#31 The Divine in History: Judges 2 and 2 Kings 3 Compared

The biblical texts of Judges 2 and 2 Kings 3 are comparable in some ways to the Mesha Inscription. Each text justifies its view of reality through its religion. Wars were understood to be won or lost because of the gods. The Mesha Inscription uses its god to attribute more power to the king. While in 2 Kings 3 God fights alongside the Israelites through the prophet. In Judges 2 the events are understood to be the fault of the Israelites for not worshipping God.

The social cultural context of Judges 2 is that the Israelites had recently come out of Egypt. Which meant that they still interpreted their situation in a way that God was necessary to win the battle. In 2 Kings 3 God has been forgotten to some degree by the kings. They had their own gods but when they were faced with defeat they turned to the God of their past. They probably realized that at the very least it would help rally the troops. Whereas in the Mesha Inscription god is understood to be the decider of the country’s situation. There is a great deal of deference paid to Chemosh. As Chemosh punished the kingdom of Moab for many year and then told it to rise up.

In Judges 2 the events are theologized by looking back at Israel’s history. Defeat is understood to be impossible because of the events of their history. When they left Egypt, they believed that God brought them out. When they met with defeat it was theologized in order to be understood. The Israelites decided that they must not all be fully following God because if they were following God they would not have lost the battle. In 2 Kings 3 the possibility of defeat is attributed to God and thus they turn to God that they might not lose the war. To these people God was obstinate while God was not the one they served they realized their gods were not good enough so they turned to the historical God of their peoples. In the Mesha Inscription talks about how Moab was imprisoned for many years this is attributed to the god Chemosh because of his anger. But when Mesha began to rebuild the cities Chemosh told him to attack his enemies.

Reading these texts and seeing that it was common for success and failure to be attributed to their gods is interesting. Seeing how common this is it makes one wonder if at times the kings had different motives. Such as trying to show how failure was not their fault while also showing in victory that God was on their side. It may make us more skeptical about the truthfulness of these texts. But each text seems correct in one way they each understand that all things are in the power of God. Thus even if Yahweh was not involved in history the way these texts suggest it is likely that he has intervened in similar ways.