In
Pastoral Essays in Honor of Lawrence
Boadt, Reading the Old Testament, we find an essay by Mark S. Smith titled ‘Why is a Loving God so Angry in the Bible?’
In his essay, Smith outlines a problem for readers of the Old Testament: the
depiction of a wrathful and cruel God in the Old Testament. The problem is
evident—how does one reconcile the idea of a loving God in texts that portray God
as a vengeful God?
The
idea of thinking of the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New
Testament in binary ways, that is, the former being a wrathful God and the
latter being a loving God is debunked by Smith. The notion of a wrathful God is
mentioned several times in the New Testament, as one can find the notions of a
loving God in the Old Testament as well. Yahweh’s love for Israel is mentioned
in, Deut 7:8;Hos 3:1; Kgs 10:9; Chr 2:10; Ps 47:5; Isa 43:4; Jer 31:3; Mal 1:2
and many more parts of the Old Testament. In a similar way, the New Testament
talks about the wrath of God in Jn 3:36; Rom 1:18; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6; Rom 2:5;
Thess 1:10; Rev 6:16-17; 11-18; 16:19; Mt 13:41-43; 49; 18:34-35.
Instead, Smith points to the heart of the
problem by challenging the notion of love and divine anger as two opposites,
and calls this perception ‘not biblical.’ Put simply, Smith argues that anger
cannot be labeled as bad. To do this, is to insert into an ancient text a modern
standard. Smith explains that, ‘authors of the scriptures did not view divine
love and divine anger as opposite emotions but as related emotions.’ For the
Israelite of the time, divine love and divine anger were part of the same
covenant explains Smith, ‘In Israel’s own religious context, divine love
represented God’s recognition of human fidelity to the covenantal relationship
with God, while divine anger aimed at Israelites commonly resulted from their
failure to keep their covenant relationship with God.’
To
truly understand this concept of divine anger; Smith goes on to explain the
origin of human anger within the context of the scriptures. He claims that anger
in the mind of scripture writers is link to several themes: subordination to authority,
protection of family and fierceness. Anger among humans is no different than
how the writers will portray the anger of God, claims Smith. Throughout
scripture God’s authority is compared to a disregarded husband or father, a
property owner who has been robbed, a defied political leader, or a spurned
covenant partner—in other to emphasize the authority that has been broken by God’s
subordinates. Idolatry and the breaking of The Law or religious violations are
also manifestations of the transgressions of God’s authority and therefore call
for his anger. God also manifests his anger at situations of social injustice
and at the maltreatment of the least of Israel as well. Divine anger explains
Smith, ‘is not simply a restoration of divine authority,’ however, ‘it is an
act of persuasion on God’s part, to remind Israel that God is Israel’s rightful
authority.’ In the mind of the ancient writer, divine anger is the declaration
of ownership by God that establishes Israel’s as its own—not expressing possession
but rather mutuality and oneness.
Understanding
how scripture writers thought of anger leads us to understand how anger is
connected to love, as two sides of the same covenant. Divine anger is a demand of ownership rooted
in oneness and covenant mutuality; it is a manifestation of fierceness—to put it
all on the line for a cause; divine anger represents the wellbeing of one’s own:
children, family, loved ones, and favored ones. To put it all together,
‘[divine anger is]…a powerful claim of divine concern for human suffering,’ Smith
claims.
Smith’s
essay identifies one of the greatest challenges in reading the Old Testament,
the problem of reconciling a loving God with a description of a vengeful God.
Not only does this problem have tremendous theological implications of how we
read and understand the Old Testament, but because of this, it also has
theological implications of who God is and how we can experience God based on
our understanding and perception of these texts. To this day, I know more
Catholics and Christians alike who speak of God in the Old Testament as a completely
different God than the God of the New Testament, or perhaps more frequently as
a God who is no longer to be studied or taken into consideration and therefore forgotten
altogether because the full revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament
outdates him.
