The Savage God

During the SBL meeting in San Diego, I attended a conference on the characterization of God in the book of Hosea. One of the speakers called the God of the Old Testament “the Savage God.” According to the speaker, the savage God is the God who is cruel and violent, unjust and harsh in his dealing with the Israelites and with peoples from other nations. The notion of the savagery of God arises when people are unable to reconcile the love of God with God’s demands for righteousness and justice. The God of the Bible is merciful and loving, but he is also a God who requires justice from people.

According to some people, the savage God of the Bible is the God who arbitrarily demanded the destruction of entire cities and the killing of men, women, and children. The savage God is the God who allows drought, hurricanes, tornados, and other natural disasters to cause havoc to cities and to bring misery to thousands of people. If God is a merciful and loving God, how could this God allow the destruction of innocent people?

The reason people believe that the God of the Bible is a savage God is because God exercises divine justice when people fail to meet divine standards. As the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “I am the LORD who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and I delight in these things” (Jeremiah 9:24). God delights in justice and justice is what God demands from Israel and all peoples.

The reality of divine justice does not mean that there is a standard of justice for Israel and one for the rest of the world. On the contrary, there is a single standard of justice for all. God’s judgment falls not only upon Israel but also upon other nations when they fail to meet the moral standard set by God. In order to dispense justice, God intervenes in human history to redress injustice and restore the moral order of society.

When one considers the theme of justice in the Hebrew Bible, one encounters a different perspective from that which appears in the popular understanding of justice. Justice means a restoration of normalcy in society, a return to a condition where human rights are recognized.

One good example of divine justice at work is found in the book of the prophet Amos. Amos proclaimed that since God was the sovereign Lord over all nations, his demand for justice was universal and that it applied to all. To Amos, God was not only the guarantor of Israelite laws, but also of the entire moral order. God’s universal requirements applied to Israel and included the conventional norms of international behavior. Amos saw God’s universal requirements as justice, and his judgment as a punishment for injustice against members of the community.

God’s universal requirements demand right conduct of individuals and nations. God’s righteousness is manifested not only in the judgments which he brings to individuals and nations, but also in his acts of mercy and salvation toward Israel and, eventually, towards all peoples.

In Amos’ oracles against the foreign nations, we see divine justice at work.

In Amos 1:3, God spoke through Amos and said:

“The people of Damascus have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They beat down my people in Gilead as grain is threshed with iron sledges.”

The principal transgression of the Aramean kingdom was the threshing of the people in Gilead with iron threshing-machines. When the Arameans conquered Israel, they crushed the prisoners to pieces with iron threshing-machines. This act of cruelty against the people of Gilead reflects a barbarous war-practice that was prevalent in the ancient Near East.

Since no one could bring Ben-Hadad to justice, God intervened and caused the invasion of Damascus by the Assyrians and the deportation of the Arameans to Kir (Amos 1:5; 2 Kings 16:9).

In Amos 1:6, God spoke through Amos and said:

“The people of Gaza have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They sent whole villages into exile, selling them as slaves to Edom.”

The captives of war mentioned here were sold as slaves by the Philistines to the Edomites, the arch-enemies of Israel. According to Amos, the captivity was so devastating that not a single captive remained. Entire villages were taken away and none of them ever returned to their land.

Since there was no way the people taken as slaves could obtain redress in a court of law, God intervened and the Philistines were threatened with divine retribution for having plundered the land and sold the captives as slaves. To vindicate the oppressed slaves, God promised that the king of Ashdod would be destroyed (Amos 1:8). The divine judgment came by the hands of Sargon, king of Assyria, and his army after Assyria conquered Ashdod (Isaiah 20:1).

In Amos 1:9, God spoke through Amos and said:

“The people of Tyre have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They broke their treaty of brotherhood with Israel, selling whole villages as slaves to Edom.”

The people of Tyre are charged with selling people to Edom, but not by having conquered them. This implies that Tyre bought war prisoners from an enemy of Israel, and then sold them as slaves to Edom.

Tyre was a nation known by its trade and commerce, thus, it is possible that Tyre carried out an extensive slave business and that they probably purchased prisoners from different nations and sold them as slaves to more nations than just Edom.

