Mar 13 2009
A Threatening God – II
The second component to primate threat behavior is the fright-inducing ruckus itself. The actual display. As I wrote yesterday, “There is clamor and clash, there is damage done. To other people or things. See, you better stay in line, or this could be you.”
In the following Bible verses we find a deity behaving ape-ishly. Make note of the emphases on clamor/noise, power/hand, and the fright-arousing effect of the acts attributed to an invisible alpha.
The LORD’s hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors. (1 Samuel 5:6)
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD. (1 Kings 19:11)
So the LORD sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. (1 Chronicles 21:14)
So now the LORD is about to strike your people, your sons, your wives and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow. You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels, until the disease causes your bowels to come out. (2 Chronicles 21:14-15)
While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the sky and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!” (Job 1-16)
He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. (Job 9:6-7)
Who then can understand the thunder of his power? (Job 26:14)
He gave their crops to the grasshopper, their produce to the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore-figs with sleet. He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning. He unleashed against them his hot anger, his wrath, indignation and hostility-a band of destroying angels. (Psalms 78:46-49)
He has shown his people the power of his works. (Psalms 111:6)
[H]e has poured out his wrath like fire on the tent of the Daughter of Zion. (Lamentations 2:4)
In the day of the LORD’s anger no one escaped or survived. (Lamentations 2:22)
The cloud filled the temple, and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of the LORD. (Ezekiel 10:4)
He [Jesus] got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. (Mark 4:39)
But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. (Luke 22:51)
Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events [about Jesus]. (Acts 5:11)
This last verse provides a fitting segue into tomorrow’s post on signs of subordination being the desired outcome -
And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces. (Leviticus 9:24 – KJV)
