The Sovereign's Day of Conquest

Abstract

It has long been recognized that a majority of Old Testament references to the Day of Yahweh (vo^m yahweh) contain some language related to military conquest.' Most attempts to identify an origin for this concept have gone no further than Israel itself-specifically either early Israelite holy war,2 or the reconstructed royal New Year festival.3 The full-blown Old Testament concept of the Day of Yahweh is ipsofacto Yahwistic, and presumably an exclusively Israelite institution. We suggest, however, that at least some features of the notion of a sovereign's (Yahweh's) day of decisive military intervention may be found in non-Israelite contexts. Thus, for example, Von Rad's position that virtually every aspect of the concept of the Day of Yahweh is uniquely Israelite would seem to be an overstatement with regard to the evidence.4 It seems to us equally possible that the prophetic concept of the Day of Yahweh may be influenced by a tradition not uniquely Israelite, but represented in a number of disparate Sumerian, Hittite, Egyptian, and semitic texts from a variety of places and times. According to this apparently widespread ancient Near Eastern tradition, a truly great king or sovereign possessed such universal power and authority that he could complete a military compaign, or even an entire war of conquest against his enemies in a single day. This war of conquest might be undertaken for simple territorial expansion, but could also involve vengeance against rebels in the sovereign's empire. Put simply, these ancients of the Fertile Crescent possessed a (presumably euphemistic) tradition that although the wars of most kings might endure for weeks, months, or even years before coming to completion i a decisive battle, a true sovereign could win his war in a day. This notion, evidence for which we present below, is of interest to us precisely because it links together the motifs of the sovereign, warfare, and a single day of conquest. These three motifs are, of course, present also in the Day of Yahweh oracles of Israel's prophets. To be sure, our non-Israelite examples will all deal with human royalty in pagan countries. One might challenge at the outset the propriety of setting the language used of human royalty side by side with the language used of Yahweh in Israel. However, there is at least one other motif in the Old Testament in which this very kind of analogy is drawn. It is the motif of the suzerainty covenant, so dear to the same prophets who spoke the Day of Yahweh oracles. Under the prophetic understanding of Yahweh's covenant with Israel, Yahweh is portrayed much in the manner of a human sovereign enforcing the stipulations of the covenant he has given to his vassal, Israel. In fact, the Day of Yahweh as the prophets describe it may be taken as the military outworking of the covenant sanctions against Israel after Israel is found guilty in the course of the covenant lawsuit proclaimed by the prophets.5 Since the prophets are aware of the analogy of Yahweh as a great king in the case of the suzerainty covenant relationship with Israel, we cannot preclude a priori the possibility that they would also be willing to employ another analogy from ancient kingship-that of the ability of a truly great sovereign to conclude his campaign or war in a single day, which in Israel's case would be the Day of Yahweh. In testing this hypothesis, we propose first to I Much of the language associated with divine conquest has carried over into the New Testament. Cf. Matt 24:30-31, 1 Thes 4:16, and Rev 16:14. 2 Von Rad (1959). 3 Mowinckel (1958) presumes the Day of Yahweh to be not eschatological but the yearly manifestation of Yahweh at the Israelite New Year festival. He nevertheless concedes that the