The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

PHILIP R. DAVIES 211
NRSV adapted). In both sets of legislation the overriding ideology is
basically identical: the “ethnic cleansing” of Canaanites and camp rules
guarantee the purity of the chosen nation and maintain its ties to its god.
The book of Joshua describes the fulfilling of these requirements as
the Canaanites are exterminated by warfare and Israel occupies the land.
But the necessity for internal discipline is also emphasized, as the family
of Achan and his property is wiped out because of an infringement
against the rule that booty taken from a war against Canaanites is the
property of the deity (Joshua 7). But if, in Joshua, the deity fights for
Israel, in Judges, he can fight also against them by means of military
aggression from neighbors, when they are punished time and again for
abandoning the deity to whom they have a treaty obligation. Yet these
episodes are followed by acts of deliverance as Yahweh raises “judges,”
who time and again deliver Israel. These men are frequently imbued with
the “spirit of Yahweh,” while, in the case of Deborah, the battle is said to
be fought by heavenly as well as earthly forces.
The image of a coordinated exercise of holy war by all Israel is largely
displaced in Judges by two other important ideas: Yahweh uses other
nations for a divine war against Israel when the latter abandons its treaty
obligations; and Yahweh delivers Israel by using charismatic leaders,
either through concerted military action (Gideon, Deborah, Jephthah) or
through individual valor (Ehud, Samson). Yet Judges nevertheless ends
with a “holy war,” not against foreigners but against a single Israelite tribe
(chs. 20–21). This civil war is waged under divine guidance, for twice, in
20:23 and 26–28, a divine oracle urges the Israelite tribes to attack. At
last (20:35), “Yahweh defeated Benjamin before Israel,” and finally (v.
48), “the Israelites turned back against the Benjaminites, and put them to
the sword—the city, the people, the animals, and all that remained. Also
the remaining towns they set on fire.” The ideology and the rituals of
holy war in the Old Testament can thus be used, as with Achan and
Benjamin, as a mechanism of internal discipline.
The books of Samuel and Kings develop these two themes in several
ways. The course of Israel’s and Judah’s military fortunes is governed by
Yahweh, who continues to control foreign invasion as well as instigate deliverance
from it. But the mechanism of charismatic leadership, explicit in the
appointment of Saul—who like the judges is anointed to protect from enemies
as well as to “judge” (1 Sam 8:20)—gives way to an institutionalized monarchy
in which a Davidic dynasty is permanently favored. Throughout, there
is no doubt that the deity is closely involved in the outcome of these battles,
giving David an oracle (2 Sam 5:23–24), inciting Ahab to his death (1 Kings
22), and sending an angel to destroy a besieging Assyrian army (2 Kgs