2 Biblical Lessons on Foreign Policy and Statism
Jericho today.
2. Foreign Policy
The basic principles of statecraft aren’t new. You can learn from the Bible that people understood four thousand years ago things that America’s current leaders have forgotten today.
When the two Israelite spies sent to assess Jericho’s defenses spoke to their informant Rahab, she told them how Israelite strength, determination, and thus credibility — the people of Jericho had heard how God favored the Israelites — had already determined the outcome of the battle. I know you shall win, she explained,
Because dread of you has fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land are quaking before you. (Joshua 2)
But after the great Israelite victory at Jericho, Joshua became over-confident and so accepted bad intelligence that only a small force would be needed to take the city of Ai. He sent just one-tenth of his troops. But as a result, the Israelites lost that battle. Even though our casualties were only 36 men out of 3000, the troops panicked and ran. It was a self-inflicted defeat.
Joshua understood the danger in this event:
O Lord, what can I say after Israel has turned tail before its enemies? When the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land hear of this, they will turn upon us and wipe out our very name from the earth. (Joshua 7:8-9).
But rather than take responsibility for his error, Joshua or others in the leadership concluded that a man had stolen three items from the looting of Jericho that were supposed to be consecrated for God. That was the equivalent in that time of making a video that insulted a religion. The thief and all of his family were stoned to death.
Well, about four thousand years later, what do Americans expect is going to happen with incidents like Benghazi, not to mention enthroning America’s enemies in Egypt, Tunisia, and perhaps Syria? As everyone in the Middle East understands, shows of weakness — and even worse of self-flagellation, apology, and the loss of self-confidence — only persuade your enemies to hit you harder.
In the Biblical case, the war went much better after the scapegoat was purged. Perhaps having found an explanation for the defeat restored morale. And renewed victories — starting with the conquest of Ai by the entire Israelite army — rebuilt credibility with the enemy and demoralized them.
The United States faces the problem of credibility but it isn’t going to solve the issue by stoning a video-maker but by having a leader who understands the nature of the enemy, that leadership trumps apology, and that America’s enemies may be quaking but mainly with laughter.
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Image courtesy shutterstock / Mike Flippo
Cross-posted from Rubin Reports
You completely missed the important part of the foreign policy lesson. It isn’t a foreign policy lesson. The lessons were: don’t steal/lie from/to God and what seems minor to us can have disastrous effects (you can’t win unless God wants you to).
Still I wonder by what authority the thief was stoned, seeing as the Torah never commands the death penalty for theft.
Maybe idolatry or rebellion. (2 Samuel 15:23 “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou (Saul) hast rejected the word of the LORD, He hath also rejected thee…”)
Achan was given an opportunity to come clean and confess, i.e. repent of his theft. However, next morning, when the ‘accursed things’ hidden in his tent were revealed, Achan confessed to taking them against Joshua’s orders, by then too late to avoid the penalty of death. His family was also found ‘guilty,’ the sin of the father bringing destruction upon them all, like it or not.
Proverbs 29:1 “He, that being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”
” His family was also found ‘guilty,’ the sin of the father bringing destruction upon them all, like it or not.”
Well, I submit the family – or at least famly members – coluded with the disobediance (knew of and hid the theft) and therefore condemned themselves.
Had some member of the family come forward with the stolen goods the story might have had a different ending.
“Still I wonder by what authority the thief was stoned, seeing as the Torah never commands the death penalty for theft.”
His theft violated the ban on Cannanite treasures (most likely graven images made of precious metal) and caused the death of 36 Israelite soldiers.
Achan would have been stoned for his idolatry. Treason (a conspiracy of silence by his family) aggregated his condemnation.
Errata: “aggravated” for aggregated.
His stoning was for violation of Sabbath (unjustified carrying) as the battle was on Shabbat. Meam Loez says this is the reason for punishment of stoning.
He actually repented and his execution was part of his cleansing process for the sins involved.
