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ISRAEL’S BIZARRE WARFARE POLICY

GOD AND MILITARISM

The law of Moses was not a cul-de-sac but an on-ramp toward God’s ideal ethic. Though it sanctions warfare and violence in some cases, this doesn’t in itself mean that God will always authorize the same sort of warfare and violence for all people of all time. As with other laws—polygamy, slavery, etc.—God accommodated to the ancient Near Eastern way of life by allowing violence in certain circumstances. However, when we look at Israel’s violence in light of other ancient warfare practices, we see that God’s law (and other parts of the Old Testament) offers a moral improvement upon the ways of the other nations.

One important feature we will see in this chapter is that God never sanctions militarism—even when He allows warfare. Israel may have wielded a sword, but it was blunt and short compared to those of neighboring countries, and much of the time it was kept in storage.

The best way to witness Israel’s “moral improvement” upon ancient Near Eastern warfare is by looking at other nations. Israel was less violent and had a stripped-down—almost absurd—warfare policy compared to the nations around it. Israel’s distinct warfare policy can be seen from four different angles.

1. Israel and Canaan: A Clash of Societies

The first angle has to do with how Israel’s society was structured. Not all societies are organized in the same way. America is a democracy in which the people possess a good deal of power. Other societies are monarchical (ruled by a king), where the people have little power. Still others are run by firm distinctions in social class, such as the caste system in India. During the Middle Ages, Europe was run by a feudal system, where a few nobles owned the land while the peasants worked it.

The ancient world also had different societal structures, though most were monarchical and feudal. Feudal societies were organized like a social pyramid, where a few nobles held the power. At the top of the pyramid sat the king.1 In Egypt, for instance, the king (or pharaoh) was a divine-like ruler who had absolute power. Under him were a few nobles who owned land and had a measure of delegated power. And under them was everyone else. Now, what Egypt was on a large scale, Canaan was on a smaller scale.2 While Egypt was an empire, Canaan was a collection of city-states—mini empires spread throughout the land. Both Egypt and Canaan were structured along the same hierarchical paradigm. The king and his posse owned it all.

But Israel was different. Israel, quite shockingly, was an egalitarian (think “equal”) society, meaning that all families were entitled to own land. Everyone had equal access to gain wealth.3 It was not a monarchy (originally),4 where the king owned it all. And it was not a feudal system, where a few elite nobles controlled the land while the rest lived as peasants. This is shocking, because no other society in the ancient world operated this way. Every other society was hierarchical. They were ruled by kings and nobles who pretty much did whatever they wanted.

You may wonder how this relates to our topic of war in the Old Testament. Here’s how. The point is actually crucial, so read carefully.

In Canaan, the kings and nobles were able to maintain control over the land through a professional army—a highly trained group of warriors who stockpiled many weapons: swords, spears, chariots, and horses. They were paid a good salary through taxation and were honored with land that the peasants cultivated for them. Such an army would cost a lot of money (something Americans can certainly appreciate), but a professional army was essential for the king and nobles to maintain power and secure their space in the land. The stronger the military, the better the “homeland security.” External attacks were halted by a strong military; internal revolts were kept at bay by the same force. The very existence of the king-centered feudal system depended upon the strength of the army. Without it, the king would not maintain ownership over the land for very long. Having a king meant having a warrior who wielded absolute power through his military.5

But Israel is different. Yahweh is their King who owns all the land (Lev. 25:23), and He will be their army. God doesn’t need a human army to protect His land. He is quite capable of defending the land Himself, as He demonstrates time and time again.6 Later on, in fact, Israel is condemned for wanting a militaristic king who will fight its battles, as the other nations have (1 Sam. 8:20). Such misplaced trust befits pagans, not God’s people.

