Background to this article
One common explanation for the emergence of Jewish apocalyptic thought, and the theology of battles in heaven between Good and Evil, begins with a genuine theological problem. Before the Babylonian Exile in 586 BCE, Israel’s national suffering could often be understood within a straightforward covenantal framework: faithfulness to YHVH brought blessing, while idolatry and rejection of God’s ways brought calamity. The Torah contains this pattern very explicitly, particularly in the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28.
But what happens when that narrow covenantal model no longer seems to fit the circumstances? What happens when a people remains definitively faithful to YHVH, and yet still continues to experience oppression, invasion, exile, political domination by foreign powers, and national suffering?
One proposed answer by Western theologians is that Jewish thought naturally developed towards apocalypticism; many of these theologians who support this view, seem to suggest that this development was the only logical progression from pre-Exile biblical beliefs. If Israel was faithful, yet the world still remained unjust, perhaps the explanation had to be that powerful evil and demonic forces were opposing YHVH and the faithful (even though belief in demons and devils was not even part of the original Israelite faith). The apparent contradiction between divine righteousness and historical suffering could then be explained by a cosmic conflict between Good and Evil (‘Dualism’), ultimately requiring divine intervention to overthrow the evil powers, and to bring the present world to a catastrophic and definitive end.
There is undoubtedly an important historical development here. But there is also a question that deserves much more attention: was this really and truly the ONLY theological solution available to Jews who inherited the earlier Israelite Scriptures?
The Miqra itself suggests otherwise – that is, the rest of the Miqra without the apocalypticism of the Book of Daniel. Daniel is the only book in the Hebrew Bible that is apocalyptic. All other prophets are tribulationists (that there will be a time of terrible trial, upheaval and suffering, but that it will eventually end, and this world will begin a new age or period, with peace and righteousness restored). That’s the model that the greater part of the Hebrew Bible adheres to.
The Hebrew Scriptures contain a surprisingly large number of different ways of understanding national tragedy and the suffering of the righteous. They do not present a single, rigid explanation of why righteous people suffer. Indeed, several books deliberately challenge the assumption that suffering can always be explained by personal or national disobedience.
Why so many Theologians support the minority answer
Some very well-known theologians explain apocalyptic beliefs about cosmic battles between good and evil, as if it were a natural progression from the belief-system that the Hebrew Bible contains – that it is a logical evolution from what the Yahwist understanding of suffering is. They will say, “When Israel suffered calamity, the prophets told the people it was because they were unfaithful to God, but then, even when the Jews were faithful, and they still suffered, they concluded it must be because there are unseen battles between good and evil in heaven”. They will offer this explanation as though it were the only available explanation in the Hebrew Bible. I’m here to tell you it isn’t. Apocalypticism is in fact a minority view in the Hebrew Bible – just one book in the entire Hebrew Bible contains apocalyptic beliefs, the Book of Daniel.
If you take an honest look at the rest of the Hebrew Bible, while setting your personal beliefs and biases aside, you’ll easily see that there were in fact numerous theological possibilities available to any faithful Jew familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures at the time, who asked why Israel could still suffer despite returning to faithfulness. I will explain all of them below. A cosmic battle between supernatural good and evil powers was only one possible answer, given the influence of other religious traditions upon Judaism at the time, but it was certainly not the only one that could be derived from the existing biblical tradition.
Why the Author of Daniel chose Apocalypticism in contrast to the Existing Biblical Answers
The Book of Daniel was written during the Antiochian persecution of Judaism in the first half of the 2nd century BCE – which was not just an oppression of the Jewish people, but of their religious practices and beliefs as well. In effect, they were suffering because they were faithful; they were being put to death because they observed Torah. Antiochus IV wanted all the people in his empire to follow the same religion: Greek Hellenism. The writer of the Book of Daniel wrote the book to explain why Jews were still suffering, even though they were faithful to God.
But why did the author of Daniel pick Apocalypticism and cosmic battles between heaven and demonic forces, if that was not the only biblical answer available to him? Why did Apocalypticism overtake and completely supplant the original Yahwist view of the Suffering of the Righteous? Think about it: before the Book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century BCE, the Bible gave very different answers and alternatives.