Slaves have no one to fight for them and vindicate their cause. So, God intervened and promised that the fortresses of Tyre would be destroyed. The prophet Isaiah announced the destruction of Tyre: “This message came to me concerning Tyre: Weep, O ships of Tarshish, for the harbor and houses of Tyre are gone! The rumors you heard in Cyprus are all true” (Isaiah 23:1). Whether the destruction was caused by the Assyrians or the Babylonians, Isaiah was clear on who brought the demise of Tyre:

“Who has brought this disaster on Tyre, that great creator of kingdoms? Her traders were all princes, her merchants were nobles. The LORD of Heaven's Armies has done it to destroy your pride and bring low all earth's nobility” (Isaiah 23:8-9).

In Amos 1:13, God spoke through Amos and said:

“The people of Ammon have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! When they attacked Gilead to extend their borders, they ripped open pregnant women with their swords.”

The ripping up of the women with child was one of the many atrocities that came as a result of the many wars in the ancient Near East (see 2 Kings 8:12; 15:16). This cruel act was practiced by the Arameans, the Assyrians, the Ammonites, and even by an Israelite king. The Ammonites are singled out by Amos for the cruelty which they inflicted upon the Israelites during a time of war.

Since the victims were powerless to defend themselves and bring justice to their cause, God intervened and as a punishment for this cruel act, the Ammonite capital was to be burned, and the king and his officials would go into exile (Jeremiah 27:1-6).

In Amos 2:1, God spoke through Amos and said:

“The people of Moab have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They desecrated the bones of Edom's king, burning them to ashes.”

According to Amos, the people of Moab opened the grave of one of the kings of Edom and burned his bones. The king’s bones were burned so completely that the bones turned into ashes. This desecration of the dead king was unacceptable to God. Since the dead king was unable to defend himself, God intervened and promised to bring judgment upon Moab by the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

These examples show that the God of the Bible is not a savage God. He is a God of justice who vindicates the oppressed and who acts as the sovereign judge to bring justice to people and nations on behalf of victims of violence and brutality. God acts on behalf of nations other than Israel to bring justice upon evildoers.

Thus, divine justice is the process by which God renders redress on behalf of those who are unable to act on their own behalf. Since God in his nature is righteous, God imposes righteous laws on his creatures and executes them righteously. Justice is not an optional product of his will, but an unchangeable principle of his very nature. As Creator, God requires his creatures to conform to his moral laws. When they fail to do so, God acts and justice is upheld.


What people believe to be divine savagery, it is nothing but God’s dealing with his accountable creatures according to the requirements of his laws.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Amos, Divine Justice, Savage God

Amos, Justice, and the NIV

In a previous post, “Amos and Social Justice,” I wrote that justice and righteousness were the focus of Amos’ message. In that post I studied the ways in which the word “justice” was used in Amos. In the present post, I will discuss how the NIV uses the word “justice” in the book of Amos.

The message of Amos contains a strong criticism of the royal officials of the Northern Kingdom and of those who administered justice in the courts because they were undermining the legal system of Israel in order to exploit the underprivileged and drive the peasants away from their patrimony. Because of the legal decisions made by dishonest judges, many landowners became tenants of a rich class of people who abused the legal system to take possession of their lands.

Amos used the word “justice” (mishpat) to criticize the royal officials, the judges, and the rich people for the perversion of the judicial process in Israel. In his commentary on Amos, James L. Mays wrote:

“In Amos mishpat is specifically associated with the court in the gates and means the judicial process and its decisions by which right order is maintained in social relations, and especially the protection of [the] weak and poor through the help of the court” (p. 108).

Mays also wrote:

“When the poor and afflicted come to the courts of justice they are dealt out the very same injustice from which they sought relief. To Amos, who will allow Israel no other identity and way of life than that given her in the election of Yahweh, such a reversal of things staggers the mind, and he can only compare it to some incredible perversion of the normal order of things” (p. 121).

The word “justice” (misphat) appears four times in the book of Amos: three times the word appears in association with “righteousness” (sedaqa) and once the word appears alone:

“O you who turn justice (misphat) to wormwood, and cast down righteousness (sedaqa) to the earth” (Amos 5:7).

