Holy Women, Holy Words, Holy War: Investigating the Use of Military Motifs in the Prayer Songs of Women in Scripture

It turns out that the raucous Republican primary debates may have an effect on the songs sung  in some churches.1 On February 18, 2016, Baptist News Global posted an interview with Brian McLaren regarding his songwriting ministry and especially his recent re-wording of Sabine Baring-Gould’s 1865 hymn, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” “I had started a rewrite of Onward, Christian Soldiers lyrics awhile back,” McLaren said in an email to BNG. “But after watching one of the Republican presidential … debates and hearing several candidates in one breath speak of Christian faith and Jesus and in the next breath speak of carpet bombing and the like, I felt it was time to finish some alternative lyrics.”2 Baring-Gould’s hymn begins:

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before!
Christ the royal Master leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see His banner go!
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

McLaren’s first verse reads:

Onward, all disciples, in the path of peace,
Just as Jesus taught us, love your enemies
Walk on in the Spirit, seek God’s kingdom first,
Let God’s peace and justice be your hunger and your thirst!
Onward, all disciples, in humility
Walk with God, do justice, love wholeheartedly.

One week after Baptist News Global posted its interview with McLaren, Russell Moore, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, posted on his blog an article titled, “Are Our Hymns Too Warlike?”4 Moore argues that in many hymns and choruses “the warfare imagery is derived not from our hymnbooks but from our Bibles.”5 Moore notes that some of those sympathetic to McLaren’s views reject the Old Testament narrative and the pervasive Holy War metaphor of the Hebrew Scriptures. And I suggest here that women’s voices play no small role in the Holy War tradition surfacing in in both testaments.

HOLY WAR AND THE SONGS OF DEBORAH, HANNAH, AND MARY

Moore’s comments serve as a point of departure for briefly identifying the frequency of military motifs in the prayer-songs of Scripture with special concern for the songs of women—words that many in the emergent and/or egalitarian movements would not question. In the Old Testament narrative, figures like Miriam, Deborah, and Hannah liberally employ violent, Holy War imagery. And the New Testament narrative launches with the same frame of thought dominating Mary’s Magnificat.

Tremper Longman notes that, “the Divine Warrior theme is pervasive. Literally, it is used from Genesis to Revelation.”6 William Klassen observes similarly stating that, “the history of God’s people could be told from the standpoint of the Messianic war. It could also be told from the perspective of God himself being the Warrior who overrules all that humans do.”7 Longman provides a brief overview of Holy War and Divine Warrior imagery in the Old Testament, noting Deuteronomy 7 and 20, 1 Samuel 23 and Joshua 6. The prayer songs of Moses (Exod 15:1-18; Deut 32:1-43), Miriam (Exod 15:21), and David (2 Sam 22/Ps 18; Pss 2, 110, et al.) likewise reflect militant imagery. These pre-exilic historical texts establish a frame of thought for the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, where Longman observes the connection between the Day of Yahweh and the concept of Holy War surfacing together in Isaiah 9, 13, 22; Joel 1, 2; Zephaniah 1; et al.8 Longman concludes that, “salvation and judgment are two halves of the same great warring activity of Yahweh.”9 The Old Testament authors frequently present a military motif, but Klassen argues that in the Jewish mindset hopes for militaristic conquest or success find their fullest expression in Messiah’s war, the war to end all wars.10

This paper identifies the unique Holy War language and imagery in the prayer-songs of three women in Scripture: Deborah (Judges 5), Hannah (1 Sam 2:1-11), and Mary (Luke 1:46-55). The goal of this research is to identify how the situations of these women compelled them to portray themselves as participating in a meta-narrative of Holy War. I suggest that Holy War is so pervasive in Scripture that viewed together Deborah, Hannah, and Mary not only employed militant imagery, they expanded the traditional scope of Holy War to include activity unique to the female gender, viz. child-bearing. The Holy War metaphor is thus too pervasive to remove from our hymnody if our hymnody is to accurately reflect Scripture.