This
problem is best communicated in one of the most angry and bloodiest depictions
of God in the Old Testament, the Book of Ezekiel. The Book of Ezekiel is
divided into three sections: Ezekiel 1-24 describes the oracles against Judah
and Jerusalem before 586 BC, Ezekiel 25-32 describes the oracles against
foreign nations and Ezekiel 33-48 describes the oracles of hope and restoration
for Judah. The book is situated in the fifth year of the exile in 593 BC. At
the time, Jews were found in Egypt and Palestine alike—no longer bound to one
particular location. (Boadt, 338) Ezekiel emerges as a unifying voice—that
extended further than a land, kinship or temple rituals. (Boadt, 339)
Ezekiel’s
God is full of anger. In chapter 6 God condemns Israel’s idolatry and proclaims
slaughtering Israel and scattering the bones, ‘I will lay the corpses of the
people of Israel in front of their idols; and I will scatter your bones around
your altars,’ Ez 6:5. In Chapter 8 God condemns
abominations in the temple where priests and elders were blaspheming God, he announces
that his wrath will be unstoppable and he will not know mercy, ‘I will act in
wrath, my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity,’ Ez 8:18. In chapter 11—13 God
condemns false prophets and counselors and calls for a wind to break out and a
deluge of rain to destroy all, ‘In my wrath I will make a stormy wind break
out, and in my anger there shall be a deluge of rain, and hailstone in wrath to
destroy it’ Ez 13:13. In chapter 16 God
calls Israel a prostitute and calls to stone her, ‘They (man who you slept
with)…shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to
pieces with their swords,’ Ez 16:40.
These
passages are gory and violent and these are only a few examples found in
Ezekiel. For anyone who reads these passages for the first time or does so in
isolation and without a context, the image of God must be difficult to
conceptualize. In Ezekiel 14, God’s judgment is justified, as God proclaims
that only those who are righteous will be saved, remembering Noah, Daniel and
Job. It is easy to interpret all of Ezekiel in the light of this passage. That
is, with the mind of righteous anger, divine wrath, or just judgment—where the
sinful many will be condemn but the holy few will be saved by their own
righteousness. After all, this is a theme throughout the scriptures and this
interpretation parallels the New Testament and the words of Jesus’ when he proclaims
that narrow is door of salvation for example. It also helps the reader depart
from the horrific blood thirst of God. This interpretation is also supported by
chapter 18, where Ezekiel highlights individual responsibility and God
proclaims individual righteousness and individual sinfulness, ‘It is only the
person who sins that shall die’ Eze 18: 4. This interpretation serves to
appease the notion of an unjust God but not of a violent and wrathful God
however.
The
problem becomes evident in this depiction of God in Ezekiel, and the question
resonates: ‘How can a loving God be so violent, cruel and vengeful?’ In the
past, my interpretation was limited to two approaches when I encounter passages
such as Ezekiel’s wrathful and vengeful God. The first, to interpret them in
the light of divine wrath, as we can see from Ezekiel 14 and 18, where God’s
wrath was limited to those that are sinful only and led to believe that his
punishment must be just and divine and therefore far beyond comprehension.
However,
this interpretation did not solve the problem that is the oxymoron of a loving
and vengeful God. A second interpretation I had when I encountered passages as
the ones found in the Book of Ezekiel was to see these texts in the light of
the New Testament, to have to emphasize the loving Jesus Christ, as the full
revelation of God, and trump a critical view of the Old Testament. The result
of this interpretation was to think of chastisement out of love. Often we have
heard these difficult texts to be aligned or compared to the images of a loving
father who must be stern to correct his children. As a father disciplines his son,
so does the God of the Old Testament chastises his children out of love. Needless
to say both of these interpretations never sufficed.
I
had not approach the text critically before and the understanding of anger for
the scripture writer was not something familiar to me before. Smith points to
the heart of the problem as he redirects my understanding of divine anger as it
is linked to the notion of human anger for the scripture writers. Anger was not
perceived as naturally bad in the scripture writer’s mind, instead it was the
opposite. In a time where war and strive were part of a daily experience, being
ready for combat was seemed as a value. God’s anger was perceived as the notion
of being ready to fight for the ultimate cause. Smith points to the vast
difference of how we come to understand anger bringing a new understanding to
scripture. Anger now is understood very differently than how anger was
perceived back in the time of the scripture writers. Whereas today anger seems
to be placed as a reaction and considered negative, one that yields to hate and
violence, this was not the case for the ancient writers. Anger and love were
not polar opposites for the scripture writers, in fact, they were related. As
mentioned, Smith refers to love and anger as two sides of the covenant, ‘God
shows love to those who keep the covenant and anger to those who don’t’ Ezekiel’s
God in many ways is showing anger as a manifestation of his love—of a deep
desire to restore the covenant with his people. As Smith states, the ‘…ultimate
aim at divine anger is not simply restoration of divine authority. It is an act
of persuasion of God’s part.’ Divine anger is a declaration of love—of
mutuality, of oneness, of a promise, a covenant. God’s violent words are approach
very differently for the writer at the time.