Pro-Paul Christian apologists, who have a vested interest in maintaining a belief in demonic forces, and in the Book of Daniel itself, will say that it was a failure of the covenantal model that prompted the rise in belief of a cosmic battle of Good and Evil. But that’s the Christian view, and of those brought up in the Christian tradition (even though certain individuals, mentioning no names, no longer believe in God).
The Covenantal model – that is, “You obey, everything goes well for you; you disobey, and you will suffer” – that model is far too simplistic an explanation. So why did the author of Daniel choose apocalypticism?
It was useful as a weapon of Political Subversion and survival. Direct political critique of Antiochus IV was essentially a death sentence; a traditional prophet would never have lived long enough to get their message out. The apocalyptic genre therefore functioned as an ancient form of political satire and coded resistance. The specific horrors of the Antiochian crisis demanded a radical tool of political subversion and coded resistance.
Apocalypticism became a dominant belief among Jews from the 2nd century BCE until the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple – a period of 240 years. After that, the original biblical view of suffering was reasserted.
The First Problem with Apocalypticism: The Miqra Already Knows That the Righteous Can Suffer
The most obvious alternative answer to apocalypticism is the Book of Job, which reached its final form in the 5th century BCE. Job is introduced as a righteous man. The text goes out of its way to establish his integrity: Job is described as blameless, upright, who reveres YHVH in awe, and turns away from evil (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3). Yet Job still suffers catastrophically.
His friends cannot accept this. Their theology depends upon an overly simple relationship between conduct and circumstances. If Job is suffering, they reason, he must have done something to deserve it (Job 4:7–8; 8:3–6; 11:13–15; 22:4–5).
However, Job rejects their reasoning. And significantly, YHVH ultimately rejects the friends’ explanation as well (Job 42:7–8).
This establishes something extremely important within the Miqra: suffering, in and of itself, is not reliable evidence of unfaithfulness or sin. The covenantal model doesn’t fit every circumstance, or explain all suffering.
The biblical tradition therefore already possesses a theological response to the problem that does not require supernatural, cosmic warfare. The theology contained within Job came long before the belief in cosmic battles between heaven and demons.
A faithful person may suffer. Indeed, a faithful person might suffer terribly, and the suffering may not necessarily be a punishment for anything that person has done.
That principle could naturally be extended from the individual to the nation – from the example of a righteous person to a righteous nation. If Job could suffer without having deserved his suffering, there was no logical reason why Israel could not suffer without having become unfaithful.
Sometimes the Reason for Suffering Is Simply Unknown
Job goes even further. The reader of the book is given information that Job himself does not possess. Yet when YHVH finally addresses Job, YHVH does not simply reveal the hidden explanation and say, ‘This is why all of this happened to you.’ Instead, Job is confronted with the immense complexity and incomprehensibility of creation (Job 38–41).
The conclusion is not a neat theory of suffering. The implication is that human beings do not currently possess sufficient knowledge to explain everything that happens. This provides another possible answer to national suffering:
Israel may be faithful. Israel may still suffer. Human beings may simply not know why.
That is not an alien idea imposed upon the Hebrew Scriptures. It is already present within them. There is therefore no necessity to fill every gap in human understanding with a supernatural explanation.
Other Human Beings Themselves Can Cause Enormous Suffering to the Innocent
Another explanation is even more straightforward: people can do evil things because people possess the freedom to do evil things. This is the most obvious answer, and the most pertinent one to the problem facing the Jewish people suffering under Antiochus.
The Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly portray human beings, including kings and rulers, as genuine agents whose cruel, human decisions have real consequences in the lives of those they rule over.
Saul persecutes David despite David’s innocence (1 Samuel 18–26); Ahab persecutes the prophets (1 Kings 18–19); Jeremiah is imprisoned, beaten and threatened because he speaks a message that powerful people do not want to hear (Jeremiah 20:1–2; 26:7–24; 37:11–21; 38:1–13); and Amos encounters opposition from the royal establishment because of his prophetic message (Amos 7:10–17).