To ensure Israel’s trust in Him rather than in a human king, God gives Israel an economic system that can’t support a professional army. After all, somebody has to fund the army. But not in Israel. No taxes are supposed to be collected to support a military—God wants excess money to be given to the poor, not to fund a military (e.g., Deut. 14:29). And when Israel does end up choosing a king, God does not allow him to have the financial means to support an army (Deut. 17).7 Israel’s economic system, therefore, is set up so that the nation can’t sustain a standing army without violating the system itself. Israel’s “army”—if we can even call it an army—is a group of weekend warriors whose skills, or lack thereof, testify to the power of God, who alone ensures victory.8

Israel’s egalitarian society, then, is different from and critical of the Canaanite society it is to drive out. The Canaanite hierarchical system, held together by the power of the king and his military might, is to be abolished. While the other nations place much faith in their king and the power of his army, Israel is called to have faith in its King and His power. All other forms of “homeland security”—professional army, superior weapons, alliances with other nations—are considered idolatry.9

2. Israel’s Nonmilitaristic Warfare

Israel’s lack of, and inability to sustain, a professional army is one of the most bizarre aspects of its society. None of this would make sense to modern or ancient military tactics. Against all human logic, intuition, and desire to secure oneself by military might, Israel flaunts its weak and outdated military regime.

Consider the Bible’s most descriptive passage about Israel’s “army.” Though it’s lengthy, I’ll quote it in full:

When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.” Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, “Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.” And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, “Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.” And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people.

When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. …

When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls. (Deut. 20:1–14, 19–20)

Let’s sum up the main points of this passage. First, God—not military might—determines the victory (v. 4). Second, Israel’s army is made up of volunteers at the time of battle. In other words, there isn’t to be a professional standing army.10 If anyone has recently built a house, planted a vineyard, betrothed a wife, or is simply “fearful and fainthearted,” he doesn’t have to go to war (vv. 5–9). Third, if the Israelites do go to war, they are to first offer peace to the city (vv. 10–11) before they fight against it. Fourth, only if the city rejects peace is Israel sanctioned to go to war (v. 12). Fifth, noncombatants are not to be killed during war (vv. 13–15). Lastly, even fruit trees aren’t to be destroyed (vv. 19–20).11 Talk about limited objectives! If you read Deuteronomy 20:16–18, you will see that Israel has a different war policy for those living in Canaan, and we’ll discuss that in the next chapter. For now it’s important to underscore the point: Israel’s “army” is deliberately weak so that God will be shown to be unquestionably strong.12

The intentional weakness of Israel’s army is put on bold display in Deuteronomy 17. As we mentioned in the last section, God is Israel’s King. However, God will allow Israel to have a human king under certain conditions, and Deuteronomy 17 spells out those conditions—one of which is stripping the king of all military might. Namely, the king is not allowed to build a professional army (“he must not acquire many horses for himself”) nor can he make military alliances with other nations (Deut. 17:16–17).13 God will shed the king of all military strength so that his faith will be in God, not in military power. Other nations will therefore see that Israel marches to the beat of a different military drum. They have a God in the heavens who guides and protects, who defends and delivers. They don’t need to supplement God with a human army. And when they do actually fight, God wants them to remain a ragtag group of weekend warriors. This way, when they win (if they have faith in God) it will be clear to them and everyone else that victory belongs to Israel’s God, not to Israel’s military.

This is why in several instances Israel was commanded to hamstring their enemies’ horses and burn their chariots.14 Horses and chariots were the ancient version of tanks. They were superior weapons. The army with the most horses and chariots was bound to win the war. So when Joshua (and others) hamstrings horses and burns chariots, he destroys their potential usefulness to Israel in further battles. It’s like killing an enemy with a knife and not taking his gun. And the reason is clear: “Superior weaponry was rejected, in order to demonstrate trust in Yahweh as warrior.”15

When chariots are mentioned in a positive light, they are God’s chariots, not Israel’s. God rides on the chariots of the clouds (Hab. 3:8; Deut. 32:13), surrounds His people with angelic chariots (2 Kings 7:6), and takes His prophet home in a chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11). Who needs earthly chariots when God fights with heavenly ones? The prophets themselves are even called “the chariots of Israel and its horsemen” (2 Kings 13:14; cf. 2:12)—they are bearers of the word of God, who alone secures Israel’s existence.16

In contrast to Israel’s comical military policy, the surrounding nations stockpiled horses, chariots, and other superior weapons. Such military strength was essential for their survival and domination. The Assyrians boasted about their enemies being “afraid in the face of my terrible weapons.”17 Egypt was known for having many chariots, as were the Hittites.18 As we discussed before, the king’s military power was what kept him on the throne. The surrounding nations relied upon military might for protection and imperial aggression.

