The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society

by Joseph Boot

The historical narrative of the Old Testament tells of a particular siege in the Northern kingdom of Israel, when Ben-hadad, the King of Syria, surrounded the capital Samaria. The then king of Israel, Ahab, was hemmed inside the walls of the city with just 7,000 fighting men. As was common in cases of overwhelming odds, Ben-hadad offered the besieged Ahab terms of surrender; they were not palatable. The king of Syria required that the gold, silver and the wives and children of Ahab be delivered to him. This was not a random request, but carried enormous significance. To surrender his wealth would leave the royal treasury empty and Israel asset-stripped, with no ability for future resistance. To surrender his wives to be raped and placed in Ben-hadad’s harem would humiliate and shame Ahab and greatly undermine what was left of his power with the people. The biggest and most significant demand, however, was that his own children be handed over (again this was not uncommon in antiquity). His sons and daughters would be taken and re-educated in terms of an alien faith, religion, and morality. The plan would be that when they were returned to succeed to the throne of Israel, they would recognize and serve the foreign imperial power that had indoctrinated and raised them. Today, not unlike pagan antiquity in many respects, the state increasingly lays siege first to our property (through property taxes, progressive taxation and inheritance taxes in many western countries), then o...

First Read