None of these situations requires a cosmic explanation. A wicked ruler can simply decide to persecute a righteous person; a government can oppress its own people; an empire can invade another nation; a powerful person can abuse power. The Miqra repeatedly describes such things happening.
This becomes particularly important when considering national suffering. Israel did not exist in isolation. It lived in the midst of powerful nations such as Egypt, Aram, Assyria, Babylon, Philistia and others, each possessing its own cruel rulers, megalomaniacal ambitions, and bloodthirsty military interests. None of that was caused by God; they came directly from the minds of mortal human beings.
Assyria did not need a supernatural demon whispering into the ear of every Assyrian king before it could invade Israel. Babylon did not need to be controlled by an independent cosmic evil power before it could conquer Jerusalem. Human political ambition and greed is quite sufficient.
The Actions of Rulers Can Harm People Who Did Not Choose Them
The Miqra also recognises another uncomfortable reality: people can suffer because of decisions made by others.
A population may be affected by the actions of its king. A family may suffer because of the decisions of its head. A nation may experience consequences from the actions of its rulers. The history of the Israelite monarchy repeatedly demonstrates this principle.
The census ordered by David in 2 Samuel 24 produces consequences that extend beyond David himself. The destruction associated with the Babylonian conquest affects an entire population (2 Kings 24–25). Jeremiah explicitly describes national calamity in connection with the accumulated history of the monarchy, including the reign of Manasseh (Jeremiah 15:4).
This provides another explanation for national suffering that does not depend upon individual guilt. A faithful generation can inherit the consequences of the actions of previous generations; a faithful population can suffer because its rulers are corrupt; a righteous person can live under an unjust government; a faithful nation can be attacked by an aggressive empire.
And none of this requires cosmic warfare.
The Miqra Does Not Present the World as a Perfect Moral Calculator
Ecclesiastes develops the problem in another direction. The Teacher (Qohelet) observes that the expected relationship between righteousness and worldly success simply does not work consistently.
The righteous can perish despite their righteousness, while the wicked can continue to prosper (Ecclesiastes 7:15; 8:10–14). The race does not necessarily go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Human beings are subject to time and circumstance (Ecclesiastes 9:11–12).
This is a profound theological observation. The world is not presented as a machine in which every event is immediately distributed according to moral merit. If a righteous person prospers, that does not necessarily mean YHVH has just rewarded that person’s righteousness; similarly, if a wicked person prospers, that does not necessarily mean YHVH approves of wickedness. And if a righteous person suffers, that does not necessarily mean YHVH has rejected that person.
Life contains contingency; circumstances matter, other people’s actions matter, natural events matter, historical and political forces matter.
Admittedly, human beings do not control all of these things, but the existence of this contingency means that righteous suffering does not automatically require a supernatural, cosmic explanation.
Natural Processes Can Produce Suffering
The same principle can be extended to the natural world. The Miqra presents Creation as possessing an established order. The seasons continue, the heavens follow their appointed courses, waters rise and fall, animals live according to their natures, and the earth produces according to its patterns (Genesis 1:14–18; 8:22; Psalm 104:5–24; Jeremiah 31:35–36).
Job’s speeches about creation are particularly important here (Job 38–41). The natural world is extraordinarily powerful, displaying immensely natural forces, which are largely beyond human control.
Consequently, a theological tradition does not have to conclude that every earthquake, every drought, every storm, or every other natural catastrophe was individually caused and orchestrated by YHVH. Nor does it have to attribute every natural disaster to demonic activity.
There is another possibility: the created world operates according to the order established by YHVH, its Author and Creator, and the operation of that world sometimes produces events that human beings experience as disastrous.
That distinction is significant. YHVH can be understood as the Author of the natural order without being understood as individually initiating every event produced within that order, second by second, minute by minute.
YHVH Can Use an Event Without Having Caused It
The story of Joseph provides one of the clearest examples of this distinction. Joseph’s brothers deliberately act against him. Their intention is evil. Yet Joseph eventually recognises that good has emerged from what they intended for evil (Genesis 50:20). YHVH used the evil that the brothers did, and wrought good out of it.