Taking personal responsibility is abhorrent to the left, as well as to their Islamic counterparts. This is because total control is their goal, but Judeo- Christian underpinnings stresses personal responsibility. Not only that, but placing ones faith in ‘kings’ has always led to disaster, so the people of the Book were encouraged to rely on themselves.In a nutshell, a form of capitalism was encouraged, but a nanny state wasn’t. You get the drift…
Moreover, a firm hand against ones enemies is all over the Bible, in order to keep the peace. Alas, western leaders are terrified to counter the truth, dhimmifying the west in the process. Hence, Sharia Law is running rampant and roughshod all over the globe, westerners too terrified to stop them – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/09/09/shariah-law-enforcers-continue-unimpeded-westerners-terrified-to-counter-them-the-redgreen-alliance-assures-their-eventual-western-triumph-if-not-stopped-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Without reversing course there will be scores more dead and blood will flow unimpeded.
Western leaders are NOT too terrified of islam to resist. They admire the CONTROL they exercise over their veried populations.
They are currently standing back and ALLOWING the subjugation of entire populations because they believe they will be able to reign in the beast when the time comes to take control from the beast of islam.
Just as in Iran they may be in for a rude awakening.
As seen over 2,000 years ago, the more leaders strayed from God, the more perverse they become. Look in the Book of Wisdom 1:1-5
1 Love uprightness you who are rulers on earth, be properly disposed towards the Lord and seek him in simplicity of heart;
2 for he will be found by those who do not put him to the test, revealing himself to those who do not mistrust him.
3 Perverse thoughts, however, separate people from God, and power, when put to the test, confounds the stupid.
4 Wisdom will never enter the soul of a wrong-doer, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin;
5 for the holy spirit of instruction flees deceitfulness, recoils from unintelligent thoughts, is thwarted by the onset of vice.
The Book Wisdom chapter 5 I believe
“5 On that day someone righteous, full of confidence, will stand before those who oppressed him and made light of his labors. 2 They will be amazed to see him safe and will tremble with terrible fear. 3 Then they will regret what they did, and groaning in anguish they will say to each other:
4 This is the one we made fun of. We thought he was a joke. What fools we were! We thought he was crazy to live the way he did, and when he died, we didn’t honor him. 5 And now here he is, one of God’s own children, with a place of his own among God’s people. 6 We were the ones who wandered off the right road. We never lived in the light of righteousness; we never caught the first glimmer of its light. 7 All our lives we wandered across unmarked deserts, instead of following the road which the Lord wanted us to travel. And this lawlessness led us to ruin. 8 We were so proud of ourselves—we bragged about how rich we were—and now, what good has it done us? 9 All those things are gone now; they have disappeared like a shadow, like something you hear and then forget.”
And this is the road of all the nations including Israel as we see in history. This story of Jesus he say he came for the sinner not the righteous in their own eyes and Saul must have read these words from the book of Wisdom and see he was the Chief of all these sinners putting to death Stephen when heaven came to him so Saul died and took on the name of Paul and recorded how only by miracle and the sinner become holy before God on step at a time
I honestly can’t believe that anyone looks to the old testament for foreign policy or leadership lessons.
Far out.
Don’t forget to dash those heads good and hard.
“I honestly can’t believe that anyone looks to the old testament for foreign policy or leadership lessons.”
Same kind of wierdos who would think that the obscure ramblings of some mythical 2,500 year old chinese general could help them defeat a modern army or close a business deal. Go figure.
Show me where western countries today defer their foreign policy to confucius or sun tzu. That would obviously be ridiculous.
After the military setback at Ai, Achan is discovered to be the root cause of Israel’s defeat. Joshua links the traitor’s name “Achan” to the Hebrew verb for
trouble: “akar” to stir up, disturb, trouble.
The idolatrous King Ahab made a similar (false) linkage to the prophet Elijah:
And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him: ‘Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel?’
And he answered: I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and thou hast followed Baalim.”–I Kings 18:17-18
As Achan and Ahab discovered, to vex Israel is bring down G*d’s judgment on yourself. Is there a foreign policy lesson to be drawn here? If a wicked ruler were to desire his own country’s destruction, what better means would serve his purpose than to trouble Israel?
It would appear that mankind of all or no faith had no problems with that “dashing head” thing over the last 6000 years or so…but nice try.
