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It is written:
Jeremiah 9:24-But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD.
The Bible teaches that God is a God of love (cf. 1 John 4:8). However, many struggle reconciling the love of God with the violence of the Old Testament Scriptures. Elsewhere, we have noticed the alleged “genocide” commands given to the Jewish people. We have noticed that these commands are often misunderstood and misquoted in our 21st century society which was far removed from the Hebrew and Canaanite background of those commands nearly sixteen years before the brith of Christ. In particular, we observed that these commands were couched in military jargon of the day, and did not amount to God commanding genocide.
Yet what about the claim that the Old Testament sanctions violence against women? While many Old Testament passages elevate women (cf. Genesis 1:26-27; Exodus 20:12; Proverbs 31:10-31), there are many passages which seem to indicate misogyny and domestic violence against women.
Now, some would argue that we need to just divorce Christianity from the Old Testament. However, any student of the Bible knows that the Old and New Testaments cannot be divided in such a fashion. While it is true that we do not live under the Old Testament (Romans 7:4; Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14), it is not true that the New Testament is completely separate and apart from the Old. Indeed, Paul says that we need to be continually studying the Old Testament Scriptures so that we can have hope as we face the challenges of our time (Romans 15:4). He reminds us that the Old Testament serves as a collection of historical facts for us to learn from (1 Corinthians 10:1-11). Indeed, the New Testament is built upon the foundation of the Old, as it was given as a schoolmaster to prepare us for Christ (Galatians 3:24-25).
Some have attempted through the years to separate the God of the Old Testament from the God of the Old Testament, and it simply doesn’t work. One author has pointed out:
“With all these difficulties facing us as we read the Old Testament, we might be tempted to take radical measures to purge Scripture of such violent stains and residue. We might want to unhitch our faith from the Old Testament, as one prominent church leader suggested—and many imply. 13 Before rushing toward that stain-removing solution, however, we might take a cautionary cue from early church father Tertullian (ca. 150–220 CE). He wrote a multivolume work to refute a man named Marcion (ca. 85–150 CE), who doused the problem of Old Testament violence with gasoline (or its ancient equivalent) and set it ablaze. Marcion wanted to excise divine wrath from the Christian faith, and with it, the Old Testament. He found it unbecoming of God’s goodness. He suggested that the God of the Old Testament was a different God than the God and Father of Jesus. So he sought to rid the church of the Old Testament and, consequently, most of the New! It turns out that the two are deeply connected. In his sarcastic critique of Marcion, Tertullian writes: “A better god has been discovered, who never takes offense, is never angry, never inflicts punishment, who has prepared no fire in hell, no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness! He is purely and simply good.” 14 Sounds good, right? Hardly. Here’s Tertullian’s warning. There are always hidden costs to pictures of God that eliminate challenging tensions. Tertullian would direct our attention to the pilot light burning in the garage corner. Specifically, Tertullian points out that Marcion eliminates God’s ability to act as judge: “You allow indeed that God is a judge, but at the same time destroy those operations and dispositions by which He discharges His judicial functions.” 15 For Tertullian (and many biblical texts), wrath is the emotion that animates God’s active concern for justice. Criticizing his wrath was like criticizing the instruments of a doctor. Wrath, in Tertullian’s formulation—and arguably in the Bible itself—is tied intimately to God’s exercise of justice. Tertullian is highlighting the danger of separating God’s wrath and justice. Separating the two would be like taking the scalpel from the surgeon’s hand and saying, “You’re here to do healing work, and not cut people open!” But the Bible sees wrath in different terms. It’s the emotion that moves God to bring justice and is ultimately animated by his compassion. In Exodus 22: 21-24, for instance, God warns Israel that if anyone caused the orphan or widow to cry out, “my anger will blaze” (my translation). God’s anger would blaze against Israelite oppressors like it blazed against Egypt. The point of these verses is not to be precise about the exact penalty for oppressing the weak but to express the pathos of God in the face of injustice. For Israel, God’s wrath was bound up in the idea that he was the protective father of the vulnerable—whether the oppressors be foreigners or his people Israel. Wrath—like jealousy—was a sign of concern for the weak against any who would put them at risk or threaten God’s legitimate claim as parent. In this sense, God’s wrath toward the nations (e.g., for their mistreatment of Israel) was a deep expression of God’s love for Israel and their land. 16 For many of us, love with wrath sounds as comforting as a warm blanket of fiberglass insulation! But the Old Testament grounds love in the idea of Israel as God’s covenant people (Deut 6: 4-5). Love was the relational glue between covenant partners. And if we think of covenant in terms of “family substitute,” 17 love was the trusting loyalty required for healthy family cohesion. God’s wrath was the protective rage he aimed at threats to that family.” (Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God, 14-16 (Kindle Edition): Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic)
With that being said, there are at least three things to keep in mind regarding Old Testament violence especially geared towards women.
First, we need to realize that there are many times that the Bible records something happening without actually giving approval of such. Quite often, this lack of judgment accounts for many criticisms of the Bible. How would you like it if you told someone, “Police brutality exists,” and then they turn around and say, “This person approves of police brutality?”
Would that be fair?
Of course not!