The important distinction is between causing something, and using something. An event can originate in human wrongdoing, and nevertheless become incorporated into a larger divine purpose. YHVH is able to turn natural disaster into Divine good.
Isaiah presents a similar and more complicated picture with Assyria. Assyria is used as an instrument in YHVH’s purposes, yet Assyria itself acts from its own arrogance and is subsequently judged for that arrogance (Isaiah 10:5–15). This is a remarkably sophisticated conception of divine sovereignty.
YHVH does not have to control every single intention of every single human being in order to accomplish a purpose. Human beings can act according to their own intentions, but YHVH can nevertheless work with the consequences of bad human decisions. This gives us another possible understanding of Jewish national suffering.
An empire might oppress Israel because the empire chooses to oppress Israel. YHVH can nevertheless bring something constructive out of the experience, preserve the faithful, transform the community, and eventually bring justice to bear against the oppressor.
The suffering therefore does not prove that an evil supernatural power has temporarily taken control of the world. Too often, religious people assume that God or Satan controls evil people like puppets. God doesn’t do this, and Satan – as a ruler of all evil – does not exist.
The Prophets Show That Faithfulness Can Itself Attract Opposition
The prophetic books provide another explanation that is especially important. Sometimes the righteous suffer because they are righteous. Jeremiah’s experience is an obvious example.
He speaks a message that powerful people do not want to hear, and as a consequence, he is beaten, imprisoned, threatened and persecuted (Jeremiah 20:1–2; 26:7–24; 37:11–21; 38:1–13).
Amos experiences something similar when his message comes into conflict with the interests of the royal establishment (Amos 7:10–17).
The logic here is perfectly straightforward. A person speaks the truth, the powerful dislike the truth, the powerful use their power against the person who speaks it, the righteous person suffers.
Nothing in that sequence requires a supernatural battle or demonic forces.
Indeed, it provides an entirely natural explanation for why increasing faithfulness might sometimes produce increasing persecution. Faithfulness can challenge injustice, and injustice can fight back – because wicked rulers do not like their authority challenged or questioned. This is particularly relevant to a community trying to live according to YHVH’s values in the midst of an unjust society.
Habakkuk Demonstrates That Unresolved Suffering Does Not Require Cosmic Dualism
The Book of Habakkuk is especially revealing because it confronts almost exactly this problem. The prophet sees violence and injustice and asks why YHVH permits it (Habakkuk 1:2–4).
Then matters become even more difficult. YHVH’s apparent response involves the rise of the Babylonians, a people even more violent and ruthless than those whom Habakkuk initially complained about (Habakkuk 1:12–17). Habakkuk therefore faces the same fundamental theological problem:
How can YHVH’s justice coexist with a world in which wicked people are permitted to inflict suffering?
Yet Habakkuk does not conclude that there must be an independent evil power fighting YHVH. He argues with YHVH. He waits. He trusts. And ultimately, he reaches a position of faithfulness even without possessing a complete explanation for the circumstances around him (Habakkuk 2:1–4; 3:17–19). That is another fully biblical response to suffering:
I do not understand what YHVH is doing, but I will nevertheless remain faithful to YHVH my Saviour.
There is no requirement for a cosmic battle to fill the gap in human understanding.
The Psalms Give Us a Theology of Faithful Suffering
The communal Psalms make this point particularly strongly. Psalm 44 remembers YHVH’s past faithfulness and Israel’s relationship with YHVH, yet describes the nation experiencing devastating suffering (Psalm 44:1–22). The crucial point is that the Psalm does not simply conclude that Israel must secretly have become wicked. Instead, Israel protests its innocence and appeals directly to YHVH.
Psalm 74 similarly describes national catastrophe while continuing to appeal to YHVH as Israel’s sovereign (Psalm 74:1–23); Psalm 79 does the same (Psalm 79:1–13); and Psalm 80 cries out for restoration.
These Psalms demonstrate that there was already an established Jewish theological vocabulary for saying:
We belong to YHVH. We have not abandoned YHVH. Yet we are suffering. Therefore we cry out to YHVH for deliverance.