Israel’s deliberately weak military in a militaristic culture was one more incremental step away from war and violence toward an Edenic shalom.

3. God Fights While Israel Mops Up

As we mentioned above, Yahweh—the King of Israel—protects Israel. In fact, He often fights single-handedly. This is the reason Israel doesn’t need a standing army. The clearest example of this “God-centered” warfare is in the Red Sea crossing (Exod. 14–15), where God miraculously divides the waters and defeats the Egyptian army. The entire “battle” is fought and won by God alone. Israel does nothing but stand on the sand and watch. No swords. No fighting. No human participation whatsoever.19

God’s victory at the Red Sea sets the standard for Israel’s subsequent battles: more than picking up arms to fight, Israel needs to have faith in God to win the war. In other instances, Israel will sometimes bear arms. But this “Red Sea principle” (God fighting alone) will characterize many future conflicts. When Israel trusts in its own military might—horses, weapons, and soldiers—it loses. When it trusts in God, it wins. “The king is not saved by his great army,” sings the psalmist. “A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue” (Ps. 33:16–17).

The exodus from Egypt isn’t the only time when God fights alone. Israel’s history is loaded with many examples. In 2 Chronicles 20, the Moabites and Ammonites invade Israel, so King Jehoshaphat leads out an Israelite force to meet them in battle.20 But instead of sharpening their swords and strapping on armor, the Israelites pray, fast, and sing a bunch of worship songs to prepare for battle. “You will not need to fight in this battle,” shouts the priest. “Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf” (v. 17). When they go to fight, they find their enemies already defeated by God (v. 22). Sounds a lot like the Red Sea crossing. Again, God fights and wins the war by Himself. The Israelites return with their hands free from blood.

We could look at many other examples of such God-centered wars,21 but suffice it to say that the Israelites aren’t given a green light to go out and kill whomever they want whenever they feel threatened. Nor are they ever allowed to invade a country to dismantle an unjust government or preemptively strike a nation building chariots of mass destruction. Warfare comes with stringently limited objectives. In some cases Israel never swings a sword. Such vengeance left in God’s hands is one incremental step toward His ethical ideal, where all forms of violence and war would be banned.

There are other wars, however, where Israel wields the sword. But even in these, the Bible emphasizes God’s action far more than Israel’s. Take Deborah and Barak’s defeat of the Canaanites, for example. Barak draws out the enemy, but it is the Lord who “routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword” (Judg. 4:15). Jael, an Israelite woman, ends up killing the leader by driving a tent peg through his skull, but this is the only description of an Israelite killing another person (and it isn’t even in battle). At the end of the day, “God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel” (v. 23). And when the Israelites sing a song to celebrate, they highlight God’s miracle as the decisive event in the battle (5:19–21). Even though humans fight, the emphasis lies on God, who gives the victory.

Other wars in the Old Testament emphasize God’s agency, while minimizing human participation. Gideon’s “battle” with the Midianites is probably the best known, where God deliberately trims down his militia from thirty-two thousand to three hundred. When the Israelites go to battle, they sneak up on the enemy at night, blow a trumpet, smash some pots, and watch as the enemy kills each other. Divinely orchestrated friendly fire! The only mention of Israelite violence is at the end when the “two princes of Midian” are killed (Judg. 7:25). Other than that, God sovereignly wins the war. Israel does next to nothing.

In some cases, then, God alone fights while Israel stands and watches. In other cases, Israel participates, but it doesn’t take center stage. God’s intervention decides the victory. Almost all of the divinely sanctioned wars in the Old Testament highlight the same theme.22

How does such a Yahweh-centered view of warfare improve upon Israel’s ancient Near East neighbors?