DEBORAH’S SONG OF PRAISE UPON VICTORY IN BATTLE (JUDGES  5)

Deborah, wife of Lappidoth, judged Israel during the days when Jabin reigned over Canaan in Hazor. Jabin’s army was commanded by Sisera, oppressing Israel for twenty years (Judges 4:3). Deborah exhorted Barak, son of Abinoam, to gather troops from Zebulun and Naphtali and advance against Sisera. Deborah exhorted Barak, “Arise! For this is the day in which the LORD has given Sisera into your hands; behold, the LORD has gone out before you” (Judges 4:14).

Deborah’s song in Judges 5 plays a formative role in the Holy War tradition of the Hebrew Bible.11 Her task in Israel’s deliverance from Jabin was primarily that of speech, first prophecy and then poetic praise. In Judges 4, she exhorted Barak to organize troops and fight;12 Judges 5 is Deborah’s song reflecting first on the LORD’s power and then His work through Barak and Jael, the intermediate agents through whom the LORD delivered His people. These two themes are explored in what follows.

The Lord’s deeds as the ultimate agent in Holy War

Deborah described the LORD’s entrance into the battle as the actual beginning of the fight. He is the warrior-God taking up arms against His foes. Webb writes that, “the main theme of the song is ‘the righteous acts’ of the Lord himself, who went forth as Israel’s champion and overwhelmed his enemies (and Israel’s) by unleashing the powers of heaven against them.”13

In the Hebrew Bible, cataclysm and alteration of natural phenomena frequently signal the LORD’s personal entrance into the depressed situation of His people (e.g., Exod 19:16-20; Ps 18:14; 29:3-7,  10-11;  68:7-8;  97:2-5;  144:5-9;  Jer  10:13;  Ezek  21:8-13;  Hag  2:4-6).14 And  Deborah’s  lyrics in Judges 5:4-5 follow suit. She addressed the LORD in praise noting that when He marched to the battlefield,  “the earth quaked,  the heavens also dripped,  Even the clouds dripped water. The mountains quaked at the presence of the LORD, This Sinai, at the presence of the LORD, the God of Israel” (Judges 5:4-5).15

Deborah proclaimed that the earth, heavens, clouds and mountains were “moved” in some fashion as the LORD approached to fight the kingdom of Jabin and his captain Sisera.

The ancient rural watering hole was akin to the modern office water cooler, and Deborah understood that in years to come the LORD’s victory over the Canaanites would yet be the “gossip” of the day, writing, “At the sound of those who divide flocks among the watering places, There they shall recount the righteous deeds of the LORD, The righteous deeds for His peasantry in Israel. Then the people of the LORD went down to the gates” (Judges 5:11). Deborah’s poetic repetition of the righteous (deeds) of the LORD heightens the importance of how the following construct phrase ֵ(“for His peasantry in Israel”) should be interpreted.16 Deborah pictured the LORD as the warrior, Israel as the beneficiary of His might.

The Lord’s use of Human agency in Holy War

The narrative of Judges 4 details God’s activity by means of an unlikely hero, Jael wife of Heber the Kenite. Deborah told Barak that a woman would deliver Israel (Judges 4:9), and in the balance of Judges 5, Deborah reviewed her own role in the deliverance and celebrated the LORD’s victory through Jael, Barak and those who fought with him. Deborah understood herself to be the LORD’s chosen spokesperson to deliver Israel from Jabin King of Canaan and Sisera the chief of his army.17  In  Judges  5:12  Deborah wrote:  “Awake,  awake,  Deborah;  Awake,  awake,  sing a  song! Arise, Barak, and take away your captives O son of Abinoam.” The LORD used Deborah to initiate the battle, and through her hymn of praise to reflect upon His faithfulness to Israel in their victory.

