Render & Resist

“When Jonah fled from God’s call, it wasn’t cowardice but resentment. Nineveh had brutalized his people. Yet God sent mercy.

When Saul hesitated to destroy Amalek, it wasn’t compassion, it was compromise. God demanded justice.

When Joshua crossed into Canaan, it wasn’t conquest, it was covenantal cleansing. God required purity.

Three kingdoms. Three divine responses. What do they reveal about the heart of God—and the moral weight of judgment?”

Jonah didn’t run because he feared for his life or his safety. He ran because he feared success.

Nineveh, the brutal capital of Assyria, had terrorized his people. Its streets were soaked in blood, its rulers drunk on conquest. Jonah knew that if he preached repentance, God might actually forgive them. And that, to him, felt like betrayal.

Contrast that with Saul, who hesitated to destroy Amalek. His delay wasn’t born of mercy; it was compromise. The Amalekites had attacked Israel’s stragglers in the wilderness, targeting the weak and the weary. God remembered. Saul forgot. And his failure cost him the crown.

Then there’s Joshua, standing at the edge of Canaan. His mission was not about conquest, but rather covenantal cleansing. The land was saturated with idolatry, child sacrifice, and spiritual corruption. God’s command was clear: remove the threat, or be consumed by it.

There were three kingdoms. There were three divine responses. There is one God, yet the outcomes are radically different. Why?

But not everyone sees divine judgment as morally coherent. Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, famously lambasts the Old Testament God as “a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser.” He cites the Amalekite and Canaanite narratives as proof of divine barbarism. To him, Jonah’s story is the lone flicker of decency in a sea of tribal vengeance.

However, Dawkins fails to engage the full arc. He isolates judgment from context, mercy from memory, and covenant from corruption. He treats Joshua’s mission as imperial conquest, ignoring the centuries of warning, the spiritual rot, and the theological stakes. He mocks Saul’s failure without grasping its moral compromise. And he praises Jonah’s resistance without acknowledging the cost of withheld mercy.

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Dawkins and Divine Judgment

Richard Dawkins argues that the God of the Old Testament is morally indefensible, especially in the context of war. His critiques center on three main themes:

1. Divine Violence as Ethnic Cleansing Dawkins famously describes God as “a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser.” He sees the commands to destroy the Amalekites and Canaanites not as justice or covenantal purity, but as tribal vengeance masquerading as divine will.

2. Moral Inconsistency Jonah, to Dawkins, is the lone exception, a prophet who resists God’s command, and a God who relents. He uses this to argue that divine judgment is inconsistent. If God can forgive Nineveh, why not Amalek or Canaan?

3. Religious Delusion and Human Sacrifice Dawkins often lumps biblical warfare with broader critiques of religion, suggesting that belief in divine command leads to moral blindness. He compares Joshua’s campaign to modern jihad or crusade, driven by delusion rather than discernment.

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How Dawkins Frames Jonah

• As a rare exception: Dawkins acknowledges Jonah as a story of divine forgiveness, but uses it to highlight what he sees as the inconsistency of God’s character.
• As literary oddity: He refers to the Bible as a “chaotically cobbled-together anthology,” implying that Jonah is a strange outlier in a disjointed narrative.
• Without moral depth: Dawkins doesn’t engage Jonah’s resentment, or the theological tension of mercy extended to enemies. He treats the story as a curious exception, useful only to underscore the brutality of other texts. He ignores Jonah’s internal conflict, the prophetic burden of mercy, and the scandal of grace offered to oppressors.

In short: Dawkins sidesteps the moral weight of forgiveness and reduces Jonah to a literary anomaly, reinforcing his claim that the Bible lacks a coherent moral vision.

When God orders war in Scripture, it’s not arbitrary. It’s not tribal vengeance. It’s covenantal reckoning. Each command carries emotional weight, historical memory, and theological precision. To understand divine judgment, we must examine not just the violence, but the posture, the history, and the response of each kingdom.

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Reading With Understanding

When we read the Old Testament accounts of war, judgment, and mercy, it’s tempting to flatten them into slogans: God is angry, God is violent, God is inconsistent. But the biblical narrative doesn’t support that view. What we see instead is a God who responds to history, posture, and covenant. War isn’t commanded arbitrarily. Forgiveness isn’t offered cheaply. Each decision is rooted in moral clarity and relational context.

Consider Saul and the Amalekites. God’s command to destroy Amalek wasn’t about tribal revenge, it was about justice. The Amalekites had attacked Israel’s most vulnerable during the Exodus, targeting the stragglers and the weary. This wasn’t a battlefield encounter; instead, they preyed on the weak and the helpless. God remembered that cruelty. Saul, however, treated the command as negotiable. He spared the king and kept the spoils, not out of mercy, but out of political calculation. His failure wasn’t just disobedience, it was a collapse of moral leadership. He severed himself from the memory of covenant justice, and in doing so, forfeited his role as king.