“But let justice (misphat) roll down like waters, and righteousness (sedaqa) like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24).

“But you have turned justice (misphat) into poison and the fruit of righteousness (sedaqa) into wormwood” (Amos 6:12).

“Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice (misphat) in the gate” (Amos 5:15).

Anyone who desires to understand the message of Amos should read the book in light of Amos’ emphasis on social justice. A study of the word “justice” as its appears in the book of Amos will help the reader see Amos as a prophet who spoke against evil in the public place.

Unfortunately, the NIV is not a good place to go for a study of the word “justice” in Amos. The reason for this statement is because the NIV is not consistent in its use of the word “justice” in the book of Amos. Twice the NIV uses the word “justice” in places where the word mishpat is not used in the Hebrew text. Those readers of the Bible who do not know Hebrew will think that the word “justice” in those additional places has the same meaning as the word “justice” in the verses where the Hebrew word mishpat appears.

In Amos 2:7, the NIV reads:

“They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.”

The Hebrew should be translated as follows: “They turn aside the way of the afflicted.” This translation is followed by the RSV: “they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted.”

The NIV used the word “justice” and translated the expression “to turn aside the way” by “deny justice” even though Amos did not use the word mishpat. Wolff said that the Hebrew expression “to turn aside the way of the afflicted” “is an abbreviated equivalent of ‘to pervert the courses of justice’” (p. 166). Mays wrote that to “‘turn aside the way of the afflicted’ is a locution for the perversion of legal procedure. ‘Way’ (derek) is a synonym for ‘justice’ (mishpat)” (p. 46).

Only the NIV and the TNIV use the word “justice” in Amos 2:7. All other translations do not use the word “justice” to clarify the message of Amos.

In Amos 5:12, the NIV reads:

“You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”

The Hebrew should be translated as follows: “You who oppress the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.” This translation is followed by the RSV: “you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.”

The NIV, by using the word “justice” here, is following a common practice in the Hebrew Bible where the word natah (“to turn aside”) usually occurs together with the word mishpat (Exodus 23:6; Deuteronomy 16:19; Proverbs 17:23). However, although the word natah is used, the word mishpat does not appear in Amos 5:12.

Only the NIV, the TNIV, the NET, the HCSB, and the Living Bible use the word “justice” in Amos 5:12. The New King James Version also uses “justice,” but the word is in italics to indicate that the word is not in the Hebrew text and has been added to clarify the meaning of the English translation.

What distinguishes Amos and his use of mishpat is that he is the first one to use the word together with sedeqa. As Wolff has pointed out, “this word pair is completely unknown in Israel’s legal collections in the Pentateuch” (p. 245). After Amos, Isaiah used the words misphat and sedaqa together three times (1:21; 5:7; 28:17). The two words again appear in wisdom literature, in the Psalms, and in Jeremiah. Wolff concludes that the use of the words misphat and sedaqa in the Hebrew Bible clearly indicates that Amos was the first one to use them together.

By using the words “justice” in Amos 2:7 and 5:12, the NIV is trying to clarify to its readers the legal meaning behind these two verses. However, in doing so, the NIV may leave the impression in the mind of some readers that the Hebrew word mishpat is behind the translation of “justice” in Amos 2:7 and 5:12.

Any translation of the Bible must clarify the original text for its readers but, at times, the inconsistency of the NIV does not help the English speaking reader grasp the significance of the use or non-use of specific words by the prophet. Some people may see in the NIV an example of moderation and others may call the TNIV "maligned"; I would call both translations: inconsistent.

Bibliography:

James L. Mays, Amos (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969).

Hans W. Wolff, Joel and Amos (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Amos, Justice, Mishpat, Righteousness

Amos and Social Justice

Amos was the earliest prophet whose words are preserved in the form of a book. He prophesied in the Northern Kingdom of Israel somewhere between the years 760-750 B.C. Amos’ preaching took place during the mid-eighth century B. C., a few years before the prophet Hosea began his ministry.

