Divinity Tamed
God of vengeance, O LORD, God of vengeance, shine forth. Psalm 94:1 Robert Alter
Vengeance – Robert Alter’s translation comes with a footnote. “This boldly aggressive characterization of God, ‘el naqamot, which occurs only here, is fudged by the modern translations that render it in mitigating language as ‘God of retribution.’ As in many psalms of supplication, to which this poem is roughly allied, the speaker is filled with rage at the dominance of injustice in the world and exhorts God to manifest a spectacular appearance (‘shine forth’) in order to exact grim vengeance against the perpetrators of evil.”[1] But a quick look at a dozen or so English Bibles shows that most of them do translate nāqāmot as “vengeance.” “Avenging,” “punish,” and “revenge” are used sparingly. Nevertheless, Alter’s point is valid. As a general rule, we’re a bit squeamish about description of YHVH that emphasizes anger. We’ve been trained to think of God as the benevolent Father, not as the bloodthirsty warrior. Apparently the psalmist had a much larger view. His God was benevolent, but also the avenger of the helpless and the God who had no qualms about destroying the wicked. It seems to me that we need to recall such a God. If injustice was rampant in the times of the psalmist, how much more so today? ‘el nāqāmot is needed more than ever.
Perhaps you noted something else about this unusual description. nāqāmot is a plural word. The psalmist does write that God (singular) is the God of singular vengeance. Oh, no! God is the God of plural vengeance. The verb in the sentence (yāpaʿ – shine forth) is singular, but the adjectival preposition is plural. We must add the fact that this is not only the single occurrence of this Hebrew phrase, it is also grammatically incorrect (perhaps deliberately so). What could this mean? Can I suggest that a single act of vengeance is insufficient. What the psalmist desires is a God who so powerfully manifests vengeance against the wicked that it is as if hundreds of lightening bolts slap the earth from the sky all at once. Vengeance cannot trickle out across the world. It must be overwhelming “shock and awe.” A small correction here, a righteous verdict there is not sufficient. Evil must be utterly destroyed. The perpetrators cannot simply die of old age, content in their corruption. They must be struck down with divine fury. What we need is not the slow deliberation of the courts. What we need is Sodom and Gomorrah. Judgment—final and very, very public! Perhaps we need bolder prayers; prayers enlisting God’s wrath over the man’s inhumanity. Yes, Lord, strike them down. Come in Your fury. Release the pent-up rage of thousands of years and destroy these evil men! Explode in multiple displays.
If these words resonate, then I need to add a caution, a very serious caution. It seems to me that there is a reason why this odd plural word occurs only once in the Tanakh. That’s because of andralamousia. Sodom and Gomorrah wiped away everyone. This kind of vengeance sweeps up the righteous with the wicked. It is God’s extermination mode—the Deluge, the final Judgment. THE END! If you pray for ‘el nāqāmot, don’t expect to survive unharmed.
Topical Index: ‘el nāqāmot, vengeance, andralamousia, Psalm 94:1
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible Volume 3: Writings, p. 224, fn. 1.
And we must also be reminded that such vengeance is only the proper characteristic of God’s antithetical work, made necessary by his consistent standard of justice against all unrighteousness. This is the very reason that salvation is found in no other work than that of God’s own unremitting love, in which both just vengeance and unrequited love are assumed for those who will come to him to be made/formed to be his people. This is no venture man to is ever to presume as his own merit or conditional moral ability; NO… he must likewise assume God’s own work and act of salvation made possible in/through/by God’s Christ/annointed Messiah in spirit and truth… Jesus the Christ, the only begotten Son of God, filled and fitted for the mission of righteousness— and vengeance— with grace and and truth.
Here and in many places in the Tanakh the idea of YHWH being a Warrior God, full of wrath and fury, vengeance and retribution, bloodshed and destruction is not only proffered and loudly proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets, but one could draw the conclusion that they intentionally hyperbolized them throughout Israel’s history. They certainly are not an accurate description of YHWH’s character as described by Exodus 34:6, but rather, one could argue, the fanciful inventions of a once small, weak, but imaginative people, who otherwise would have had no hope of survival in a world of violence from the surrounding militaristic despotic regimes. So did they, out of necessity, simply invent a comparable deity who would war on their behalf and rescue them from certain death and destruction, as well as the annihilation of their hopes, dreams and promises?
What if the newly released slaves from Egypt desperate for a god like all their terrifying militant neighbors begged, borrowed and stole from the local Deity Delicatessen in order to create a composite fearful god to even the odds of survival? And on par with conventional practice they needed to trump their competitors gods in fierceness, power and blood thirst so they added omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. Checkmate. Perhaps part of what we have in the Old Testament is simply a record of the Jews hysterical hubris and haggard hope of a god of supreme violence, vitriol and victory.
What if all the accounts of YHWH’s miraculous military intervention at the Red Sea, Jericho and Ai were hyperbole intended to put “the fear of God” into its enemies. The first “psych ops” warfare propaganda program worked amazingly well…sometimes.
What if all these claims are nothing more than a beleaguered people’s braggadocio, bombast, bluster and religious/political propaganda and not an accurate representation of the character and essence of YHWH?
Perhaps our inability to reconcile the reality of a loving, merciful and compassionate God with the vengeful, wrathful Warrior God of the Hebrew poets and prophets is a fools errand and we have been duped by our own need for tradition, reverence, Scriptural inerrancy, combined with our desire for empirical coherence and our species innate naive gullibility.
And in a final what if -what if over the last dozen plus years of daily study with Skip I have “suddenly” become a heretic?
Will I, upon my demise, be cast into an imaginary hell by the hands of this very same imaginary angry, vengeful and punishing Warrior god?