In
short, the God of Ezekiel can be read in two ways. Either, he is a maniac God
at the verge of unleashing all his infinite power in retribution for a people
who have failed him in all ways possible or as Smith’s suggests, as a God’s
whose anger is ‘a powerful claim of divine concern for human suffering.’ And so
the old question of, ‘What is God so angry?’ Turns out says more about our
‘modern sensitivities’ and the paradox that we place in the text, rather than
with the intentions of the writers at the time.
Reading
Smith’s interpretation of the anger of God—I come across understanding anger in
a completely different light. In our world view, anger is perceived negatively but
this is because it is automatically associated with violence and or hatred. However,
they are not same but far from it. Instead, I dare to say that the Old
Testament God and Smith’s insight help me understand the holiness of anger. There
is no holiness in violence or in hatred—but there is in anger. When anger stirs
us deeply—when it indignities us, when it moves us to action, when we feel
other’s pain and suffering—this anger is not only justified but it comes from
God. In other words, we are embodying God’s own displeasure and God’s own
anger. Jesus turns tables at the scene of merchants making money by invoking
people’s faith, how many times do we not feel indignant of false prophets,
faith-telemarketers, who at the cost of people’s faith are making money? Likewise,
God is moved by anger in Exodus, he hears the cry of his people and commissions
Moses to deliberate them. Does God move social-workers, politicians, and all
those who work for the greater good and welfare of all by the righteous anger
that is provoked out of the selfishness of few? Shall we not too feel anger at
the poor working conditions of many throughout the whole world? Are we not
called to liberate them from their condition? God is fill with anger when the
Law is broken. “For Thus says the Lord: The
foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as
yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” Lev 19:34. Is God’s patience not provoked
when we break the law and treat foreigners with animosity? Do we ourselves not
feel righteous anger when we see a group people treated differently based on
their place of origin, their social status, economic status, education, sexual
orientation, or race?
This
new understanding also shines light on my ministry and work. Often, because of
our modern values, we can see anger and automatically be turned off by it. We
often disengage if we are communicating with an angry person and this is
reasonable if things are escalating or if they are yielding to violence in any
form. However, it is true also, that anger it’s a call for disciples to engage
at its deepest core. The Book of Ezekiel, ultimately, it’s a book of pain: A
book that unfolds the deep pain that Yahweh feels for the turning away of his
people and the pain of his people as they feel forgotten in the midst of
suffering and hopelessness.
At
the time of the writer, the idea of a God who feels pain deeply was as foreign
to them, as the idea of a God that gets angry and loves at the same time is to
the modern reader. The Book of Ezekiel shows both of these. With no need to
provide a profound psychological analysis, where there is anger—there is pain.
In some way, people who express anger are expressing suffering, for it is much
easier to express anger which shows resilience and fierceness, than to express
pain, which shows vulnerability and dependence. Ezekiel, embodying the lonely
voice of a prophet, that is, carrying the message of Yahweh that is ignored or
much worse defied, is echoing in the mist of suffering, turn into your pain and
raise your dependence on God.
As
a teacher, interacting with high school students, anger is frequent and often
runs wild. I can see that often, this anger is projected or displaced, but
often the real issue is never at hand. It is finally when layers unfold, that
there is at the core, a source of pain and suffering. When that comes to the
light—Yahweh proclaims, ‘A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will
put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give
you a heart of flesh.’ Eze 36: 26. Ultimately, this is my take away from the
Book of Ezekiel and from ‘Why is a Loving
God so Angry in the Bible?’ the proclamation of dependence and
vulnerability from Yahweh to Israel. When students go to this place of hurting,
they can only rely on something bigger for healing. This is an experience that
seems to be true for anyone that experiences anger. For those that anger at
injustice, there is a pain for people that move them. When my students are
angry, there is hurting of some sort. When I become angry, I questioned my
hurting and I come to the encounter of a new heart.
It seems to me, that it is not
enough that we begin to question the assumption of anger as a negative trait.
For it is not. Furthermore, the God of Ezekiel shows us a deep pain for the
suffering of his people. We feel it too when we experience holy anger—God gives
us a heart of flesh. When people ask, Why is God so Angry? We can say, because
God cares deeply.
