"We are determined to have a king over us," they said. Kings in the ancient Near East were first and foremost military leaders. The Philistine pressure eventually led Israel to make a major change in its military policy: they demanded a king. aided by the Lord’s thunder, drove the Philistines out of Israelite territory (ch. Later, the tables were turned as a repentant Israel. Israel was disastrously defeated and the ark of the covenant was captured (1 Samuel 4). The era of Samuel, the last of the judges, was marked by periodic warfare with the Philistines. 12) the other tribes against Benjamin (chs. There was also fratricidal warfare among the tribes: Abimelech against Shechem and Thebez (ch. In addition to the aggressive warfare of the (partial) conquest (1:1-26), there was the attack by the tribe of Dan on the unsuspecting city of Laish (ch. Not all the wars recorded were wars of liberation or defense. In this pattern there were wars with Aram Naharaim (Judg. Israel had no standing army, but from time to time there was a rallying of tribes (not often all of them) under a charismatic leader (a "judge") to throw off the oppressor’s yoke. The book of Judges pictures a time when Israel was a loose confederation of tribes, scattered about in Canaan, oppressed by the Canaanite city-states and by other tribal groups who swept in from the desert or from the seacoast. The period of the Judges was a period of intermittent warfare. Joshua 12 lists thirty-one kings defeated by Joshua. Then a similar confederation in the north was defeated (ch. Next a confederation of kings in the southern half of Canaan was defeated (ch. First there was a strike through the center at Jericho and Ai (Joshua 6-8). The book of Joshua records the "conquest of Canaan" through a series of wars, often bloody and genocidal. In the same campaign, Numbers mentions wars with the king of Arad (Num. In an attempt to take Canaan from the south, in disobedience to Moses, they were defeated by the Amalekites and the Canaanites (Numbers 14).Īs they prepared to enter Canaan, they moved up the east bank of Jordan and seized the territories of Sihon, king of the Amorites (Num. They were delivered when the army was drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 14-15).Įn route to Sinai, they were attacked by Amalek and fought in self-defense (Ex. The Hebrew slaves, fleeing Egypt, were pursued by Pharaoh’s army. Israel’s national history began in a warlike event. To mention every skirmish or palace coup would stretch the account beyond all reasonable bounds. It may be worth our time to make quick survey of the principal wars in which Israel was involved. The people of God were part of the picture, warring with neighboring tribes and kingdoms, even as doom peered over the horizon from E~pt or Assyria also warring among themselves in tribal rivalries and in the north-south division of Israel and Judah. They knew how to do it all by themselves. But often their wars were not externally fomented. They were easy pawns in the hands of the great powers who knew how to set them against each other, how to divide and conquer. The litany of their ancient names rings in the minds of Sunday school children and all who have studied or read the Bible: Moab and Ammon and Edom and Amalek and the Philistines and the Arameans or Syrians. Most of the time they have been at war among themselves. Only rarely have the peoples that occupy the land bridge been united. It is a focus of conflict at the present day. Later it was Persia and Macedonia and Rome. Across that bridge marched the armies of successive powers of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley to confront the power of the Nile Valley, and the power of the Nile Valley to confront the powers of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. It occupies the narrowest part of the Fertile Crescent, a narrow land bridge with the Great Sea to the west and the desert to the east. How odd of God to choose Palestine as the place where the name and habitation of Yahweh were to be put? All we know of geopolitics would predict that Palestine would be a center of constant warfare. The annals of ancient Israel are studded with accounts of war after war after war. It is only in recent years that historians have begun to write social and economic histories before that histories were primarily records of defeats and victories in battle. The annals of almost all peoples are records of wars. We need to start with an honest appraisal of these two facts. And the people of Israel celebrated war with their finest literary efforts, glorying in victory, lamenting in defeat. The Hebrew Bible, on which Jesus was nurtured, is full of wars the blood of battle oozes from its pages.
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