As Geisler and Howe point out:
“Mistake 11: Presuming that the Bible Approves of All it Records. It is a mistake to assume that everything contained in the Bible is commended by the Bible. The whole Bible is true ( John 17:17 ), but it records some lies , for example, Satan’s ( Gen. 3:4 ; cf. John 8:44 ) and Rahab’s ( Josh. 2:4 ). Inspiration encompasses the Bible fully and completely in the sense that it records accurately and truthfully even the lies and errors of sinful beings. The truth of Scripture is found in what the Bible reveals , not in everything it records . Unless this distinction is held, it may be incorrectly concluded that the Bible teaches immorality because it narrates David’s sin ( 2 Sam. 11:4 ), that it promotes polygamy because it records Solomon’s ( 1 Kings 11:3 ), or that it affirms atheism because it quotes the fool as saying “there is no God” ( Ps. 14:1 ).” (Norman Geisler, Thomas Howe, When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties, 257-263 (Kindle Edition): Wheaton, Ill: Victor Books)
Second, the Bible itself reiterates that the condition of society and of family in the world since the Fall in the Garden of Eden has not been what God desired. Indeed, the Old Testament unashamedly shows us the state of mankind trying (and failing) to make his own rules apart from God, and the result is disaster. Writing of this factor, Lynch has noted:
“The important point for our study is that these stories of male dominance and violence against women belong within the broader narrative portrait of humanity’s rebellion against God. From the beginning, Genesis draws a direct line of connection between male domination and violence. The two are inextricably bound as byproducts of the falling out between God, humanity, and creation. The striking link between male domination and violence in these stories challenges us to consider the threads connecting male dominion to violence against women. It forces us to consider the domestic, cultural, spiritual, and political forms misogynistic violence takes. The fact that these challenges of male domination occur so prominently in Genesis 1–11 suggests that they have a kind of priority for us as readers and citizens in a world where 603 million women still live in a country where domestic violence isn’t criminalized. 22 Challenges remain. The Old Testament offers some troubling depictions of women. 23 However, if Genesis 1–11 is our lens for reading the rest, its stories should lead us to become deeply suspicious of anything less than the pursuit of male-female equality envisioned in Genesis 1–2.24 To that extent, Genesis 1–11 is also good news for men. There’s no essential link between maleness and violence woven into the fabric of creation or programmed into the male DNA. 25 The vision of male-female shalom can be pursued east of Eden.” ((Matthew J. Lynch, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God, 62-63 (Kindle Edition): Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic)
Indeed, the track record of family since the Fall in the Garden of Eden reveals that dysfunction is sadly found in every home, to one degree or another. The Book of Genesis especially highlights this.
“Genesis is filled with human drama that touches and helps every one of us on a personal level. For example, every family in Genesis is what we today would call dysfunctional. I regard this as a divine gift. If your family is dysfunctional, the fact that all the families in Genesis are dysfunctional should provide you with some solace. I think the Bible is telling us that family dysfunction is a normal—though not necessarily inevitable—part of the human condition. Indeed, all of Genesis is a statement of how troubled the human condition is. The rest of the Bible, especially the next four books, provides solutions to the troubled human condition. To put it in medical terms, Genesis describes the patient’s (the human being’s) pathology, and the books that follow offer the wisdom and moral instruction necessary to cure the patient.” (Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Genesis, 15-16 (Kindle Edition): Washington, D.C.: Regnery Faith)
Finally, it needs to be remembered when studying these issues that the Old Testament often provided protection for women. This was especially seen in the matter of domestic violence.
Exodus 21:10-11-“If the master marries another woman, he must not give less food or clothing to the first wife. And he must continue to give her what she has a right to have in marriage. 11 The man must do these three things for her. If he does not, the woman is made free, and it will cost her nothing. She owes no money to the man.”
In this passage, Moses addresses the subject of polygamy in Israel (i.e., husbands having more then one wife). While polygamy was not God’s ideal, there was a time when He allowed it without necessarily approving of it (cf. Acts 17:30-31).
What is interesting is that in this text, God dealt with the subject of spousal abuse. As one researcher has noted:
“My sudden realization of how a first-century Jew would have understood these texts wasn’t due to a blinding flash of inspiration but was the result of three years of hard work for my Ph.D., which suddenly came together: three years of reading huge sections of rabbinic literature, digging into the Mishnah, Tosefta Talmud, Midrashim, Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls; analyzing the texts—especially to see how they interpret the Old Testament—and comparing my findings with those of medieval and modern scholars. At the end of all this I could think and interpret more like the ancient rabbis themselves, and I was able to unpack the highly abbreviated accounts of their debates…..In fact, the Bible does have a law that addresses this situation. Exodus 21: 10-11 is a text that is usually forgotten, but it provides precisely what is needed, for it allows the victim of abuse or neglect to be freed from the marriage. This text is actually a law about a slave who has married her master; it states the rights that she has if he decides to marry a second wife….The rabbis found the following principles in this text, and I think they were right. They reasoned that if a slave wife had the right to divorce a husband who neglected to supply food, clothing and conjugal love, then a free wife would certainly also have this right. And they argued that if one of two wives had this right, so did an only wife. Furthermore, if a wife had these rights, then a husband was also entitled to divorce a wife who neglected him. The biblical principle that is established, therefore, is the right of someone to divorce their partner if they neglect their vow to provide food, clothing or conjugal love.” (David Instone-Brewer, Divorce And Remarriage In The Church: Biblical Solutions For Pastoral Realities,15, 35-36 (Kindle Edition); Downers Grove, Illinois; IVP Press)
Paul seems to apply these same principles of spousal protection from Exodus 21:10-11 to Christians 7.
The Old Testament was not a perfect system, but God worked through it to prepare people for the arrival of His Son.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.