Guzik’s Commentary on Saul and the Amalekites

• God’s Command Was Total and Just Guzik emphasizes that God’s command to Saul, delivered through Samuel, was radical and complete: to utterly destroy the Amalekites, including men, women, children, and animals. This wasn’t tribal vengeance; it was divine judgment for a specific historical sin: Amalek’s ambush of Israel’s most vulnerable during the Exodus.
• The Sin Was Generational and Unrepentant Though the attack occurred centuries earlier, Guzik notes that time does not erase sin before God. The Amalekites had been given a long opportunity to repent but did not. Their cruelty was remembered, and their posture remained defiant. God’s judgment was not impulsive, it was delayed, deliberate, and morally grounded.
• Saul’s Obedience Was Selective Saul began the campaign in obedience but failed to carry it through. He spared Agag, the king, and kept the best livestock. Guzik interprets this as a failure to execute God’s justice fully. Saul’s disobedience wasn’t just incomplete, it was a rejection of the moral seriousness of God’s command.
• Mercy to the Kenites Was Rightly Discerned Saul did show mercy to the Kenites, who had treated Israel kindly during the Exodus. Guzik sees this as a wise and just decision, showing that Saul could discern covenantal kindness, but failed to apply the same clarity to Amalek.
• The Consequences Were Severe Because of Saul’s failure, God regretted making him king and rejected him from leadership. Samuel mourned Saul’s collapse, and ultimately had to execute Agag himself, symbolizing the gravity of Saul’s failure to carry out divine justice.
• A Test of Obedience and Moral Clarity Guzik frames the command as a test, not just of Saul’s obedience, but of Israel’s willingness to uphold divine justice. While Christians today are not called to enact physical judgment, the principle remains: God’s justice is real, and partial obedience is disobedience

Joshua’s campaign in Canaan is often misunderstood as conquest, but Scripture presents it as covenantal cleansing. The land was steeped in idolatry, child sacrifice, and generational defiance. God had withheld judgment for centuries, waiting until the “iniquity of the Amorites” reached its full measure. When Joshua entered the land, his purpose was not to expand territory, but to preserve Israel’s spiritual identity. The command to remove Canaanite influence wasn’t about ethnicity, it was about protecting holiness from corruption. Joshua obeyed, not because he was bloodthirsty, but because he understood the stakes. 

Matthew Henry on Joshua’s Campaign in Canaan

• Covenantal Cleansing, Not Imperial Conquest Henry sees Joshua’s campaign as the fulfillment of God’s long-standing promise to Israel. The destruction of the Canaanites was not random or ethnic, it was a divinely ordered judgment against entrenched idolatry and moral corruption. This cleansing was necessary to establish Israel’s possession of the land and preserve their covenantal identity.
• Israel’s Spiritual Identity Must Be Protected Henry emphasizes that Israel was a holy nation, chosen and governed by God’s law. The Canaanite practices—especially child sacrifice and idolatry—posed a direct threat to that identity. Joshua’s obedience wasn’t about territorial expansion; it was about spiritual survival. The land had to be purged of influences that would defile Israel’s relationship with God.
• Joshua as a Type of Christ Henry draws a typological connection between Joshua and Christ. Just as Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land and defeated their enemies, Christ leads His people into salvation and victory over sin. This reinforces the idea that Joshua’s leadership was not merely military, it was deeply theological, pointing to a greater spiritual reality.
• Judgment as a Guardrail Against Contamination The removal of Canaanite influence was, in Henry’s view, a necessary act to prevent Israel from being spiritually contaminated. He stresses that the destruction of these nations was part of God’s just judgment and a safeguard for Israel’s future faithfulness. Joshua’s strict adherence to God’s commands was central to the success and sanctity of the mission

Then there is Jonah. His story stands out because it deals not with judgment, but with mercy. Jonah didn’t flee because he feared Nineveh—he fled because he feared God’s forgiveness. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a brutal empire that had terrorized Israel. Jonah knew that if he preached repentance, God might relent. And that, to him, felt like betrayal. But God’s decision to offer mercy wasn’t random. Nineveh was warned. They repented. And God, true to His character, forgave. The difference wasn’t in God’s nature, it was in Nineveh’s posture. They humbled themselves. Amalek did not. Canaan was unable to. Saul compromised. Joshua obeyed. Jonah resisted, but God remained steadfast.

