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

212 THE BIBLICAL AND QUMRANIC CONCEPT OF WAR
19:35). Nevertheless, the conduct of war is the business of the dynastic kings,
and the all-Israelite militia (which may include mercenaries, such as David’s
Cherethites and Pelethites, or Uriah the Hittite) replace the king’s “servants.”
Despite these changes in the presentation of Israelite and Judean
warfare, it is perhaps true that Kings finally reinforces the Deuteronomic
link of adherence to the treaty, land possession, and war, with the land
once gained by military invasion being lost by military invasion.
Nevertheless, the final note (2 Kgs 25:27–30) rests on the exiled king as
symbol of national survival. The anointed king remains a central figure
in biblical warfare and figures prominently (as an anointed war-leader) in
speculations about the war to end all wars, when Yahweh will impose his
solution for the world’s problems.
Now we briefly look at non-Deuteronomistic material. The books of
Chronicles, reflecting as they do a worldview colored by the temple priesthood
and cult, offer in one chapter (2 Chronicles 20) a vision of warfare in
which the king and the militia both play a thoroughly liturgical role. In this
story (absent from Kings), Jehoshaphat summons not to war but to
worship, and the people of Judah and Jerusalem gather, not to form a militia,
but to pray and fast. The speech of encouragement is given by a Levitecum-prophet,
and the army, once assembled, marches out playing music;
the enemy is defeated by divine power alone, and an outbreak of musical
celebration ensues. This interesting episode exaggerates a theme that runs
also throughout the Deuteronomistic history: it is Israel’s god who fights
its battles and determines its victories, even without human intervention.
In the prophetic books, war is again the major instrument by which
the deity maintains moral order in history, through punishing or rescuing
Israel, Judah, and other nations. In Ezekiel 38–39 and Zechariah (e.g.,
chs. 9–10) the idea of a divine order imposed by military force is taken
to a (theo)logical conclusion by depicting an eschatological conflict in
which God definitely vanquishes all his enemies and establishes world
order finally forever. In Ezekiel, the motivation for this final assault is vindication
of Yahweh’s honor; in Zechariah, as in Obadiah and Nahum, the
motif of vengeance also emerges quite prominently, and the ultimate victory
over other nations is presented as a recompense for the suffering of
the divinely chosen people at their hands. The issue of honor was always,
of course, at the heart of warfare in the ancient Near East and in Greece—
the honor of heroes, kings, and gods.
Neither the ideology nor practice of “holy war” died out in Judean history
and literature. In 1 Maccabees, the Deuteronomic concept of war is
invoked in the description of the battles of Judah (Maccabee). Whether
such an ideology was in fact consciously revived by the Maccabees or is