories in war in a manner that is unacceptable ethically. For this reason,
all the recent treatments on the
ethics of war in the Old Testament fail to deal seriously with the major moral
issues involved. The view of
Hobbs (1989) that warfare was necessary for the survival of ancient Israel is
inadequate because it does not
address what the Old Testament has to say regarding war in the modern age. Nevertheless,
Rodd's own
conclusions seem to follow Hobbs in arguing the inadequacy of the Old Testament
to speak to issues of
war (and other ethical issues) for the modern age. Yet, while he is severely
critical of all who have
attempted to address this issue, he does not present why Old Testament ethics
are inadequate. It remains
to be proven that the Hebrew Bible glories in war. The evidence of Exodus 15
may be multiplied
throughout the Bible; wherever war is associated with God's activities the majesty
of God receives far more
attention and praise than does the war that he prosecutes. What is true of the
divine warrior is also true of
his human counterparts.
In the end, neither Rodd nor other writers have succeeded in overturning the
observation of Craigie that
war is an evil necessary to the fallen human condition. In this regard, Rodd's
comment (2001: 203) is of
interest:
We may grant that the ancient Israelites felt the anguish of pain, grieved over
their dead, and longed
for security, yet this does not mean that they even glimpsed the reaction to
war which two world
wars and countless conflicts since then have evoked in many today.
The events of September 11th, 2001 have thrown this conclusion into stark relief.
For many, the relativism
of the late 20th century, embodied in postmodernism, is no longer the final
answer to the difficult
questions of war and peace. Nor is it acceptable to take a text such as the
Bible, that has influenced the
Western tradition since its beginning, and merely to parade a collection of
contradictions from its many
and diverse pages. Not only do these contradictions evaporate when each is examined
in context; but the
arrogance of assuming that this generation can identify moral contradictions
where previous ones have not
had difficulty in locating a consistent, albeit difficult, teaching must be
noted. In the end, the Bible reflects
the varieties of reasons for war, but does so with a moral tenor that ultimately
recognizes battle as a
necessary evil in the context of a greater, cosmic struggle between good and
evil.
Bibliography
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