PARASHAT HAAZINU PRESENTS us with startling contradictions: Moses sings of God as faithful and nurturing, but also as violent and vengeful. The images of God afflicting “the suckling as well as the aged” and firing arrows “drunk with blood” is disturbing at best. Where does this imagery come from, and how can it be reconciled with images of God as a tender caretaker?
Biblical portrayals of God as a warrior have deep roots in the traditions of the ancient Near East. As soon as warfare entered ancient Near Eastern culture (probably around 3000 B. C.E.), warrior gods rose to prominence throughout the region. Even a deity like Ishtar (sometimes referred to as Inanna), an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility, took on a secondary role as a warrior. Likewise, epic poems related how Anat, the Canaanite goddess of love and war, rescues her brother Baal by killing the god Mot. According to the ancients, female and male warrior gods served as patrons to kings, who in turn carried out their warfare in the name of, and with assistance from, their patron deity. And Israel, by worshiping God as its divine ruler as well as the patron deity of its kings, affirmed that God was both willing and able to engage in bloody combat against all enemies.
Moses’ Song in Haazinu demonstrates the violence that, in an ancient context, formed part of the image of God as warrior and king: when Israel rebelled against its divine ruler, honor demanded that the people be punished. God, however, carries out Israel’s punishment by bringing foreign armies against the land—an event that could easily be interpreted as God’s defeat at the hands of a foreign monarch and his deity. Therefore, God acts “for fear of the taunts of the foe” (v. 27) and destroys the foreign army as well.
The biblical model of divine kingship affirms God’s care, guidance, justice, and certainly God’s power. But ancient kings were also expected to demonstrate their military prowess (hence God’s title Adonai Tz’vaot, God of Armies). In Shirat Haazinu, this view of God as a warrior-king is tempered by images of the same God giving birth to and nurturing the people.
—-Julie Galambush