How Do You Explain the Violence in the Old Testament? (Biblical Guide)

By Caleb S. Lewis

We do not have to read very far into the Biblical narrative until violence and large-scale death become part of the story. Many modern readers find it difficult to deal with narratives such as Noah's Flood, Joshua's conquest, or the covenant curses of Deut 28. These stories often bring Yahweh’s character into question. If God is good how could he send a destroying flood? If God is loving, how could he endorse Joshua's conquest of Canaan? Why would Yahweh put such severe curses on his covenant people?

While questions such as these may feel uncomfortable for some, we ought not be afraid of them. As we explore the answers to these questions, we will find deeper significance in the Biblical story and, hopefully, deepen our trust in Jesus as well. Before we look at why God would destroy, perhaps it would serve us well to explore why he would create.

Creation

In the beginning, there was only darkness, water, and land that was in a state of “formless[ness] and void” (as many translations have it). This phrase “formless and void” (tohu vbohu, תהו ובהו)” is only found in two other places in the Old Testament: Isa 34:11 and Jer 4:23. Both of these passages use the phrase tohu vbohu (תהו ובהו) to refer to what Israel will be like when Israel is destroyed by her enemies. They depict Israel in a state of ruin. They depict Israel as desolate, chaotic, and unfit for human life. This is the same description given to the dark land and waters at the beginning of creation. 

At the beginning of creation, everything was in a state of ruin and chaos, and the land was “welter and waste”.[1] However, Yahweh wanted to make a place where he could dwell with humans who would rule creation with him as his image.[2] God accomplished this when he made the Garden of Eden, put his humans there, and rested as king after finishing his work. God saw this finished work and said “it is good”. The humans were then to rule and work with God to make all the land outside the Garden as good as the Garden itself.[3] They were to join Yahweh in his creative act of turning that which is in ruin into a place where God and humans can dwell together.

Anyone familiar with the Biblical story knows that humanity did not remain in its high position. They sought wisdom and authority apart from Yahweh and failed to rule in the way he would have them rule. Human sin then begins to spiral, which brings us to our first troubling story in Genesis 6-8: Noah’s flood.

The Flood

By Genesis 6, “the LORD saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”. Instead of spreading the goodness of Yahweh’s creation, humanity’s sin had multiplied exponentially. But humanity’s sin affected more than just the human community. Consider Gen 6:11-12:

11 Now the earth was corrupt (שׁחת, shahat) in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt (שׁחת, shahat), for all flesh had corrupted (שׁחת, shahat) their way on the earth.

Humanity’s sin had not just caused hardship in human communities, but it had corrupted (שׁחת, shahat; or ruined/ destroyed) the land itself. They had taken that which Yahweh intended to fill with goodness and filled it with violence. Because of the humans, the land was no longer a place where God and man could dwell together but was once again a place of “welter and waste,” ruin, and desolation. This time it was not the darkness and chaotic waters that made the land tohu vbohu, but humanity itself had become that chaos. 

In Noah’s generation, Yahweh would again remove the chaos from the land and make it a place that is good for his people. Since Noah alone trusted Yahweh, and Noah’s family followed him, they alone were rescued. They alone sought their wisdom in Yahweh, and so only they were fit to rule Yahweh’s creation and expand its goodness. In destroying the world with the flood, Yahweh was not motivated by hatred or anger (in fact these words do not even occur in the flood narrative), but rather by love for his people. The flood was not primarily an act of destruction but an act of recreation of the world for the salvation of his human family.

We may wonder why others were not saved in Noah’s generation. Was anyone warned? Did no one believe? We are not given the detail in Noah’s story to know the answers to those questions so we must read on and see how similar stories with more detail play out. However, as we continue we will see that trust in Yahweh can indeed change anyone’s status from an enemy of Yahweh to one of his beloved people. With that in mind, let’s continue to the Sinai covenant. 

The Covenant 

In Ex 19:5-6 Yahweh tells Israel that if they will keep his instructions and covenant, they will be his treasured possession and a kingdom of priests. Yahweh wants Israel to represent him to the nations as a nation of priests. Israel is Abraham’s seed who is intended to bless all the families of the earth (Gen 12:3). However, to represent Yahweh properly, they must follow his instruction so that they can truly display how good he is. If they do not follow his instructions, if they do not love God and their neighbor as self, they will be a poor representation of Yahweh and cause Yahweh to look bad to the nations. 

Israel was given a very weighty calling. If they failed that calling they would be much like the generation of Noah, no longer displaying the goodness that Yahweh intended to bring but rather displaying violence, selfishness, hatred… ruin. Yahweh would have to remove them from his kingdom to cleanse. Yahweh would have to show the nations that he is not to be represented by ruin by publicly destroying the source of chaos. This is why the covenant curses are so severe. Israel understands the weight of this calling and, despite the severity, agrees to the covenant (Ex 19:8; 24:3; Deut 27).

The Character of Canaan

This understanding of the covenant finally brings us to our most pressing question. Why did Yahweh order the destruction of entire cities and people groups in the conquest of Joshua? Well, first it would be beneficial to discuss a few things that we learn about the Canaanites throughout the Torah. In Lev 18:3-24 we learn that the Canaanites were practicing all sorts of sexual disorder and child sacrifice, which implies loyalty to other gods as well. This implicit accusation of idolatry is confirmed in Deut 7:5 as Israel is commanded to destroy their idolatrous altars. We are also told in Num 13:28-33 that Nephilim are dwelling in the land of Canaan. These are the violent warrior-giants spawned from the Sons of God in Gen 6. The Nephilim contributed to the violence of Noah’s generation and so they do in Israel’s history (as with Og; cf. Num 13:33; Deut 2:11; 3:11).

