Get God Off the Battlefield

Ps. 60:2-3

The pious king would wake up at midnight to sing songs to the divine. And when he wasn’t busy composing religious poetry, David was waging wars and handling local conflicts- and he brought religious fervor with him - as was the norm back then - and sadly still so present today. 

The earlier biblical books that describe his rise to the throne and how he held on to it include many details about battles - some won, some lost. Whether any of this is solid history - we’ll never know, but there are definitive details that repeat in several sources and some that contradict each other. Such for instance is the claim in today’s psalm that 12,000 Edomite soldiers were slain in the battle of valley of salt - while in all other sources it’s 18,000.

Scribal errors or different traditions are one thing, but what’s really glaring here is that the battles described here are depicted as defeat - while in the earlier version it’s described as a victory. Which version is which? 

Most of Psalm 60, raw and gloomy, implies that David’s army suffered more defeat than success, in contrast to the actual historical record appearing elsewhere in the Bible.  And what’s more poignant is the poet’s complaint that it is because of God’s decision not to help them win. In other words - the religious aspects of warfare, at least in this poetic context, are not only built into battles but assumed to be the only reason for triumph or loss.  The despair that this realization creates goes way deeper than the responses to battle - but becomes a theological crisis with dire consequences:

אֱ֭לֹהִים זְנַחְתָּ֣נוּ פְרַצְתָּ֑נוּ אָ֝נַ֗פְתָּ תְּשׁ֣וֹבֵֽב לָֽנוּ׃

O God, You have rejected us,

You have made a breach in us;

You have been angry;

restore us!

Ps. 60:2-3

The last words of the verse look to the future. Restore us! Return to us! One day you will be with us on the battlefield again, and we will win. 

Whatever our ancients thought, and what more faithful or more fundamentalistic world leaders believe today - from Iran to Israel,  it is clear that bringing God into the war is tricky territory, blurring boundaries and conflating religious and military interests in what can surely be bad blood for all.  

Whoever wrote this psalm, with whatever data and historical memories, held onto the hope that the people who were delivered from slavery in Egypt by the hand of God will be rescued again and again. But despite the past, with its mixed bags of victories and losses, it’s the future where things are most feared and looked to. Something in this psalm seems to be admitting that God’s gone - but somehow, there will be a time when God will solve this absence, and show up to help us win once more. This psalm was likely not composed by David, but was written by the priests in Jerusalem in the first years of the second temple, under Persian rule, with no chance for king or sovereignty, after losses and destruction, and with deep questions about divine presence in their midst. But yet - how could they imagine life without their deity, and which soldier would go out to the battle without both shield and the promise of protection from above? 

In today’s wars, including the bitter one still on right now in Gaza, God is present, used by both sides to justify claims and motivate military action, at times brutal and cruel. Is God on the battlefield or how it is that our traditions translate the source of life into this projection of power, shaped in the image of tribal interests and not the common good? 

Maybe we can read this painful psalm with our own twist: That in the future, not so distant, we will invoke the divine creator as we take the next step to reconcile and to resolve all conflicts, knowing that the divine resides in all of us, that we are one big family, and that if we stand for faith - it must result in courageous peace that breaks down borders and celebrates life.

This may not be what David believed, but it may be what will help us out of this mess. Let’s get the God of War off the battlefield, and invite the God of Love into each and every heart instead. Maybe this will help us do what this poet wanted -restore us to the humans we all long to be, with love, in peace.

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