Other nations believed that their god (or gods) helped them in battle. But in most cases these gods played only a supporting role, rather than a leading one. In many other Near Eastern war records, the king might give lip service to his god’s involvement in the battle, but at the end of the day, he believed—contrary to the psalmist—that the king was saved by his great army and a warrior was delivered by his great strength.23

Here’s one example. An Assyrian king named Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BC) recorded a highly descriptive account of a war. He began by acknowledging the help of his god, Assur: “With the assistance of Assur my lord, I departed from Tushan. … With the exalted strength of Assur my lord (and) with a fierce battle I fought with them.” But then he went on to recount all of his great strength and skill as a military leader:

I rained down flames upon them … I conquered the city. I felled with the sword 800 of their combat troops (and) I cut off their heads. I captured many troops alive. I carried off valuable booty. I piled up a heap of live (men and) of heads before his gate … I carried off much booty. I conquered 50 cities … I massacred them. I carried off their booty. I captured 50 soldiers alive.24

That’s a lot of I’s. The Assyrian king was quite impressed with his military might. Unlike Israel, other nations didn’t normally celebrate their weakness to emphasize the strength of their god.25 The Israelites are to trust in God as their Warrior. Trusting in their military strength or kingly power amounts to idolatry.26

But you may wonder: How does highlighting God as warrior solve the moral problem of violence? Doesn’t this just make God out to be a “moral monster”?27

It’s all a matter of perspective. From the Bible’s perspective, God is the author of life, and as the author of life, He also has the right to take life away. This right belongs exclusively to the Creator.28 Whenever God allows humans to take life, it’s an extension of His own judgment on sin. God never kills haphazardly or without reason. However you slice it, there’s a difference between the Creator killing rebellious humans as punishment for sin and an Assyrian king slaughtering peasants because they get in the way of his empire.

We should also point out that God doesn’t gloat in His violent actions. When God punishes humanity, it’s often accompanied with sadness or prefaced by a long period of grace.29 When He does get angry, it’s seen as retributive punishment—a just sentence for wicked behavior—not as hotheaded madness.

In brief, the emphasis on God as the primary agent in warfare sets Israel apart from the surrounding nations. Such emphasis offers a moral improvement upon the unchecked and arbitrary violence practiced by the surrounding nations—a violence reveled in by bloodthirsty gods.

4. Glorifying Violence

Another clear difference between Israel and its neighbors is that Israel did not glory in violence the way other nations did. Again, from our perspective, the Old Testament looks like it was written by Quentin Tarantino with all its brutal scenes. But in light of other ancient war accounts, the Old Testament looks much less gruesome.30

We can see the contrast in violence by looking at the different criminal laws. For instance, Babylonian law insisted that hand, ear, breast, or foot be cut off for minor infractions. Egyptians also practiced mutilation for certain crimes: cutting off hands, feet, and even noses. Many times the punishment far outweighed the crime by most standards—death for stealing or for plowing a field freshly sown with seed. And while the Old Testament allowed criminals to be beaten with no more than forty strokes (Deut. 25:1–3), it was far less harsh that Egyptian law, where a hundred lashes was the mildest form of punishment and criminals could be beaten up to two hundred times with rods. Moses’s laws of punishment, while seemingly harsh from our perspective, were much more humane in light of ancient Near Eastern systems of law.31

Violence in judicial courts, however, was nothing compared to the unchecked barbarism relished on the battlefield. Egyptians, Babylonians, Hittites, and Canaanites all gloated not only in victory but also in the brutality of their sadistic violence. And their written accounts savor the gore. The Canaanite goddess Anath was believed to revel joyfully in butchering humanity. According to one ancient text, after Anath slaughtered a bunch of people and waded in their blood, her “liver swelled with laughter, her heart was full of joy, the liver of Anath (was full of) exultation.”32 When the Egyptians went to war, they chopped off heads and hands, delighted in their enemies’ lying “prostrate in their blood,” and piled “a great heap of corpses” in the aftermath.33 All wars are brutal. But there’s a difference between documenting that a war happened, as the Old Testament usually does, and reveling in the gruesome details to reinforce one’s military might. God scathingly rebukes those nations that displayed such “shock and awe” power, as He consigns them to the pit of hell for “spread[ing] terror in the land of the living” (Ezek. 32:23).34 Flaunting your military strength before almighty God is a dangerous thing to do.

