“Why Do The Nations Rage?” Pastoral Reflections on Israel & Gaza
The second psalm starts by asking why the nations rage (Ps 2:1) and ends with an invitation to take refuge in God (Ps 2:12).
This is a normal human path: “Why are things so bad? Run to God.” Kids naturally run to parents for comfort. And when we lose our peace in sheer horror at the terrible facts of this world, we often seek to regain our peace by running to a heavenly Father.
But how can this be done? For anyone concerned by the present raging of nations, how exactly can refuge be found in God?
In many ways.
Take Refuge in God’s Care
Jesus said this about human value: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Mt 10:29-31).
The message is clear: birds are cheap, yet God still sees them. And humans are priceless, so God certainly sees them.
Every hair that falls to the ground in the Near East is noticed by a grieving Father. It matters little if that hair is Israeli or Palestinian, or on which side of the West Bank it falls. It is seen by God.
In this way, God is able to see and understand human pain better than us. We often clumsily attempt to understand pain by analogy (“I can relate because _____”) or by comparison (“This is even worse than _____”). This is part of what keeps us from seeing the true fullness of human loss in Israel and Gaza. We’re too busy trying to adjudicate who has the greater pain. But God isn’t bound by such terms. He simply sees. He is Father. All hurts that feel unseen by others are seen by him.
That’s one reason he’s the right place to take refuge.
Take Refuge in God’s Love of Children
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belong the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 19:14). He said this as people were trying to bring children with an unspecified problem (assumedly dire) to him for healing and prayer. But his disciples rebuked them, as if the hurting kids weren’t important enough to cut in line to get to the healer. But Jesus sent the abrupt correction that heaven itself belongs to children with needs. So make room.
Terroristic actions and military responses hinder children. They do this by killing them, or by killing their families, their infrastructure, their opportunities, and their hope. Children by the tens of thousands have been “hindered” in this way. The kingdoms of earth have taken away their place.
Jesus’ response? The kingdom of heaven is theirs.
That’s a good reason to take refuge in him.
Take Refuge in the Uniqueness of Israel
God is intertwined with the history of the globe, and uniquely intertwined with Israel in salvific and spiritual history. That fact suggests to me that all the above kinds of care, which are already universal, are in some sense only amplified on all sides when Israel is involved.
What does it mean that “God is uniquely intertwined with Israel” in salvific and spiritual history?
First, consider the origin of the Old Testament. Paul wrote, “What advantage has the Jew?... Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom 3:1-2). That means if you value the biblical books of Genesis to Malachi, without which the New Testament would answer questions that had never been asked, then you must value the nation of Israel’s role in its creation.
Second, consider the identity of Jesus. Christians worship a Jewish Messiah. Not an American one, not a Palestinian one, and not one from any other nation. This fact does not mean Jesus’ Jewishness is the object of idealization or primacy (i.e., Jewishness is not a goal; “Here there is no Jew or Greek,” Gal 3:28). But Jesus’ Jewishness is certainly the object of recognition and respect. The Messiah came from one nation for all nations. And his nation of origin can never become an afterthought to God.
Thus, consider the centrality of Israel in the narrative of the world itself. After the creation of a world of beauty and its quick fall into sin and struggle, God called one man (Abraham), who became a family (the Hebrews), which became a nation (Israel), which produced the Savior of the world (Jesus), who will return to restore all creation (heaven).
Some people will sense all this is just biblically-fueled favoritism. I sense they are wrong. From the first moment God called Abraham, the flourishing of all people groups (including the still-future group we now call Palestinians) was included in God’s intention of universal blessing, as he told Abraham at the very beginning, “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:3). So when God created one nation, all nations were on his mind.
Jesus himself said as much: “Salvation is from the Jews” (Jn 4:22). Point blank. Salvation is from the Jews, because the global Messiah is from the Jews. But in the next sentence he dilutes this locality in favor of global access: “But the hour is coming and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him” (Jn 4:23-24). A posture of sincere worship “in spirit and truth” is what matters now, not which mountain top or temple or race or nationality you come from. So Jesus immediately moves from the local source of salvation (Israel) to the global access of salvation. It no longer matters where you’re from. By faith in Christ, God is yours.
Nonetheless, because “salvation is from the Jews” (Jn 4:22), it must also be true that if Israel is somehow involved, God is somehow involved, and such a situation should awaken our respect. God is near.
That’s another good reason to take refuge in him.
Take Refuge in God’s Universal Morality
However, this “involvement” of God falls well short of “siding with” Israel unequivocally, in the sense of licensing wartime behavior of any kind.
I have sincere doubts about the degree of continuity between ancient Israel (a theocracy that produced the Bible and global Messiah) and modern Israel (a secular liberal state). But whatever one’s view on that complex issue, it can at least be said that Israel’s unavoidable spiritual privilege in the Christian religion does not include an exemption on the standards that govern international court and humanitarian standards for modern conflict. This is not the conquest of Joshua, which proceeded on divine order.
