The violence of God: Investigations in the book of Isaiah

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In the previous article in this series, we saw that there was nothing random or arbitrary about the hurricane of destruction that was blowing over Judah and Israel at the time of Isaiah. The first few verses of the book of Isaiah vigorously connect the dots between God’s judgment and the people’s reprehensible moral behaviour.

The most astounding thing about this public indictment is that Yahweh bothers explaining at all why He is moving against His people. God’s insistence on justifying His actions clashed with the normal behaviour of the ancient gods, who never felt any compulsion to explain anything at all to human beings.

Why does God, against normal divine convention, stoop down to justify His actions?

First of all, the God of the Old Testament has a project for humanity: the creation of a people composed of men and women who will freely choose to love and serve God. The entire Old Testament is about that one single idea and how it works itself out in history.

The project was first introduced in the creation account in Genesis 1–3. The first glorious children of God were invited to embrace their creator, but tragically chose Self rather than God – an action that resulted in the ushering of the Age of Misery into human history.

Logic dictates that God would have been well advised to quit while everyone was ahead. How hard would it have been to sterilize Adam? A strategic exposure to radioactive material would have fixed the problem. Adam and Eve would have grown old, died peacefully, and no other human would have been exposed to sin and its ravaging effects on our species.

Why didn’t God do the “logical” thing? The answer is surprisingly simple: commitment. Once God decided to initiate the Great Project, there was no turning back. God would see it to the end.

No turning back.

At this point, God now needed to put into motion the plan of redemption. In time, it would necessitate the formation of a specific people, an ethnic group that would be called to form a nation, a distinct political reality: Israel.

One cannot begin to comprehend the “violence” of Yahweh in Isaiah without carefully considering this point. Once God was committed to working with humanity in its damaged state, it became imperative to set into motion the process that would bring about the ultimate redemption of the human race. The creation of a political entity called Israel was a necessary step in that process.

Why does God intervene in Judah’s history? Why does He allow the winds of judgment to blow over Israel? Why does He bother telling His people why He is doing all this? Simple. The people of Israel were called to become a certain kind of people.

In order for the plan of redemption to unfold successfully, Israel had to become a community that reflected the holy character of God. By the middle of the 8th century BC, neither Israel nor Judah mirrored Yahweh. By 750 BC, the Israelites had embraced the odious Baal and were rushing headlong towards self-destruction!

The second reason that accounts for Yahweh’s humble self-disclosure to His people directly derives from His love for them. God does not stick with His people simply for utilitarian reasons. Unlike the gods of the Ancient Near East, who created humans to meet their needs, Yahweh created men and women to enter into a relationship with Him: to love them and to be the object of their love!

Reasons to intervene.

God has two reasons, therefore, to “violently” intervene in the life of His people. First, because of the special role it was to play in the plan of redemption, Israel had to become a distinct kind of community. Second, God loved His people. And love, as C. S. Lewis points out in his Problem of Pain, seeks the well-being of the loved one.

In the 8th century BC, Judah has committed itself to self-destruction. If God does not intervene, the only outcome possible is the utter and complete destruction of His people and the failure of His plan of redemption for humanity.

The “violence” of God has nothing to do with the violence of those who seek their own advantage by trampling others. It has nothing to do with destructive actions committed without meaning or simply to arouse and satisfy one’s pleasure centres.

The problem with the use of the word violence has to do with the meaning most dictionaries assign to it. “Violence”¹ is generally understood as the “exercise of physical force so as to inflict injury on or damage to persons or property; . . .”² The unspoken assumption in this definition is that this is force used for personal gain or in the service of evil.³

This is not, however, the only meaning of the word. As the renowned French historian Pierre Chaunu points out, the old Latin word violentia also referred to the notion of acting, intervening vigorously or forcefully.

This is the true significance of the “violence” of God in Isaiah. It’s the “violence” of the dentist who extracts a bad molar. It’s the “violence” of the birthing process that literally pushes the infant out of the womb. It’s the “violence” of the brain surgeon who purposely and without hesitation slices into the skull to get at a tumour.

The curse language is not simply the violent expression of a frustrated God who randomly inflicts destruction upon His people to satisfy His lust for blood. The curses found throughout the book of Isaiah are much more akin to the actions of a loving and dedicated doctor who is struggling to calibrate the treatment that will kill the disease without destroying the patient. It is God pleading with His people to move away from the path of self-destruction.

Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 1:18–20).

Warnings and threats are one thing, but what kind of transformation is Yahweh really after? Is He just looking for some kind of political reform? How will the transformation occur?

In the next articles, we will look at a passage – Isaiah 6 – specifically written to answer this question.

Continued . . .

1. From the Old French, violence, and the Latin, violentia.
2. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1973.
3. Pierre Chaunu, renowned 20th century French historian, confirms this assumption in his detailed treatment of the word in La violence de Dieu. Violence et société (Paris : Laffont, 1978), pp. 11–30.

Pierre Gilbert is associate professor of Old Testament studies at Canadian Mennonite University/Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Winnipeg, Man.