Clarke on Jonah and Divine Mercy

• Jonah’s Flight Was Motivated by Resentment, Not Fear Clarke affirms that Jonah fled not because he feared Nineveh’s brutality, but because he feared God’s mercy. Jonah knew that if he preached repentance, God might forgive the Assyrians, and that possibility felt like betrayal to a prophet whose people had suffered under Nineveh’s cruelty.
• Nineveh’s Repentance Was Genuine and Sweeping Clarke highlights the dramatic response of Nineveh to Jonah’s preaching. From the king to the commoner, the city humbled itself in sackcloth and ashes. Clarke notes that even the animals were included in the fast, underscoring the depth of their repentance. This wasn’t superficial remorse, it was a full-scale moral reckoning.
• God’s Mercy Was Responsive, Not Arbitrary Clarke is clear: God’s decision to relent was based on Nineveh’s posture, not favoritism. The city turned from its evil ways, and God, seeing their sincerity, withheld judgment. Clarke sees this as a profound lesson in divine compassion—one that reveals the heart of God as both just and merciful.
• Jonah’s Anger Reveals the Human Struggle with Mercy Clarke interprets Jonah’s displeasure in chapter 4 as a window into the prophet’s internal conflict. Jonah wasn’t wrong to feel the weight of Nineveh’s sins, but he was wrong to resent God’s grace. Clarke sees this as a lesson in compassion: that divine mercy often confronts our desire for retribution

This isn’t moral inconsistency, it’s moral coherence. God’s judgment is shaped by history, covenant, and repentance. War was commanded when corruption became systemic and unrepentant. Mercy was extended when humility broke through brutality. The emotional weight of these stories lies not in the violence, but in the decisions that led to it. In each case, God’s response shows a holy deity, not a bloodthirsty one, who remembers, warns, waits, and acts.

Richard Dawkins critiques these stories with surgical precision, but no emotional depth. He sees tribal vengeance where Scripture reveals theological tension. His framing isolates judgment from history, mercy from memory, and covenant from corruption. By treating Jonah as a literary oddity and Joshua as a genocidal crusader, Dawkins misses the moral architecture that holds these stories together. His critique is clever, but it’s emotionally and theologically thin.

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The God Who Grieves

Scripture doesn’t glorify war.

It grieves it. 

Every divine judgment carries a burden of memory, mercy, and moral reckoning. These aren’t tales of conquest, but of covenantal consequence. The emotional weight of war in the Bible isn’t found in body counts, it’s found in the tension between justice and grace, obedience and lament. To read these texts rightly is to feel their ache.

Amalek did not. Canaan could not. Saul compromised. Joshua obeyed. Jonah resisted, but God remained steadfast.

Each line is a window into divine response, not arbitrary wrath, but covenantal clarity. Amalek’s cruelty demanded justice. Canaan’s corruption required cleansing. Saul’s compromise forfeited his crown. Joshua’s obedience fulfilled a painful command. Jonah’s resistance revealed the scandal of mercy. And through it all, God remained steadfast, grieving, remembering, and redeeming.

If war reveals anything about God, it’s not brutality, it’s the unbearable tension of holiness and love. Mercy isn’t weakness: it’s divine strength refracted through human pain. And judgment isn’t cruelty, it’s the cost of covenant.

 “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked…” — Ezekiel 33:11

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” — Psalm 147:3 

“Jesus wept.” — John 11:35, at the tomb of Lazarus, revealing divine grief in the face of death 

“How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” — Matthew 23:37, Jesus mourning over Jerusalem

These aren’t just verses of comfort, they’re windows into divine lament. God doesn’t delight in destruction; He mourns it. His holiness demands justice, but His love aches for restoration.

In the end, Jonah, Saul, and Joshua don’t contradict each other; they complete a portrait of a God who remembers, who mourns, and who acts. War comes at a great cost, so we should never take it lightly, even when God commands it.

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From Divine Judgment to Just War Theory

If God is holy, what does justice look like when cruelty becomes generational and unrepentant? Is mercy always possible, or does love sometimes require painful boundaries? These aren’t just ancient questions. They echo through every battlefield, every policy debate, every moment when the Church must discern whether to resist, retreat, or respond. Scripture doesn’t glorify war, it grieves it. But it also reveals a God who acts when evil becomes entrenched and mercy is refused. That tension—between lament and justice—is the heartbeat of Just War Theory. And it’s time we wrestled with it afresh.

That’s why I wrote Render Unto Caesar: Unless He Taxes Your Tea. It’s not just a clever title, it’s a deep dive into the biblical, historical, and moral dimensions of war, resistance, and revival. If you’ve ever wondered how Christians should respond to tyranny, when war is just, or how to reconcile divine judgment with divine mercy, this book is for you.

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