In saying this, by no means am I suggesting that Israel should submit to terrorism and make itself a soft target. America certainly did not after September 11, 2001. I agree with Mike Cosper that October’s brutal surprise attack from Hamas onto Israeli soil deserves “unflinching moral judgment.”1 Hamas is not a legitimate world player. It has produced murder and terror and unforgettable pain. It deserves retribution. It is not willing to permit Israel’s existence. These things are wrong. And I don’t believe it’s Islamophobic to say so, because I’m speaking here of “terrorism” and “Hamas,” which should be considered enemies, not “Islam” and “Palestine,” which should be considered neighbors. (And even in the midst of that very distinction, let’s not forget Jesus told us to love neighbor and enemy alike. Consider the fatherly miracle that God loves every terrorist operative even in the midst of condemning their terroristic operation, and has the nerve to tell us to do likewise. “Love your enemies.”)
So I believe Israel has the right to exist, the right to thrive as a definable people group, and the subsequent right to defend itself against all threats, foreign and domestic. But I do not believe Israel has the right to take the hundreds of thousands of civilians lives penned up in Gaza lightly. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18).
God once sent his prophet Jonah to the warlike nation of Assyria, to the capital city of Nineveh. Jonah hated that place and its people. They were aggressors, pain-causers, and oppressors. Jonah would rather have seen Nineveh punished than forgiven. Jonah’s resistance to God’s kindness for them was at the heart of his famous flight (Jon 4:2). But God indicated his care was irrevocable, even for… them. “And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons…?” (Jon 4:11).
If God cared for 120,000 of Nineveh, he cares for the even greater numbers of Gaza.
Because of this, Christians can say with confidence, “My God cares about Palestinians.”
That’s another great reason to take refuge in him.
Take Refuge in God’s Reconciling Work
Separation is humanity’s work. Reconciliation is God’s work.
Government forums, protests, and wars are limited in their ability to facilitate peace. But God is not. He can soften human hearts like no other influence (Ez 36:26).
I have no doubt that one form of such heart-softening here would be for each side to recognize the victimhood of the other. Israel was subject to a six-million-person loss in the 1940s. Their global homelessness problem needed to be solved, and that meant the establishment of a sovereign state. For their part, the Palestinians have long lacked the basic civil entitlements and opportunities that are the oxygen most Americans breathe. For decades, Palestinians have endured their own forms of homelessness and hopelessness. (If you don’t think that’s a situation worth rebelling over, consider that in the 1770s the American colonies rebelled over less.)
All this is hard enough to see, even once time has passed (i.e., the phrases “the 1940s” for Jews and “the last seven decades” for Palestinians feels like summaries of the past). But to recognize the victimhood of Israel on October 7, and the victimhood of thousands of Gazans now dead or trapped feels like the present. And the more recent the events, the sharper the feelings. So seeing each other’s victimhood in today’s Near East would require a God-sized movement in the human heart.
Both these narratives could be better told by Palestinians and Israelis than by me. They do not need Western interpreters, contrary to our instincts.
But at issue here is not how well the narratives are told, but how well the narratives will be heard.
And helping humans hear each other is the miraculous work of the Spirit of God.
That’s yet another reason he’s our refuge.
Take Refuge in a Final Judgment
One day such problems will not exist.
Most of the things we’ve discussed here are not part of the world God created and intended. Dead people, battered non-combatants, buildings in rubble, and human desperation are all notably absent from the first chapters of Genesis, and absent again from the last chapters of Revelation. These things are not part of where we are ultimately from, or where we are ultimately going. So when we see them, if any shred of our humanity remains intact, we react with a visceral hate. We eventually ask the same question the psalmist does: Why do the nations rage? Why this rocket? Why this attack? Why this counterattack? Why this unsuspecting Israeli mother sexually assaulted and murdered? Why this innocent Palestinian toddler lost under the weight of a collapsed building?
And we’d long in our souls for retribution. For justice. For someone to make it right. For a judgement.
And we will have it.
It is not by accident that Psalm 2 turns from the pain of the inquiry (“why?”) to the comfort of the coming judgment of God: “He will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury…you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2:5, 9). The message is clear: those who have executed wrath will endure wrath. Those who have terrified will be terrified. Those who have broken will be broken.
In some sense this only multiplies the sadness. “God does not delight in the death of the wicked” (Ez 33:11). If you’re saddened at the idea of a final judgment, you’re in good company. Not even God delights in the final crushing of committed evildoers.
But such a final judgment also multiplies justice, and justice multiplies comfort. If God will not repay, then human repayment is our only recourse, and the cycle of retribution will continue forever. With no rebalancing on the scales of eternity, with no full and final judgment from a higher gavel, we have no full and final comfort.
But one day, every soul will fully, fearfully, and terribly understand. God will ensure it.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4). And they will be comforted by final judgment and justice of God.
That is a comfort worth taking refuge in.
Conclusion
It’s hard not to finish where the Bible finishes: “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rv 22:20).
He remains our best and only refuge. Even when the nations rage. Perhaps especially then.
May these tragic events drive us all into the only true safety in the world – the refuge that is our heavenly Father.
Mike Cosper, The Evil Ideas Behind October 7, Christianity Today, February 19, 2024.