This response is neither naïve nor apocalyptic. It is lament. And lament is itself a major biblical category.
Sometimes Justice Is Simply Delayed
Another possibility throughout the Miqra is that YHVH’s judgement does not occur immediately.
Abraham is told that the wrongdoing of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure (Genesis 15:16); the Psalms repeatedly ask why wicked people continue to prosper (Psalm 10; 37; 73); Jeremiah asks why the wicked prosper and why treacherous people continue to live (Jeremiah 12:1–4); Habakkuk asks why injustice is allowed to continue (Habakkuk 1:2–4).
The biblical answer does not require the conclusion that an evil cosmic power has temporarily defeated YHVH. It can simply be that judgement is not immediate.
YHVH permits history to continue; the wicked are given time; Human freedom continues to operate; Justice eventually comes, but not necessarily at the moment when human beings think it ought to come.
That is an eschatological expectation in the broad sense, but it does not automatically become apocalypticism. One can believe that injustice will eventually be judged, without believing that the entire created order must soon be destroyed in a coming apocalypse.
The Servant Tradition Offers Yet Another Possibility
Isaiah presents another striking possibility: the suffering of the faithful can have significance beyond the immediate sufferer. The Servant passages in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52–53 portray a figure associated with faithfulness, suffering, and the eventual accomplishment of a divine purpose (Isaiah 42:1–9; 49:1–7; 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12).
Whatever interpretation one gives to the identity of the Servant, the theological principle is important: Suffering does not necessarily mean that YHVH has abandoned the faithful, nor does suffering necessarily mean that evil powers have defeated the faithful.
A faithful person, or a faithful community or people, can remain faithful through suffering, and that faithfulness can itself become significant within YHVH’s purposes. The same principle can be seen in Joseph’s story and in the lives of the prophets.
The important distinction is again between suffering being deliberately inflicted by YHVH, and YHVH being able to accomplish good through suffering that originated elsewhere.
A World of Freedom Produces a Different Theology of Suffering
When these strands are brought together, quite a different theological model emerges. The Miqra can be read as presenting a world in which human beings possess genuine free agency; natural processes operate according to an established order; nations pursue their own interests, rulers can become corrupt, injustice can persist for considerable periods, and righteous people can suffer without having deserved their suffering.
Throughout it all, YHVH remains Sovereign. However, sovereignty does not necessarily mean micromanagement.
YHVH can intervene, restrain, guide, and judge.
YHVH can use circumstances, bring good out of evil, preserve the faithful, and ultimately, YHVH can establish or re-establish justice.
None of those propositions requires that every single event occurring in the world was individually caused, commanded, or micro-managed by YHVH.
And none requires an independent cosmic power controlling the forces of evil.
The Logical Possibilities Were Therefore Much Broader
This is the point that deserves emphasis.
If a Jew believed that faithfulness to YHVH normally brought blessing, but then encountered a period in which faithful people continued to suffer, there was no single inevitable conclusion. It just looks that way because the Book of Daniel and its theology is over-inflated in its importance, far beyond its place towards the end of the Hebrew Bible would warrant.
Someone could conclude that the suffering was caused by wicked rulers, or that Israel was experiencing the consequences of earlier generations’ actions. A person could recognise that righteous people sometimes suffer for reasons unknown, or that historical events were contingent and unpredictable. Someone could regard natural disasters as consequences of the operation of the created order.
Someone could believe that YHVH was permitting the wicked a period of freedom before judgement, or that YHVH would eventually bring good out of circumstances that YHVH had not initiated. Someone could conclude that faithfulness sometimes produces opposition precisely because it challenges powerful wrongdoing; or simply lament before YHVH, without claiming to know why the suffering was happening.
Or a person could opt for the simplest and most superstitious explanation of all: that an apocalypse involving supernatural powers and an eventual cosmic intervention was the reason for national suffering; it’s the easiest one to come up with if you believe that there are demons and devils in this world.
