War In The Hebrew Bible

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-a-book-in-hebrew-4033818/

Both warfare and the rhetoric of war were brutal in the ancient Near East. Yet as Christian theologian Preston Sprinkle points out in his excellent book on violence in the Bible, Fight, “Israel was less violent (than surrounding cultures) and had a stripped down- almost absurd- warfare policy.”

In the Near East, kings and upper class men maintained control through a professional army which stockpiled weapons, horses, and…