Christian Pure

19 Bible Verses About Israel and War, Including the Ones Where God Fights Against It

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • In these passages God fights for Israel, and in others he fights against it — Jeremiah 21:5 has him joining the siege of Jerusalem himself, using the exodus phrases pointed the other way.
  • Judges 3:12 has the Lord strengthening a foreign king against Israel, which rules out reading every enemy of Israel as an enemy of God.
  • The prophets charge conduct rather than ancestry: Isaiah 13 indicts Babylon for arrogance, Habakkuk indicts an empire for building a city with blood.
  • Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3 end the subject with weapons converted into farm tools and the skill of war no longer taught.
  • Ephesians 6:12 keeps the military vocabulary and removes every human target from it.

In Scripture, God fights for his people in some passages and against them in others. Deuteronomy promises that the Lord goes with Israel’s army, and David tells Goliath that “the battle is the Lord’s.” Jeremiah, speaking to Jerusalem under siege, says that God himself will fight against the city, and Judges records the Lord strengthening a foreign king against Israel. These passages concern ancient Israel under its covenant with God; they do not say who is right in a modern…

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Bibliography (Click to show)

Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

The exemptions in Israel’s war law — a new house, a new vineyard, a new marriage — are at Deuteronomy 20:5-7.

The covenant penalties Leviticus 26:23-25 enforces are published in advance at Leviticus 26:14-22.

Isaiah calls Cyrus, a Persian king, the Lord’s anointed at Isaiah 45:1, four verses before Isaiah 45:7.

Zechariah 9:9, the verse before the disarmament, is quoted of Palm Sunday at Matthew 21:5.

Nothing on this page is a claim about any present-day conflict.

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