HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR WARFARE
While we always want to interpret scripture symbolically, there are historical facts that will aid our understanding of scripture. Facts which were common knowledge to Israel that are not known to most of us help us understand the times and the application of their encounters with God and their enemies.

For our purposes of studying warfare and enemies, it is critical to know that Israel was surrounded by religious enemies/nations that tried to lure them away from God, capture them and absorb them into their religious worlds. It is good for us in these modern times to understand those ancient enemies so we can compare them to the religious enemies that surround us and compete with God for our affections, loyalty and money. Here is a brief summary of facts about those nations:

In Biblical language, these nations are symbolically represented  as kingdoms of the world. They should not be interpreted as geopolitical entities engaged in international relations through diplomacy, trade and war. They symbolically represent collections of people, past and present, who share religious beliefs that they practice under presumed divine authority of religious leaders (i.e. kings, queens, princes) who make and enforce rules by which they govern their respective kingdoms. This interpretation will not seem very relevant until we recognize that these kingdoms still exist and that religious leaders continue to exercise their authority in modern day religions. It is not common to call these domains of authority “kingdoms”, but in God’s language that is what they are because men — not God — always lead them.

Therefore, Biblical nations should be interpreted as contemporary religious kingdoms created by men who create, revise and enforce rules based on traditions unique to each nation/religion. These are key features of the Old/First Covenant between God and Israel. Leaders of the nation of Israel are symbolically represented in the New Testament as Pharisees, scribes and lawyers (i.e. people who study and argue the fine points of the written law). In the Old Testament they are represented as Kings, Queens, Princes, Shepherds, Levites, false prophets, judges and priests.

If we are to receive training in righteousness from the Bible, it is absolutely necessary to understand the symbolic meanings of nations, kingdoms and religious leaders as follows:

Religious kingdoms, both past and present, grow and survive because their leaders successfully deceive religious people into believing that they are God’s specially chosen (i.e. called) servants who appear to have the following qualities:

People who fall for this deception are so convinced that religious leaders have these qualities that they willingly support them and the organizations they represent with money (i.e. tithes and offerings), honor and obedience to their instructions. God calls these human teachers false prophets. He also considers them to be other gods and idols because people submit to their teachings and seek them out for instruction and help in difficult situations. God says that people who submit to the authority of these religious leaders are idolaters.

In Biblical language, these kingdoms are also referred to as Gentile nations that symbolically represent any group of religious people — past or present. These nations/kingdoms/religions are individually and collectively in competition with God for the hearts and minds of his people. As long as people continue to idolize their religious leaders and follow their teaching, they are idolaters. And if they are idolaters, they are God’s enemies.

STUDY TIP: See Kingdoms, Cities and Nations.

Religious people become God’s enemies when they individually or collectively break covenant with God. They do this when they listen to false prophets and not to God’s spoken voice. The covenant they break is the New Covenant — not the Old/First Covenant. Anyone who practices the obsolete and outdated Old/First Covenant religion, which is only a shadow of the New Covenant, has broken the New Covenant. Such people wander in the desert like Israel did on the way to the promised land. God says they are under control of sin (i.e. Old/First Covenant laws), and slaves to sin until such time that he sees fit to open their eyes and lead them to faith (i.e. New Covenant).

In the meantime, they remain captives of religious leaders who keep them as slaves to religion that is based on a literal understanding of the Bible — not on the symbolic, spiritual meaning. In this relationship, both the leaders and followers invite God’s punishment. God takes vengeance on those leaders and their followers because he is a jealous God who is angered when an individual or an organization deceives his people and turns their hearts to idolatry and adultery. He is jealous as a husband is jealous when his wife commits adultery.

COMMENTARY ON THE SYMBOLISM OF ADULTERY AND PROSTITUTION: God uses the symbolism of adultery and prostitution to describe the behavior that arouses God’s jealous anger. The behavior is this:

Listening to the voices of false prophets.

False prophets are Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The theme of not listening to (i.e. eating the words) of false prophets is established in Genesis and repeated continuously throughout the Bible in a variety of stories that the choices people make: Listen to God’s voice, or, listen to false prophets.

God represents these options as life or death choices with very clear consequences of blessings or curses. The right choice, of course, is to listen to God’s voice. This choice leads to eternal, spiritual life.

Religion is the wrong choice because religion always depends on the teachings of religious leaders (i.e. Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil.) When religious people choose to listen to religious leaders, God’s jealous anger is aroused.

To communicate the depth of his anger when people choose to listen to a religious leader instead of him, God compares himself to a faithful husband of an adulterous wife. He has kept his part of the marriage covenant by writing his laws on her heart. The adulterous wife has broken the covenant by choosing to listen to a religious leader instead of God.

The anger and jealousy that God feels when his people listen to false prophets (i.e. religious leaders) is equated with the anger and jealousy a faithful husband feels when his wife is unfaithful to him. God’s view of faithfulness to him and the New Covenant is listening to his voice only. People break this covenant when they eat the fruit of Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil (i.e. listen to false prophets.)

Listening to the voice of a false prophet  is equated with unfaithfulness. This is what Old/First Covenant religionists and people who interpret the Bible literally do. The error they make is that they do not listen to God’s spoken voice.

Religious people demonstrate unfaithfulness by listening to and following the teachings of religious leaders. Those teachers, and the religious organizations they represent, are God’s enemies because they have enticed his wife to be intimate with them by listening to their voices.  In their zealous passion to expand their religious kingdoms, they have broken the Tenth Commandment: They covet and seduce God’s wife and his servants and enslave them to their own kingdoms for selfish purposes. And they way they seduce them is through deceptive words.

God’s attitude is that religious leaders have control over the hearts and minds of his people whom he considers to be his bride (a term that represents the quality of intimacy he has with them). With this control, they have captivated his people as slaves. This situation arouses God’s jealous anger so that, after a period of captivity he is compelled to rescue and redeem his flock so that they will worship him only. At the same time, he is provoked to punish any religion that oppresses his bride and deceives it to follow other gods.

But God does not just punish the oppressor. God also punishes the bride (i.e. Israel/church) for choosing to worship other gods (i.e. idolatry) by sending her into exile in other nations (i.e. religions) for a season before he rescues her and reclaims her for his own. While in exile, they are in a season of famine in which they can only hear the teachings of religious leaders (i.e. false prophets) but not God’s voice.

The need to punish his bride is a common theme in the Old Testament. This is necessary because God’s people (i.e. Israel) has a tendency to become proud and drift away from God toward religion and other gods. When this happens, God sends them into slavery to religion for a season of exile from his presence. But later, after his people repent for following other gods and false prophets, he calls them back and restores them to intimacy with him after they return (i.e. repent) to him.