War, Peace and Justice in Early Israel

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“I simply cannot take seriously a God who commands the slaughter of babies and entire civilian populations!” This outburst of a Harvard undergraduate describes the feeling of many thoughtful people, as they read passages like 1 Samuel 15:2–3: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘… Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.’ ” For some, the solution is straightforward: The Bible is simply 034consigned to the category of primitive, violent literature, without value for the […]

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Footnotes

Yahweh is the modern vocalization of the ineffable name of Israel’s God, spelled in the Bible by four consonants, YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton or Tetragram.

By the time of Ramesses 2, Horus had become identified with the Sphinx god, Harmachis.

For the purpose of this article, “Exodus” refers to the book and “exodus” refers to the event.

The Amarna letters are a cache of cuneiform tablets from the 14th century B.C., found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, consisting in large part of diplomatic correspondence between Egypt and petty local rulers in Canaan who served under Egyptian hegemony.

What is traditionally called the “Song of Moses” is referred to as the “Song of Miriam” in the scholarly literature.

According to source criticism, the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses comprises four sources that have been combined, or redacted. These sources have been designated J (the Yahwist), E (the Elohist), P (the Priestly code) and D (the Deuteronomist).

On this passage, see Ronald Hendel, “When the Sons of God Cavorted with the Daughters of Men,” BR 03:02.

The Hebrew word sûaµloÆm is commonly translated “peace,” which captures only an approximate and partial meaning. SðaµloÆm describes the cosmic harmony that exists where the world and all its inhabitants are reconciled with God. Israel described this state with its concept of covenant; that is, the bond of fellowship within which “I (Yahweh) shall be your God and you shall be my people.” The qualities of the community living in harmony with God in covenant are variously described as prosperity, peace and righteousness, which taken together begin to describe sûaµloÆm.

Endnotes

Gerhard von Rad, Der Heilige Krieg im alten Israel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965).

Millard C. Lind, Yahweh Is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in Ancient Israel (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1980).

Sigfried Hermann, A History of Israel in Old Testament Times, tr. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), pp. 58–59; Manfred Weippert, “Semitische Nomaden des zweiten Jahrtausends: über die s sŒw der ägyptischen Quellen,” Biblica 55 (1974), pp. 265–280, 427–433.

William F. Albright, “Akkadian Letters,” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, ed. James B. Pritchard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 489.

See Michael C. Astour, “Habiru,” in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Supp. Vol. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1976), pp. 382–385.

For the evidence, see Weippert, The Settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Palestine, Studies in Biblical Theology, Second Series 21 (Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1971), pp. 74–82.

“Client” is the translation of ‘apiru that Frank Moore Cross has advanced as a stative based on the Semitic root ‘pr, Akk. apaµrum, epeµru, “to provide” (food, rations), Egyptian ‘pr, “to provide, equip.”

See Rainer Stadelmann, Syrisch-Palästinensische Gottheiten in Ägypten (Leiden: Brill, 1967).

See Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 112–144.