The violence of the Old Testament - Part 3

This is part 3 of a series. See Part 1 and Part 2

Human-initiated violence in the Old Testament

In part 1 we looked at the human propensity towards violence. While the level of violence in a society ebbs and flows over time, it is never absent. Those who would not think of taking part in violent activity themselves may still watch violence or read about it as a form of entertainment.

Human nature hasn't changed, and much of the violence described in the Old Testament (not to mention the New Testament) is evidence of that. The Bible chronicles life as it is, not as it should be. Life in the Ancient Near East was hard and brutal, tribes and nations went to war with each other and families squabbled then as frequently as they do now. Much of the violence that is recounted in the Old Testament is initiated by sinful human beings. Often such violence is condemned, by the writers and/or by God (eg Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 3:31, Malachi 2:16) But not always. 

Persian warriors

As I've mentioned before, the fact that some activity is recounted in the Old Testament doesn't necessarily mean that it’s being approved. Unless a commentary is added by the writer, the reader is left to decide for themselves what the significance of any particular event might be. Sometimes a violent episode is recounted to demonstrate how bad things had become (the events of Judges 19, for instance). 

That's all very well. But what of the violence that seems to be specifically commanded or carried out by God? If we're not going to pretend it doesn't exist, and we're on shaky ground suggesting that God's words of command have simply been added by the human authors of the texts, (see part 2) what are we to make of it?

The metaphorical Warrior King

In the past, as now in many places, warriors were heroes and greatly respected. The men (and they were all men) who wrote the books of the Old Testament shared this respect and it comes through in the way they recount history. While they often condemned violence and cruelty for its own sake, they had no qualms about extolling the virtues of a warrior who slaughtered the enemy in order to save his people.

It’s not surprising then, if God is often extolled in terms of his being a warrior fighting his enemies (eg Exodus 15:3). This is not the same as putting words into God's mouth. This is human language applied to God, just as describing him as a shepherd or a judge or a bridegroom is human language. 

David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, was also a former shepherd and a seasoned fighter as well as a poet. He uses metaphors drawn from his own experience in the Psalms. So he can refer to God both as a shepherd (Psalm 23.1) tending his flock, then as a mighty warrior (Psalm 60:12) protecting his people. Sometimes he calls on God to do things that to us seem quite brutal:

Verrocchio: David

Your hand will find out all your enemies;

 your right hand will find out those who hate you.

You will make them as a blazing oven
when you appear.
The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath,
and fire will consume them.
You will destroy their descendants from the earth,
and their offspring from among the children of man.
Though they plan evil against you,
though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
For you will put them to flight;
you will aim at their faces with your bows. (Psalm 21:8-12 ESV)

But David did not intend this to be taken literally. This is poetic language used to describe in a few lines what might take a theologian several chapters. God has neither hands nor mouth, and David was well aware of that.

God is not big and might is not right

This is an important point. If we take our understanding of the nature of God from our Sunday School days, (if we went to Sunday School) we are likely to think of God as being a very, very, very big human being. “Bigger than an elephant, bigger than a mountain, bigger than the whole universe.” But still describable in the same terms we use for the physical world, no matter how many superlatives we add to our description.

But God is spirit. He has no size. He can be fully contained in the womb of a virgin, and the universe is fully contained in his hand. Any language we use to describe God is going to be metaphorical because, as physical creatures, that is the only language we can use. He is totally Other. As the Bible frequently reminds us, there is nothing with which he can be compared, not because he is bigger and better, but because he is unique. 

If we think of God only as ‘bigger than the universe’ we are likely to come up with an explanation for his violent commandments and actions along the lines of ‘might is right’. He can do whatever he likes because who is going to stop him? Who can even question him?

It’s true, we cannot question him as an equal and if we do, we may not get an answer to our liking, as Job found out. Not because God is bigger and more powerful than us, but because his existence and his experience and his knowledge are utterly different to ours. He stands (another anthropomorphism) outside everything we know, outside space, outside time. Past, present and future are all present to him simultaneously.

When we create something, we take what exists and reshape it in various ways to produce what we have imagined. When God created, he created from nothing. First there was God, and then there was God and the not-God of the created world. Two quite distinct entities.

We own and have rights over what we create because of the work we have put into it, whether it’s a house, a business or a tea cosy. God has rights over what he created because it literally owes its existence to him. We owe our existence to him. Not just in the sense of what happened at the big bang, or at our conception, but at every moment of our being. Every nanosecond that we and the universe around us continue to exist depends on God’s willing it to be so.

All this being the case, we need to be wary of how we try to explain God’s actions and motives in history. We simply don’t have a place to stand and observe him. We are the objects of his observation. When we use metaphors to describe his activity, we need to be aware that is what we are doing.

Can violence be creative?

Violence is generally perceived as a negative, the use of force to harm, damage or injure someone or something. In two situations, however, the use of violent force could be considered a positive.

The first is in the creative process. When I plant a garden, I do violence to the soil. When I carve a statue I do violence to the wood or stone I’m using. Violence (if we can call it that) is particularly likely to be involved in any re-creative process. Something must be dismantled in order to change it, which involves a type of violence. Anyone who has seen a house or a city being remodelled will know that at some stage a great deal of destruction is involved before reconstruction can take place.

The second situation where violence is not perceived negatively is in the carrying out of justice. Most offenders don’t willingly give themselves up, present themselves before a court and take themselves off to prison. Therefore a certain amount of violence is required to achieve this. Excessive use of force is considered inappropriate, but the idea of necessary force is accepted, even though it may involve some violence if the force is resisted.

God is both creator and judge. As creator his goal is to bring all things into harmony under the rule of Christ (eg Ephesians 1:22). But things are currently not in harmony. A ‘remodelling’ process needs to take place before this can be achieved. The Bible speaks of a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1), but in order for those to be seen the old earth and the old heaven must be removed. 

As judge, God does not simply determines guilt and innocence. He is also the one who brings about justice, who puts things right. And he does this with full knowledge of all that is involved. Since this putting right involves resistence on the part of those who are unjust (ie all of us, since none of us willingly repents), some violence must be involved. It is impossible for God to achieve justice, harmony and righteousness without what is unjust, unrighteous and inharmonious being acted upon in some way. 

Amazingly, God absorbs most of this violence within himself, that is, within his trinitarian self. This is not the place for a full discussion of either the atonement or the Trinity. Enough to say that we see violent action against unrighteousness falling primarily upon Jesus on the cross. But what of those who will not accept Jesus’ standing in their place in the process of God putting right the injustices and wrongs of the world?

Perhaps we can now start to understand why violence in the Bible is both condemned and yet ordained by God. Only he has the authority, the knowledge, the wisdom, to use violence creatively and justly. Human violence, except where God has sanctioned it (ie in the carrying out of justice) is always limited in its vision, selfish in its goals and destructive in its effects. 

But more than that, when human beings act violently towards one another they are usurping the place and authority of God. Perhaps this is why Jesus, the Prince of Peace, tells parables in which the King or owner (ie God) acts violently towards those who are unjust, but never advocates violent action against other human beings by his followers, even in the face of persecution. He draws a distinction between human violence and that of God. He and he alone has the authority and wisdom to act in this way.

While this understanding of God’s use of violence in the process of creation, recreation and justice doesn't fully explain all the issues of violence in the Old Testament, it provides us with a starting point for trying to understand it. I will explore some other ways of looking at it in the next post in this series.