Having described her own role in the battle, in Judges 5:23 Deborah cursed the people of Meroz, “because they did not come to the help of the LORD, To the help of the LORD against the warriors” While the location of Meroz is unknown, its spiritual posture was not, reflecting the reluctance of Rueben, Gilead, Dan and Asher. Analyzing the conflict among the tribes and the failure of some strategically positioned northern tribes to participate in the skirmish is beyond the scope of this paper.18 In view here is Deborah’s statement that those who answered Barak’s call to fight assisted the LORD in battle against the Canaanites. Deborah’s description of the battle against Sisera and the Canaanites inverts the expected rubric of the ָhelper in

Holy War contexts. In those, God is exclusively the party providing assistance, humanity receiving His

aid.19 The psalmists frequently used ָרה ְז ע and always to describe the LORD as the One able to aid His

people (e.g., Pss 22:20; 27:9; 35:2; 40:14; 44:27; 46:2; 60:13; 70:2; 71:12; 94:17; 108:13). Psalm 38:23

typifies the occurrences of ָרה ְז ע

in the Psalms: ֽתי ִ ָע ּתשּו

ָ֗ני אדֹ

ל ֶע ְז ָר ִ ֑תי

ָשה ֥חּו  (“Make haste to help me, O

Lord, my salvation!”). Never do the psalmists aver their strength to assist the LORD in fighting their

enemies. Isaiah uses ָרה ְז ע four times (10:3; 20:6; 31:1, 2), indicating in each writing that any source

of help but the LORD would prove a false security. Deborah’s unique paradigm of ָרה ְז ע

humanity’s role in Holy War.

emphasizes

In Judges 4:9 Deborah prophesied to Barak that Sisera would be sold into a woman’s hand. Deb- orah’s statement was ultimately fulfilled by Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite. Deborah celebrated Jael with the climactic lyrics: “She (Jael) reached out her hand for the tent peg, And her right hand for the workmen’s hammer. Then she struck Sisera, she smashed his head; And she shattered and pierced his temple” (Judges 5:26). In Judges 5:26, four active third person feminine verbs (ַחץ ָמ, ַחק ָמ, ַלם ָה, ַלף ָח ) are arranged in staccato fashion, grammatically portraying the series of decisive moves Jael undertook to execute Sisera as he slept. Though Deborah celebrated Jael as the conqueror of Sisera, Robert C. Boling observes that, “Jael’s deed is presented as a part of Yahweh’s victory.”20

Deborah’s song exemplifies the Holy War rubric surfacing repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible. She recognized God’s faithfulness to His over-matched and oppressed people and called Israel to respond in faith. Deborah’s female prophetic voice in Judges 4–5 accentuates the concept of Holy War for Israel. She celebrated the LORD’s mighty acts through His people—especially Jael and Barak—as they assisted the LORD in delivering Israel from the  Canaanites.

HANNAH’S SONG OF PRAISE AT  THE DEDICATION OF SAMUEL (1 SAM 2:1-11)

Holy War imagery frames Hannah’s song of praise, too, but Hannah sings of the LORD’s military might at the dedication of her son, Samuel. Hannah offered a unique perspective of Holy War, expanding the theme beyond Miriam or Deborah before her. Hannah’s language in 1 Samuel 2:1-4 and 9-10 parallels many psalms, and could have been spoken by David after one of his military victories. Between 1 Samuel 2:1-4 and 2:9-10, Hannah—from a uniquely female perspective—described the LORD’s military might. He is the LORD who alone enables the barren to give birth, demonstrating authority over life and death at every stage.

Holy War language in the introduction of Hannah’s prayer

Three phrases in 1 Samuel 2:1-4 reflect imagery written also in Israel’s war songs. First, in 1 Samuel 2:1 Hannah wrote, “My horn is exalted in the LORD” In the Hebrew Bible, ֶרן ק (horn) is employed both literally and metaphorically. The literal uses include plural references where it is used in the books of Moses to designate the horns of an altar associated with Israel’s cult (e.g., Exod 27:2; 29:12; Lev 4:7,  18, 25, 30, 34).21 The metaphorical use of ֶרן ֶק, derives from the fact that in battle,