The eighth century was a period during which a privileged few in Israel were enjoying unprecedented prosperity while most Israelites were facing dire poverty. Although Amos lived in Tekoa, a small village bordering the wilderness of Judah, his preaching to Israel provided a powerful prophetic witness for all ages because of his condemnation of the spiritual blindness of the Judean upperclass and their unjust exploitation of the poor.

Amos forged an explicit and unbreakable link between justice toward the neighbor and righteousness before God, a link that went back to the covenant at Sinai and to the ancient prophetic traditions of Israel. Amos’ ministry provides an eternal witness of God’s opposition to economic, political, and social injustice.

The words of Amos were adapted by Martin Luther King, Jr., whose famous “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. in August 1963 brought a new meaning to the words of Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24).

Amos spoke to an oppressed society and his concern for the poor and the oppressed made him a prophet for all times. Amos is also a prophet for the twenty-first century, a time when the gap between rich and poor has never been greater.

The sources of oppression and injustice may look different today, but people’s concern for material prosperity reflects the days in which Amos lived. Amos’ message of God’s opposition to injustice, his criticism of the people’s worship of material things, and his witness of God's special concern for the poor and oppressed, affirm that the worship of God in any age is worthless if social oppression and injustice are ignored.

Since justice and righteousness are the focus of Amos’ message, it is important to look at how the words justice and righteousness are used by the prophet. The words justice and righteousness are used together three times in two chapters of the book of Amos (Amos 5:7; 5:24; 6:12). The word justice is used once by itself (Amos 5:15).

“O you who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth” (Amos 5:7 RSV).

“Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (Amos 5:15 RSV).

“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24 RSV).

“Do horses run upon rocks? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood” (Amos 6:12 RSV).

Wormwood was an extremely bitter plant. The word was used several times in Jeremiah and in Lamentations to describe the bitterness of the calamities that befell Judah at the time of their exile to Babylon (Jeremiah 9: 15; 23:15; Lamentation 3: 15, 19). The justice that Israel's courts dispensed to the poor was nothing but bitterness.

The oppression and injustice Amos found in the Northern Kingdom was evidence that righteousness had been thrown to the ground as something worthless by those who were in power. Righteousness no longer had any meaning for the powerful people of Israel as a requirement of the worship of God.

To Amos, "hating evil and loving good" was a simple yet powerful statement of how to establish justice "in the gate." In a very simple language, the prophet placed principles of true justice before a group of people who could argue about legal technicalities while tolerating bribery, corruption, and greed.

The gate of the city was fortified in order to protect the city from enemies and to serve as the place where the elders of the city would gather as a legal assembly to decide cases needing adjudication. The gate was the place where the local judiciary met to determine right and wrong in legal disputes, and therefore, to decide who was innocent or guilty.

Deuteronomy 25: 1 describes this process: “Suppose two persons have a dispute and enter into litigation, and the judges decide between them, declaring one to be in the right and the other to be in the wrong.” If the judges successfully declared where the right was, then justice had been
served.

The decision of the court had a redemptive aspect for the parties involved in the litigation. The decision of the court was intended to vindicate the just party in a legal dispute. The decision was also intended to protect the social order by determining right and wrong and correcting the wrong. Thus, the decision of the court was particularly important in cases where the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the alien, people without power and influence, could not find redress in the community apart from the decision of the court.

When the words “justice” and “righteousness” are used in Amos, justice is the primary word since it appears first in the parallelism of the two words. Justice is the result of seeking or loving good, as in Amos 5:15. Justice is also the fruit or the result of righteousness as in Amos 6:12. Thus, according to Amos, righteousness is essential to the well-being of the community. Righteousness is essentially a relational rather than an absolute ethical idea. Righteousness has to do with the relationship between a person and God, and a relationship between members of the community. Righteousness is a relational concept; its meaning is determined by the particular social context in which it is used. Righteousness is a quality of life which is displayed by people who live up to the demands of the covenant. The righteous person does what is right to other persons involved in the relationship.

Amos proclaimed that Israel had violated the ancient traditions of Israel. The poor and oppressed were individuals who deserved the protection of the court and fair treatment by those in a position of dispensing legal decisions. The only way for this to become a reality in Israelite society was for justice to roll down like waters, and for righteousness to run like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Amos, Justice, Mishpat, Righteousness