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PDF FormatBy and large, the few Bible scholars who have acknowledged the vast discrepancy between the modern and biblical usage of the word “peace” have tended to downplay its significance, acknowledging that “peace” is frequently a poor translation of shalom, while ignoring completely the philosophical implications of the fact.36 Yet the problem of peace in the Bible is far more than one of vocabulary: The entire modern vision of peace—a dream of universal brotherhood and quietude reigning throughout the world, in which conflict as a whole has spontaneously ceased, former enemies have laid down their arms, and even the threat of force has become a thing of the past—finds little support in the Hebrew Bible.37
For hundreds of years, western visionaries have looked forward to an eschaton that is utterly placid, as depicted in countless paintings and other works of art, such as Edward Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom, a famous work depicting stately lions, bulls and other wildlife living in serenity, free of conflict and struggle, self-assured and wise in their redemptive bliss, while Native Americans and Pilgrims in pre-Revolutionary dress chatter quietly in the background. In such a utopian world, even the most basic physical and spiritual drives—hunger and sexuality, honor and passion—are somehow displaced by a spirit of mutual understanding and communal tranquility. There is no police, no army, nor even necessarily a court system, since conflict itself has been eliminated, and disagreements are resolved through the good-will and self-sacrifice of society’s members.
But the biblical prophets did not dream this dream. They offered a different one, in which world history is resolved not through nonviolence and compromise, but through the victory of the Jewish nation, religion and ethic—a victory that includes the return of the Jews to their land, the establishment of a strong, prosperous Jewish polity and the “judgment” of the nations—that is, the punishment and eradication of evildoers. A salient example of this idea is found in the book of Joel, where God tells Israel:
Prepare for war, awaken warriors, come forth and arise men of war! Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears! Let the weak say “I am a hero!” Let the nations come round and assemble, for there the Eternal has placed your warriors. Let the nations awaken and come up to the valley of Yehoshafat, for there I shall sit to judge all the nations around.... for great is their iniquity.... The sun and moon have darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their splendor. And the Eternal will roar from Zion, and from Jerusalem will send his call, and the heavens and earth will shudder—yet the Eternal will be merciful to his people, a strength to the children of Israel. And you will know that I am the Eternal your God, who dwells in Zion on my holy mountain; and Jerusalem will be holy, and foreigners will no longer pass through it.38
Joel’s end-of-days vision portrays Jewish warriors who beat their “plowshares into swords” and their “pruninghooks into spears,” in order to carry out the duty of effecting God’s justice in the world. In this vision, the nations (whose principal guilt may be their idolatry, but may also be their oppression of Israel) assemble in the valley of Yehoshafat to receive punishment from the warriors, and it is from Jerusalem—a synecdoche for the Jewish kingdom—that God’s “roar” goes out, the toll of his bells of justice striking fear throughout the world.
Throughout the prophetic visions, it is this utter defeat by Israel of the evil-doing nations that enables the peace of the messianic era. Thus the prophet Obadiah predicts that when the Jews return to their land, “the house of Jacob shall be a fire” that will burn the surrounding nations “like straw,” conquering the mount of Esau and the lowlands of the Philistines, and recapturing the fields of Efraim and Shomron, the territories of Benjamin and Gil’ad, and the cities of the Negev: “And saviors shall climb upon mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be of the Eternal.”39 The book of Amos offers a messianic age in which Israel will “possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the nations....”40 And the prophet Micah, like the earlier books of the Bible, makes the link between victory and peace explicit in his prediction of the emergence of a new Jewish king: “And he shall stand and herd, with the strength of the Eternal, with the glory of the name of the Eternal his God, and they shall abide, for his greatness shall then extend to the ends of the earth. And this shall be peace.... And they shall rule over the land of Assyria by sword, and the land of Nimrod with drawn blades. And he shall save us from Assyria when they come to our land, when they march upon our borders.”41
The prophet Jeremiah also presents an end-of-days vision in which a renewed Jewish state has become “a name, a joy, a song and a glory before all the nations of the world, who shall hear of all the good that I shall bestow upon them, and they shall fear and tremble for all the good and all the peace which I shall make for it.”42 In Jeremiah’s vision, Israel’s “good” and “peace” are the stuff that makes its former oppressors “fear and tremble.” And as in the days of Solomon, Jeremiah foresees Israel’s victory over the nations as bringing prosperity and other blessings: “Thus says the Eternal: Behold I return the captives of the tents of Jacob, to their dwelling-places I shall bestow mercy. And the city will be built upon its mountain, the castle in its place shall stand. And from there will come forth thanksgiving and glee, and they shall grow and not dwindle, and I shall make them wealthy; they shall not suffer.... and I shall requite their oppressors.... The Eternal’s anger shall not be quenched until he has acted, until he has carried out his plans; in the end of days you shall see it.”43 The contrast between Israel’s future and that of her former oppressors is clear: While a reconstituted Israel is “wealthy,” a “castle” exuding “thanksgiving and glee,” the destruction of evil-doing nations is a drink to quench “the Eternal’s anger.”
Ezekiel, too, presents a redemptive peace vision that depicts Israel’s military, economic and political preeminence among the nations. He fills two chapters of his book with a detailed prediction of Israel’s apocalyptic military victory over the superpower Gog, which will prove the righteousness and truth of God and his chosen people in the eyes of the world.44 Elsewhere, he describes the flourishing national life that will follow these victories:
And I the Eternal will be for them a God, and my servant David a prince among them—I the Eternal have spoken. And I will make for them a covenant of peace.... And I shall bring the rain in its season, rains of blessing they shall be. And the tree of the field shall give its fruit, and the land its bounty, and they shall be in their land in security, and they will know that I am the Eternal, when I break the rods of their yoke, and save them from the hands of their enslavers. And they shall no longer be a derision of the nations, and the beasts of the land will no longer eat them, and they shall dwell in security, and none shall make them afraid.45
Here Ezekiel invokes Pinhas’ “covenant of peace” to depict a national rebirth in which a renewed prosperity (“rains of blessing”) and prestige (“they shall no longer be a derision”) are closely linked to the fact that the “enslaving” nations no longer have the power to “make them afraid.”
True, the prophets vary in their emphasis: While some focus upon a Jewish hegemony on the ethical, philosophical and theological plane—and some do hint at an ultimate utopia in which there will be “new heavens and a new earth”46 and men will be given a “new heart”47—others offer an unambiguously military domination. Yet despite these differences, it is hard to escape the fact that virtually all the prophetic texts incorporate one form or another of Israelite victory and the demise of offending nations into their eschatological visions of peace.48 Needless to say, this is a far cry from the modern peace-dream, in which turning the other cheek—perhaps the epitome of conflict-avoidance and rejection of force—is supposed to form the basis of diplomacy, in which nations somehow discover the benefits of nonaggression, and their inhabitants, in the manner of Hicks’ painting, spend their days chattering happily amongst themselves.
It would go without saying that the Hebrew Bible never countenanced such a world were it not for the fact that pacifists throughout the ages have routinely justified their conception of peace with biblical verses. Most often cited is Isaiah, who predicts that the nations will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks, nation shall not raise its sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more.”49 In the modern reading, the nations have somehow discovered the pitfalls of force, and in a spirit of brotherhood have elected to resolve disputes amicably and live each in his own beliefs, without ever resorting to violence to achieve their goals.