None of Israel’s neighbors, however, were as violent as the Assyrians, who left behind many written records of their savage torture techniques. The Assyrians were notorious for practicing “psychological warfare,” where they would carve up their enemy in order to scare future foes into giving up without a fight. To induce such fear, Assyrian warriors would cut out tongues, impale people with stakes, tear out intestines as food for birds, and flay people alive, plastering their skins on city walls to advertise the gore. Victims had their eyes carved out, tongues torn out, lips cut off, and testicles ripped off “like seeds of a cucumber in June,” as one Assyrian author put it.35 The Assyrians weren’t just violent. They glorified violence in a way that far surpasses anything in Bible. If you can handle it, here’s how the Assyrian king Sennacherib describes the aftermath of his victory:

I cut their throats like lambs. I cut off their previous lives (as one cuts) a string. Like the many waters of a storm, I made (the contents of) their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth. My prancing steeds harnessed for my riding, plunged into the streams of their blood as (into) a river. The wheels of my war chariot, which brings low the wicked and the evil, were bespattered with blood and filth. With the bodies of their warriors I filled the plain, like grass. (Their) testicles I cut off, and tore out their privates like the seeds of cucumbers.36

I could give many other examples, but you might lose your lunch. The war policies of Israel’s neighbors horrified their enemies with bloodthirsty accounts of torture and mutilation. They didn’t just condone violence. They delighted in violence and publicized it for all to see.

How does this compare with the Old Testament? While there are many accounts of violence and warfare in the Old Testament, it is significantly toned down compared to their neighbors. Many Old Testament war accounts sum up the fight in a single statement: “Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword” (Exod. 17:13); “Then Horam king of Gezer came up to help Lachish, and Joshua defeated him and his people until he had left him no survivor” (Josh. 10:33 NASB). These are a far cry from cutting off testicles and tearing out intestines. There is simply no text in the Old Testament that comes close to the horrifically detailed accounts of violence in some ancient Near Eastern accounts.37

Compared to other nations, Israel did not glorify violence. While God allowed Israel to participate in some wars, He never allowed His people to revel in the carnage the way their neighbors did. Again, God met Israel where it was but took incremental steps toward a more ideal way of life shaped by shalom. Israel’s warfare policy was paving the way for Israel’s journey back to Eden.

SHOULD AMERICA FOLLOW ISRAEL’S WAR POLICY?

We just walked through a lot of information. But the points we noted are important for understanding how the Old Testament ultimately supports Christian nonviolence. So let’s summarize what we’ve learned so far.

Building on the previous chapter, we’ve seen that Israel’s warfare policy both accommodated to and morally improved upon the policy of the surrounding nations. We’ve seen this in four main areas. First, in contrast to Canaan’s hierarchical society, Israel was egalitarian with God as its King. They didn’t need—nor could their economic system sustain—a professional army. Second, Israel didn’t have a standing military equipped with superior weapons. Contrary to the surrounding nations, Israel was to boast in its unprofessional militia and therefore in God, rather than in horses and chariots. Third, Israel’s battles emphasized God’s involvement, sometimes to the exclusion of Israel’s involvement. Though war still happened, human violence was often downplayed. And fourth, Old Testament descriptions of warfare are far less violent than ancient Near Eastern texts, which revel in the gore. War is always “hell,” as William Sherman famously said. But the Old Testament doesn’t relish the brutality as the other nations did.

So what does God think of militarism? Does God think, with Hal Lindsey, that the moral downfall of America is due to a “crisis of military weakness”? Does “the Bible” really “support building a powerful military force” as Wayne Grudem says? Should we consider a strong national defense to be a biblical virtue?

No.

Not at all.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

However, as we saw in chapter one, America’s excessive militarism is inconceivable apart from “the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals.”38 This is unbelievable. Most of all—as we’ve seen in this chapter—it’s unbiblical.