The land of Canaan is full of immorality, worship of other gods, and demigod warriors who are enemies of Israel throughout the Biblical story. They are much like the generation of Noah, not only in that they are full of destructive practices, but in that they also corrupt their land. Lev 18:24-30 tells us that the abominations of the Canaanites had made their land unclean and, because of this, their land would vomit them out (and Israel is warned not to follow in their footsteps lest the same happen to them). As Canaan is shown to be similar to the wicked generation of Noah’s day, so Joshua’s army takes the place of the flood. Joshua’s conquest becomes the cleansing chaotic waters for the land of Canaan. The inhabitants of Canaan are sources of ruin and chaos that make Canaan unfit for God and his people. Now Yahweh will use an army to remove the chaos from the land. This fact, while helping us to see a Biblical theme developing, and perhaps helpful for our understanding of the conquest, is not the final word on the topic. There is more that needs to be said about the conquest in order to satisfy our questions of Yahweh’s justice in that event. 

The Conquest

In discussing the conquest, a point needs to be made first about the word חרם (herem). Throughout the discussion of the conquest in the Bible, the term חרם (herem) appears and is often translated as “devote to destruction” (e.g. Deut 13:15; 20:17; Josh 10:1, 28). However, this word does not directly refer to destruction and killing. Rather, to carry out ‘חרם (herem)’ on something is to remove it from use.[4] The Canaanite land and identity was rendered useless through the conquest and the land was then handed over to Yahweh. With the idolatry and immorality of the Canaanite identity gone, it could not influence and warp the Israelites when they entered the land. Most important is the fact that the conquest is not primarily about killing for the sake of killing. The purpose of the conquest was to get rid of the ruinous cultural identity of the Canaanites and to transfer the newly purged land from the Canaanites and their gods to Yahweh.

A second point about the conquest needs to be made regarding literary techniques shared by Israel and her neighbors. Israel and her Ancient Near Eastern neighbors often used hyperbole when recording military victories. The speed of the victory, the number of troops, and the severity and extent of the destruction were often exaggerated in order to magnify the glory of the king they fought for.[5] Lest this fact make us uncomfortable or we accuse the Bible of lying, we must recognize that this was a common phenomenon in this culture that the readers would have understood, just as we understand that a fast food meal will not give us ecstatic joy as the commercials suggest. The Biblical authors used this technique to portray Yahweh as a great God and king to their culture.

The cultural convention of hyperbole in war texts explains why in passages such as Josh 10:33-41 and 21:44 it is said that Israel left no survivors and defeated all of her enemies yet in passages such as Josh 15:13-16, 63; 17:16; 23:7, 12-13 it is said that there were survivors and even Canaanites that withstood Israel. For our purposes, this means that Israel’s war was not genocide and that God did not have an interest in exterminating the innocent. Israel’s goal was to carry out חרם (herem), to remove the idolatrous and twisted culture of the Canaanites, and to claim the land for Yahweh. This goal could even be met without killing at times. Those who wished to change their cultural identity from Canaanite to Yahweh-follower, such as Rahab and her family (Josh 2), could be welcomed into God’s community and חרם (herem) still be carried out. They had laid to rest their identity as Canaanites and taken on the culture of God’s people. 

While we do not have all the details of the conquest, the points made tell us that destruction and death were not as pervasive as one may assume from a face-value reading. They also teach us that the conquest did not have death fueled by hatred as one of its motives. Whatever the details of each battle may have been, the motive was love for his people, and grace is seen to be extended even to Israel’s enemies.

Conclusion

Humanity was made to rule the world by God’s side and with his wisdom. Yahweh brought the world from a state of ruin to a state of good, and we are to continue spreading that goodness. However, since we have chosen to live by our own wisdom, human communities can often turn into sources of the same type of ruin that Yahweh/Jesus did away with at creation. Yahweh/Jesus wants his people to flourish and rule at his side in a good world again, but the ruin must first be removed. Jesus protects his people and their ability to spread his goodness. Because of this, all who do not find their wisdom in him and uphold identities and practices that bring chaos into the world must be removed from creation. The motivation for this removal is not hatred or anger, but the love and protection of Jesus’ people and of all those he wishes to redeem. This is true in the flood, the destruction of Sodom, Joshua’s conquest, the invasion of Israel, and the final judgment. 

Also, throughout these destructions and removals of wicked identities, there has always been the opportunity for those who are sources of ruin to become part of God’s community. Lot was offered salvation for all in his house who would follow Yahweh’s instruction, though some ignored him (Gen 19:14); Rahab and her household were delivered because of their trust in Yahweh; the prophets continually offered salvation from invasion for Israel if they would trust Yahweh; even now all those who trust in Jesus will not perish on the day that he returns but have eternal life. While Jesus will one day return to remove all sources of ruin and chaos from creation; while God must take part in battles in both the Old and New Testaments; his desire has always been that none should perish (2 Pet 3:9) and that all who trust him could be reinstated as rulers of creation who spread his life-giving rule.

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Caleb S. Lewis is the author of Through the Waters: A Biblical Theology of the Book of Genesis and co-host of The Bible in Context Podcast.

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[1] Taken from Robert Alter’s translation in The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, 11.

[2]  Israel and her neighbor’s understood the image of the deity as a king who represents the deities authority. John Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, 175-176

[3]  G.K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 81-121.

[4] John H. Walton & J. Harvey Walton, The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, 169-194

[5]  William J. Webb & Gordan K. Oeste, Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric?: Wrestling with Troubling War Texts, 136-173