Society’s Essentials (1)

In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, Lord, have me dwell in safety.   Psalm 4:8  NASB

In peace – David was a man of war.  That’s why he was not allowed to build the Temple.  But even a man of war desires something other than war.  Peace.  Not a common occurrence in the history of humanity.  The Greeks believed that peace (eirḗnē) was simply the intermission between war (pólemos) and war was the common state of the world.  This Greek idea stands in opposition to shālôm, the Hebraic idea of well-being that was and is the intended condition of humanity.  shālôm is the gift of YHVH.  Men desire it because it is built into their spiritual DNA even if they are not aware of its source.  David, a man of war, understood the true objective—peace—and longed to experience it as the usual state of existence.  A man of war still needs a place to lie down and sleep.  Unfortunately, the broken world rarely allows such a place.

In his book Civilization and Its Enemies, Lee Harris emphasizes the fragility of our experience of tranquility by pointing out that every society, in order to be a society, must deal with the issues of peace and war.

“The first duty of all civilization is to create pockets of peaceableness in which violence is not used as a means of obtaining one’s objective; the second duty is to defend these pockets against those who try to disrupt their peace, either from within or from without.  Yet the values that bring peace are the opposite values from those that promote military prowess, and this poses a riddle that very few societies have been able to solve and then only fitfully.”[1]

What men of war know is that the enemies of peace cannot be conquered with good wishes and tepid diplomacy.  If the enemy wishes to destroy the society, then . . .

“There is only one way: you must fight back; if your enemy insists on a war to the finish, then you have no choice but to fight such a war.  It is your enemy, and not you, who decides what is a matter of life and death.”[2]  Harris rightly observes: “Only those who have mastered ruthlessness can defend their society from the ruthlessness of others.”[3]

The man of war who wrote poetry knew that only God could provide lasting peace.  Was that because God is also ruthless?  How often we forget or gloss over the wrath of God toward His enemies.  Divine diplomacy and appeasement do not seem to be characteristics of the God who demands recognition of His sovereignty.  Perhaps we need to reconsider the Hebraic meaning of Yeshua’s statement: “Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor fearful” (John 14:27 NASB).  What kind of peace is it that is not of this world?  Have you imagined it as an extension of Greek thinking?  Are you prepared to view “my peace I give to you” as the extermination of God’s enemies—as divine ruthlessness?

Topical Index: peace, eirḗnē, shālôm, ruthlessness, Lee Harris, Psalm 4:8

[1] Lee Harris, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History (Free Press, 2004), p. xv.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. xvi.