If America, for instance, used the Bible to shape its warfare policy, that policy would look like this. Enlistment would be by volunteer only (which it is), and the military would not be funded by taxation. America would not stockpile superior weapons—no tanks, drones, F-22s, and of course no nuclear weapons—and it would make sure its victories were determined by God’s miraculous intervention, not by military might. Rather than outnumbering the enemy, America would deliberately fight outmanned and under-gunned. Perhaps soldiers would use muskets, or maybe just swords. There would be no training, no boot camp, no preparation other than fasting, praying, and singing worship songs. If America really is the “new Israel,” God’s holy nation as some believe, then it needs to take its cue from God and His inspired manual for military tactics. But as it stands, many Christians will be content to cut and paste selected verses that align with America’s worldview to give the military some religious backing. Some call this bad hermeneutics; others call it syncretism. The Israelite prophets called it idolatry.

Idolatry. The Bible consistently—and quite explicitly—portrays waging war like the nations did as spiritual prostitution. Ezekiel considers military alliances as “play[ing] the whore with the Egyptians” (16:26) and “prostitut[ing] yourself with the Assyrians” (16:28 NLT). Brutal displays of military power are characteristic of those who belong in hell (32:23–32). Isaiah considers military might to be mere “flesh,” a character trait of evildoers and workers of iniquity (Isa. 31:2–3; cf. Amos 1–2). Waging war like the surrounding nations—bigger, stronger, more powerful, more fearsome—is equivalent to prostituting yourself out to sex-hungry lovers while paying your clients for their addictive services. Crude language, I know, but that’s just what the Bible says about such infatuation with military prowess.

But America is not God’s nation. Let me make this clear: I do not think that America should use the Bible to construct or defend its military program, because America is not the new Israel, nor is it a Christian nation. What the Old Testament does do is critique the massive wave of Christian support for America’s unbridled militarism. Such allegiance is misplaced; such support is unbiblical. The nations—like Assyria—were ruled by militarism, but God’s people should never celebrate military power, and we certainly shouldn’t find our hope and security in it. If God warned Israel against having a strong military—and it was God’s nation—how much more should God’s people today not put stock in the military prowess of a secular country? Jesus said that the gates of hell will not prevail against God’s kingdom, and no band of terrorists, fascist government, oppressive dictator, or disarmament program will trump Jesus’s promise.

Seeing America’s military strength as the hope of the world is an affront to God’s rule over the world. It’s idolatry.

NOTES

1. Chris Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 55.

2. John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology, Vol.3: Israel’s Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 511.

3. The phrase “according to their clans” is repeated throughout the land allotments (e.g. Josh. 13:15; 15:1, 20; 16:5; 17:2; cf. Num. 26:52–56).

4. God did not forbid Israel to have a king (Gen. 49:10). In fact, He even gave rules about how Israel’s king should function (Deut. 17:14–20). However, the nature of kingship allowed in Israel was radically different from kingship in other ancient nations.

5. As 1 Sam. 8:12–13 makes plain.

6. Isa. 36–37; 2 Chron. 20:1–30; 2 Kings 7:1–20

7. Deut. 17:17 prohibits the king from acquiring “for himself excessive silver and gold.” This refers not just to wealth but to economic power that would be used, at least in part, to build and sustain a powerful military (see Millard Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior [Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1980], 151).

8. For illustrations of Israel’s unprofessional, voluntary militia, see Judg. 5:2, 9; 7:1–8; cf. 1 Sam. 8:12.

9. Ezek. 16:26–29; 23:6–7, 12, 14–16 (Millard Lind, Monotheism, Power, and Justice [Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1990], 265).

10. This becomes most clear in verse 9, where the military captains are appointed at the time of war.

11. Fruit trees were essential for the life support of the land and therefore off-limits.

12. In Judg. 7, God trims down Gideon’s army to three hundred, “lest Israel boast over me [God], saying, ‘My own hand has saved me’” (v. 2).

13. Every commentary I checked agrees that the prohibition of multiplying horses highlights the demilitarization of Israel’s king.

