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8 - Violence and the Divine Avenger

from Part III - Violence and Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2020

Matthew J. Lynch
Affiliation:
Regent College, Vancouver
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Summary

Chapter 8 examines divine responses to violence, and in particular, to bloodshed and the outcry of the victim. The restoration, or ‘redemption’, of blood by a divine גאל הדם (‘restorer of blood’) is one of the primary ways that biblical texts portray Yhwh’s response to bloodshed. Through a study of select texts, including several from 1–2 Samuel, the following claims are made. First, Yhwh acted as restorer of blood and legal adjudicator for those wrongly accused. He played the role of Mesopotamian kings who addressed cases for claimants and accused. If the human system failed, the poor had legal recourse. Second, because of the frequent emphasis on the cries of the afflicted and poor in ancient Israelite literature, some poetic and narrative traditions came to valorize the renunciation of one’s legal rights to (human) vengeance. Devotion and loyalty to Yhwh were characterized in terms of committing one’s case to Yhwh, not only when the legal system failed, but in recognition of Yhwh’s unique prerogative to intervene.

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Chapter
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Portraying Violence in the Hebrew Bible
A Literary and Cultural Study
, pp. 205 - 218
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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