Technology has all the answers we need now, correct?…advancements designed to ‘dash heads’ flatter and in greater numbers (including inside the womb) is a big improvement over all that crap recorded in the Old Testament…sarc/off
In England – a POST Christian country – they have now made it legal to withdraw care to elderly patients. Withdrawing care means they cease to give food, water and baths to their patients. They literally die an angonizing death of starvation and dihydration lying in their own filth. 60,000 patients are on this “Pathway” (pathway to death) care.
That’s a MUCH more humane way of thinning the population, don’t you think?
///SARC!!!///
We also have an interesting lesson from the last few weeks of Torah readings. Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams correctly as the sign of a famine, and sets up a planned economy. And then, in Genesis 47:18-21, we read this:
I understand there’s another popular book about government planning leading to serfdom.
According to the text, God informed Joshua of the reason for the defeat, indicating that someone had disobeyed the instructions about the destruction of Jericho. Once the guilty party had been identified, it was normal to stone him because his disobedience was responsible for the deaths of those lost at Ai. He had steadfastly refused to come forward or acknowledge what he had done until he was designated. His family shared in his guilt, presumably because it would have been impossible to keep something hidden in the tent without others’ knowledge.
I see two lessons for today:
1) Actions have consequences — Achan’s disobedience led to the death of others in no way involved in his act.
2) Inaction has consequences — Achan’s family apparently went along with him, and did nothing.
Why worry about out-of-date historical texts when the left is making History of their own?
Because history repeats when the lessons are forgotten.
However if the Jews think that the Messiah Jesus Christ
is going to allow them to rebuild a temple that He had
destroyed by Rome with the help of the Jews themselves
then (as history shows) Israel stands against God Himself
(another repeat) who is once again empowering their enemies
to stop them. Jesus Christ is the new temple accept Him
and the temple is built permanently within each accepting
individual. = The Kingdom is within you. Self government
can only happen with this internal God produced government.
We hold these truths to be SELF evident that ALL men,,,,
is a testament to God most high and our founders KNEW THAT.
The USA is headed to recreate 70A.D. Jerusalem here, because
we have walked away from our faith and allowed the godless
to rule instead of the self governed people of God.
Yikes!
but how you know that Jesus will not come landing on Mount of Olives and earth crack and he say
“Ok time to build the Father in heaven temple now”. who know? this is above my retard divine love smile
Because when you read your Bible “IN CONTEXT” that is
impossible. If you believe that your believing in
fairy tails.
God say Cain’s bloodless sacrifice was worthy of rejection but Able red meat sacrifice was pleasing to God. Maybe when Jesus return he bring holy temple with red meat offering again and say as he once did: Do not make THE HOUSE of My Father a den of thieves. Who know? Bloodless offering like Cain do is thievery in the eyes of God. This is why real Christian drink the blood of jesus and eat his flesh not like Cain bloodless phony memory offering
God look to make people holy and Able knew how to please God unlike Cain who got jealous of his brother
Let’s get to the good stuff … the New Covenant:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Thessalonians+2:11&version=NKJV
And the context
1 Thessalonians 2
“6 We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. 7 Instead, we were like young children[a] among you.
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. 9 Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe. 14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.[b]”
Pray all of the men of the Abraham faith become brothers in peace.
I have been reading the text, “Defending the Human Spirit: Jewish Law’s vision for a moral society” by Rabbi Goldstein. There’s an excellent chapter on “political power” (numerous points as applicable today as in former, earlier times)
We should have it so good: not only does our government command all of those things and more through law and regulation, but it also takes far more than 10% of our income, an important distinction because very few people actually raise crops but are instead paid for their labors. Some studies even say that we are taxed more heavily than any people ever in the past. So only 10% would seem like a pretty good deal.
There was no Obama in those days and everyone did what they wanted to.
Before Obama, many were starving with nothing to eat, and slept on the floor.
Now, after Obama, all have plenty to eat and drink and sleep in comfortable beds.
Thanks to soaking the rich, next year we should be even happier and wealthier!
Let’s hear it for the Son of the Sun God Barak Hussein Obama!
May he live forever!