14. Josh. 11:6, 9; 2 Sam. 8:4; cf. Mic. 5:10. According to 2 Sam. 8:4, David leaves one hundred horses, but nothing in the text says that God supported David’s actions, and Deut. 17 warns against it.

15. Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior, 84.

16. On some occasions, the enemy has a chariot-stacked army, and Israel is still told not to fear (Josh. 17:16–17; Judg. 4:3, 7, 13, 15–16). Superior weaponry is irrelevant in Israel’s wars.

17. Tiglath-pileser I, cited in Jeffrey Niehaus, “Joshua and Ancient Near Eastern Warfare,” JETS 31 (1988), 37–50.

18. The battle at Kadesh (ca. 1274 BC) between Egypt and the Hittites was believed to be the largest chariot battle in ancient history.

19. See especially Exod. 14:21; 15:6–7, 12.

20. For simplicity’s sake, I’m using the general term Israel without distinguishing between the northern or southern kingdoms. In the Bible, however, Israel is often used of the northern kingdom, while Judah is used of the southern kingdom. Jehoshaphat is actually leading out a Judean army.

21. See Josh. 10 and 2 Chron. 32, for example.

22. There are few divinely sanctioned battles that emphasize human agency. Some, like Joshua’s defeat of Ai (Josh. 8), focus on human action, but here it is God’s instructions to set up an ambush, rather than the actual battle, that garners the spotlight (8:1–2). Again, in Josh. 12, there’s a list of all the kings Israel defeated during the conquest (12:7–24), and God isn’t mentioned. But these are minor exceptions that prove the rule: Israel’s battles were Yahweh’s battles, and He decided the victory apart from military might.

23. See Michael Hasel, Military Practice and Polemic (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2005), 21–22, 38–39. I’m making a very general statement here. There are variations as to how much the gods were involved in warfare. But I have yet to find texts where a divine being has won the battle single-handedly as in Exod. 14–15 or 2 Chron. 20, while humans simply stand and watch.

24. K. Lawson Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 98.

25. This point is disputed by some scholars. Lori L. Rowlett, for instance, believes that the same dependence upon god(s) can be seen in other Near Eastern war texts (Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence [Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1996], 53, 71–120). After surveying all her evidence, I’m still not convinced that these ancient texts emphasize their god’s power while playing up their own human weakness to the same extent that the Old Testament does.

26. Sometimes the kings of other nations gave stronger attention to their gods’ miraculous involvement. But again, it’s rarely (if ever) meant to highlight human weakness.

27. The point is raised by Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence, 65–69. The phrase “moral monster” is taken from the title of Paul Copan’s book.

28. Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:6–7. See Peter Craigie, The Problem of War in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978), 42.

29. Gen. 6:6; Rom. 2:4–5; 3:25

30. This point is agreed upon by several scholars, including Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2011), 159, 170–173; Richard Hess, “War in the Hebrew Bible: An Overview,” Richard Hess and Elmer Martens eds., War in the Bible and Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century (BBRS 2; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 29.

31. See Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?, 92–93; David Lorton, “The Treatment of Criminals in Ancient Egypt,” in The Treatment of Criminals in the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1977), 1–64.

32. William F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1968), 77. The most gruesome accounts about Yahweh are found in Deut. 32:43; Ps. 58:11; 68:24; 110:6; Isa. 34:2; and Ezek. 32:4–6.

33. Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence, 83; Younger Jr., Ancient Conquest Accounts, 191–192.

34. The phrase “spread[ing] terror in the land of the living” (or something similar) is repeated seven times in Ezek. 32 (vv. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 32), highlighting how infuriated God was over this tactic. I used the term hell for simplicity, but Ezek. 32 speaks only of the netherworld in vague and poetic terms. The passage isn’t intended to describe a geography of hell.

35. See Erika Belibtreu “Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death,” BAR 17 (1991), 51–61, 75.

36. Cited in Belibtreu, “Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death.”

37. Scholars agree that the most gruesome record of Israelite warfare is in Joshua 10:26–27, where defeated kings are hung on tress and then buried in a cave before nightfall. But if this is as bad as it gets, then the Old Testament is still much less gruesome than other ancient Near Eastern accounts mentioned above.

38. Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 146.