However, this last explanation was not the only intellectually available conclusion. There are others that any Jew faithful to the God of Israel could also have come up with – explanations that are, in fact, much more faithful to the theology of most of the books of the Hebrew Bible. The Book of Daniel is an outlier, theology-wise. So one needs to ask: Was Yeshua a prophet of the God who inspired the theology underpinning most of the Hebrew Bible? Or was Yeshua limited to being a prophet only of the one book that spawned apocalypticism as the only tool available to its author – as an instrument of political satire and coded criticism of a cruel ruler?
The Miqra Does Not Require Us to Choose Between Retribution and Cosmic Warfare
Perhaps the deepest problem with the simplistic progression from pre-Exilic theology to late Second Temple apocalypticism, is that it presents only two possible models:
Either Israel suffers because Israel is unfaithful, or Israel suffers because cosmic evil powers are fighting against YHVH.
But the Miqra itself provides a much richer middle ground. Job destroys the assumption that suffering proves guilt, and Joseph demonstrates that YHVH can bring good from evil without having originated the evil.
Ecclesiastes destroys the assumption that worldly circumstances reliably correspond to moral worth; the Psalms demonstrate that faithful communities can suffer and protest their suffering without abandoning belief in YHVH; the Prophets demonstrate that righteous people can be persecuted because wicked people oppose righteousness; Isaiah demonstrates that YHVH can use historical powers without endorsing their wickedness; and Habakkuk demonstrates that a believer can confront apparently inexplicable injustice without resorting to cosmic dualism.
The historical books demonstrate that rulers and nations can inflict enormous suffering through their own choices. The creation traditions provide a basis for understanding the natural world as an ordered reality, rather than as a sequence of individual events commanded by God.
Taken together, these traditions give us a remarkably broad theology of suffering.
Ultimately YHVH Is Sovereign Without Being a Puppet-Master
This provides a natural foundation for the Talmidi understanding of divine Sovereignty. YHVH does not need to control every thought of every dictator in order to remain sovereign; or initiate every act of violence in order to remain sovereign, or cause every earthquake, storm or drought in order to remain sovereign, or to suspend human freedom whenever human beings choose evil.
A world containing genuine freedom is inevitably a world in which creatures can make choices of which YHVH does not approve; a world governed by stable natural laws is inevitably a world in which natural processes sometimes produce suffering; a world containing independent nations and rulers is inevitably a world in which political ambition can produce oppression.
None of these things diminishes YHVH’s Sovereignty. They simply mean that sovereignty is not identical with constant control.
YHVH has the ability to work within such a world, respond to it, guide people through it, and use circumstances that YHVH did not initiate; YHVH can transform consequences, call people to compassion, courage, justice and faithfulness; and YHVH can ultimately bring about the fulfilment of the Divine purpose.
The Most Important Alternative
There is therefore no need to regard cosmic warfare and demonic forces as the inevitable theological conclusion of faithful Jewish people continuing to suffer. There is another possibility, deeply compatible with the broad witness of the Miqra:
The world is genuinely free, genuinely contingent and genuinely imperfect.
People can do terrible things; Rulers can abuse power; nations can invade other nations; the innocent can suffer; natural processes can cause devastation; historical consequences can continue for generations.
Human beings may not understand why particular events happen, and yet YHVH remains present, active and Sovereign.
Faithfulness therefore does not have to mean immunity from suffering. It can mean remaining faithful within a world whose events are not all directly orchestrated and micro-managed by YHVH.
The question, then, is not necessarily:
What supernatural evil power is causing this suffering?
It can instead be:
How do we remain faithful to YHVH, and how do we live according to the Way of YHVH, when the world does not always conform to our understanding of how justice ought to operate?
That is not a question invented by apocalypticism. It is a question already being asked and answered by Job, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, the Prophets and the wisdom traditions of the Miqra.
And those writings demonstrate that cosmic warfare was just one possible answer to the problem of suffering. However, it was never the only answer that a faithful reader of the earlier Hebrew Scriptures could have reached. The idea of cosmic warfare was a minority one in the overall scheme of the Hebrew Bible.
If you are interested, I have written another article, entitled, The Massorite Talmidi Approach to Theism, which examines the issue of how Massorite Talmidis approach the issue of classical Theism (‘Does God control everything that happens in the world like a Puppet-master?’).