Celestial Civil War: The War Against God’s Rule in Scripture

One of the most challenging - even troubling - issues Christians face today are the accounts of “genocide” done in the name of the God of Israel. The TaNaKh (the Old Testament) contains accounts of herem: the devoting a city and its citizens to destruction.

The well-known Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) defines the Hebrew term herem “in war, consecrate a city and its inhabitants to destruction; carry out this destruction; totally annihilate a population in war.” [1] We see this definition played out to some extent in the Pentateuch and to a larger extent in the book of Joshua.

 Here are a few examples of the practice of herem:

When the Canaanite king of Arad,[2] who ruled in the arid southern plain, heard that the Israelites were coming[3] on the Atharim road, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. Then Israel made a solemn promise to the Lord and said, “If you give this people into our hands, we will completely destroy (herem[4]) their city.” The Lord heard the voice of Israel and handed the Canaanites over. They completely destroyed (herem[5]) them and their cities, so the name of the place is called Hormah.[6] Num. 21:1-3

The Lord said to me, “Look! I have already begun to give over Sihon and his land to you. Start right now to take his land as your possession.” When Sihon and all his troops  emerged to encounter us in battle at Jahaz,  the Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, along with his sons and everyone else.  At that time we seized all his cities, and completely destroyed (herem) everyone, including the women and children; we left no survivors. We kept only the livestock and plunder from the cities for ourselves. Deut. 2:31-35

The Problem of Wars in the Bible

War stories like these are a choking point for many who might consider the Bible as a reliable guide for human life. In part, these stories of warfare with God’s enemies are problematic because they seem incoherent with the view and teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.

For example, Jesus teaches his followers to love their enemies, forgive those who mistreat them, and a policy of non-retaliation (Luke 6:27ff). “Getting even” is forbidden for Jesus’ followers (Romans 12:17-21). How could a good God ever sanction such behavior? Are we to love our enemies or annihilate them? The Old Testament passages and the Gospels seem to be incompatible and downright contradictory. What happened? What changed? Did God change his mind?

The book pictured above is an exercise in reception history. It asks and answers the questions: How did past groups of people and authors interpret these problematic passages over time? And what are the assumptions and premises that underly these past interpretations? What are their strengths and weaknesses? The book, however, is not an attempt to dissolve the apparent contradictions. Instead, it examines warfare across the various Bible narratives from a canonical standpoint.

How are we to Understand the Wars in the Bible?

Is there a solution to this mega-problem? Is there another way we can understand Joshua’s war on the inhabitants of the Promised Land in the book of Joshua? Is there no credible answer? Do we just shrug our shoulders and say, “It is what it is.”?

What has been overlooked is asking, “Are there parallel wars to this war elsewhere in the Bible that can help give us a big picture of these events?”  

A Canonical Approach to War in Scripture

What has been overlooked in the search to understand Joshua’s war on the Canaanites in the Promised Land is a canonical approach[7] to the passage. For example, the author of the book of Joshua intentionally paralleled his story of the war on the Canaanites with the serpent’s war against God in the Garden in Genesis 3. The two stories are connected intentionally.

What is more, the author of Psalms 1-2, the introduction to the third section of the Hebrew Bible, called, “the Writings,” wrote these two Psalms to parallel both the war in Genesis 3 and the wars in the book of Joshua. In other words, Psalms 1-2, intentionally reminds us of Genesis 3, and also reminds us of the war in the book of Joshua. Psalms 1-2 describes the war against God’s Messiah and Son by his enemies, a war interpreted later by Luke as the war against Jesus by the established, religious, and political leaders of his day (Acts 4:25; 13:33). So, Psalms 1-2, not only looks back canonically at Genesis 3 and Joshua, but it also looks forward to the war against Jesus, God’s Messiah, and Son.

In other words, the serpent’s war against God not only opens each section of the three separate divisions of the Hebrew Bible[8] it also points us ahead to related wars in the future.

We find war against God by the serpent in Genesis 3 (The Law), wars between God and the representatives of the serpent (Canaanites) in the book of Joshua (The Prophets), and war against God’s Messiah and Son in Psalms 1-2 (The Writings). War against God, then, is introduced in each of the three sections of the Hebrew Bible.

War Against God is a Long-Chain Across the Entire Bible

And each of the Biblical authors in all three books (Genesis, Joshua, Psalms 1-2), use words and themes to intentionally show the relationship and correspondence between all three wars in all three sections. They’re all connected together by deliberately-placed war-links in a long chain in the theme of the war against God.

