The Curse of Death in War
2012; Volume: 40; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0792-3910
Autores Tópico(s)Violence, Religion, and Philosophy
ResumoOf various forms of death that appear in Bible, a natural death is most common. There are also various kinds of unnatural death: premature death in war, by judicial execution, excision, plague, or illness. In this paper we will limit our study to one category, death in war, which was considered an unnatural death. Was it a good omen to die on battlefield or was it a bad omen? Does this kind of death have a special meaning and in what way does it differ from natural death? This paper will show that death in war was among curses and threats against Israelites which also included curse of non-burial. THOSE WHO FELL, THE SLAIN Over generations, nature of Israelite wars changed. At first they were wars of conquest and settlement; later, under judges, they were defensive wars against foreign invaders. Under monarchy there were wars to expand and stabilize borders of kingdom; and, finally, wars fought by kings of Israel and Judah to fend off imperial designs of great empires. When Bible refers to violent death or death on battlefield it generally employs root n-f-l (fall), which occurs 115 times in this sense. (1) We read, for example, that Eglon was fallen down dead on ground [nofel artzah met] (Judg. 3:25; cf. 4:22; II Sam. 2:23). The root n-f-l may also occur alone, without any form of m-v-t, to indicate death: thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell there (I Sam. 4:10; cf. 31:8). (2) Sometimes Bible notes how a person fell, as in expression fell by sword, (3) which occurs some 35 times. (4) Those who die on field of battle are referred to as those who fell: The total of those who fell that day ... came to twelve thousand (Josh. 8:25). (5) In other passages, those who die on battlefield are referred to as halalim, the Assyria is there with all her company, their graves round about, all of them slain, fallen by sword (Ezek. 32:22) (6) -or as halelei herev: those slain by sword (Jer. 14:18; Lam. 4:9; etc.). The root h-l-l in this sense occurs 91 times in Bible. (7) Still another idiom is metei milhamah: dead of war (Isa. 22:2). The death of a king in battle is described in I Kings 22:35. Ahab king of Israel is mortally wounded and dies after losing much blood: The king remained propped up in chariot facing Aram; blood from wound ran down into hollow of chariot, and at dusk he died. It is noteworthy that Ahab is said to have slept with his fathers (I Kgs. 22:40), even though this formula is generally applied to kings who died peacefully, not to those who met a violent death. (8) During war against Philistines which Israelites lost, they left corpses of King Saul and his sons on battlefield. According to biblical narrative, Philistines cut off Saul's head and nailed his corpse to wall of Beth-shan. When men of Jabesh-Gilead heard what Philistines had done to Saul, they went and took Saul's corpse and his sons' corpses from wall of Beth-shan. According to I Samuel 31:12-13, people of Jabesh Gilead burned corpses of Saul and his sons, then they buried bones. (9) Both traditional commentators and modern scholars, puzzled by this unusual act of cremation, have offered various explanations. The Sages, for example, explained that they burned only personal effects of deceased. (10) It may be more plausible that in this case bodies were cremated to prevent Philistines from abusing them. The bones were first buried under a tree, but later we read that King David took bones of Saul and his son Jonathan and gave them a respectful burial in their family sepulcher (II Sam. 21:14). David probably did so out of political motives. There were, it appears, growing suspicions that he was involved in killing of Saul, and later of Abner, as modern scholars have pointed out. …
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