Is this repetition of wars against God a coincidence? The repetition of warfare in Scripture is an intentional pattern and patterns point us to a pattern-Maker. The war against God by the serpent in Genesis 3 foreshadows the wars in Joshua. The wars in Joshua foreshadow the war against God’s Messiah and His Son in Psalms 1-2. The wars point ahead into the future.

What do the wars in all three sections of the Hebrew Bible point ahead to? What do these Old Testament wars foreshadow?

Well, to answer the question, we ask ourselves: which New Testament writers quote or allude to the war against God’s Messiah and Son described in Psalm 2? And, looking further ahead in the New Testament, do we observe additional wars against God and His Son? We do. The final book, John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ, provides the climax of the wars against God. Revelation describes the war of all wars. So, war against God begins in Genesis 3 and does not finish until John’s Revelation of Jesus. War against God and His Son spans the Bible from start to finish.

The Bible: A Story of War Against God and His Son from Stem to Stern

This canonical approach to understand Joshua’s war on the Canaanites—looking back at Genesis 3, and looking forward to the war in Psalm 1-2, the war against Jesus in the Gospel, and the wars against God and His Son in Revelation—provides us with a bigger picture to observe and understand the purpose of these wars. The wars are not to be interpreted in isolation. A canonical approach helps us to gain a better perspective of the wars against the Canaanites in the book of Joshua.[9]

We will examine the exegetical details of this issue of war against God from a canonical standpoint on Memorial Day Sunday, May 28, 2023, a day set aside to remember those who wore the uniform and went to war in the service of their country and the cause of freedom.  

The Key to Crack the Code of War

A canonical approach to Scripture is the key to crack the code in understanding the wars of conquest against the Canaanites living in the Promised Land, mentioned both in the Pentateuch and in the book of Joshua.

Thank you for reading.

NOTES

[1] Hiphil stem; Lohfink, TDOT, 1974, p. 181.

[2] Arad was a small town in the central southern Negev.

[3] The nation of Israel, under Moses’ leadership, are advancing eastward along the southern border of Canaan. The king of Arad hears reports of Israel’s encroachment and takes immediate steps to stop the nation’s advance. He leads a military force across the border of Canaan and engages Israel in battle and takes a few prisoners of war.

[4] The Hebrew term herem is occasionally translated as, “put its towns under the ban.”

[5] Normally in Israel’s history, when a city is destroyed, the spoils of war are not divided up among the people or soldiers, but are dedicated to God.

[6] The place-name “Hormah” memorializes the practice of herem.

[7] “A canonical theology of the Old and New Testaments focuses on the text of Scripture rather than on the events independently of those texts…our only access to divine revelation now is through the interpretation of the inspired writers in the text of Scripture. It is not as though the events are not important, but the issue is not the historicity of the biblical events. The issue is that God’s revelation for us today consists of the words of Scripture which give an account of the events of the past. The historical narratives of Scripture are, in fact, the means of knowing what God has done in the past. Only by means of those texts are we able to know and understand God’s revelation…unless we focus on the scriptural accounts of God’s acts in history, those very historical events are open to an uncontrollably wide range of meaning and interpretation. In the last analysis, the central question is what do the Scriptures say about God’s acts in history?” John H. Sailhamer, Introduction to Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 199-200.

[8] The Hebrew Bible, what we know as “the Old Testament”, or better, the TaNaKh, is divided into three sections: 1. The Pentateuch/The Law/The Torah: Genesis –Deuteronomy. 2. The Prophets: Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and “the twelve” “minor prophets,” Hosea—Malachi; 3. The Writings: Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Chronicles.

[9] The entire Bible is interconnected by thousands of intertextual links and can be seen by using a canonical approach. One example of many: the succession stories of the prophets Elijah and Elisha foreshadow the succession stories of Jesus and his apostles in Luke 24 and Acts 1 and the succession story of Paul the apostle and the Ephesians Elders in Acts 20. Just before Elijah ascends up to heaven, he hands the baton of leadership over to Elisha. Before Jesus ascends up to heaven, he hands over the baton of church leadership temporarily to the eleven apostles/overseers. Just before Paul’s ascension up to Jerusalem, Paul hands over the baton of church leadership to the Elders/Overseers. The Elders/Overseers are the permanent, replacement church leadership for the original twelve apostles who area also called “Overseers” (Acts 1:20). The epistles of Peter and Paul support this succession of leadership in the church. Each church is to be led by a team of Elders/Overseers who shepherd the church (Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 3:1ff; Titus 1:5ff; 1 Peter 5:1-4).