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 stsc
Studies in Theology Studies in Theology
Vol. 8
S o c i e t y a n d Cu lt u re
S o c i e t y a n d Cu lt u re

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there was prolific mis­
use and abuse of the concept of divine wrath in church pulpits. In pursuit of
St ephen Bu t ler Mur r ay

Stephen Butler Murray

a faithful understanding of what he calls a “lost doctrine,” the author of this
study investigates the substantial history of how “the wrath of God” has been
interpreted in Christian theology and preaching. Starting with the Hebrew
Reclaiming Divine Wrath
and Christian Scriptures and moving historically through Christianity’s most
important theologians and societal changes, several models of divine wrath A History of a Christian Doctrine and Its Interpretation
are identified. The author argues for the reclamation of a theological paradigm
of divine wrath that approaches God’s love and God’s wrath as intrinsically
enjoined in a dynamic tension. Without such a commitment to this paradigm,
this important biblical aspect of God is in danger of suffering two possible
outcomes. Firstly, it may suffer rejection, through conscious avoidance of the

Reclaiming Divine Wrath

narrow misinterpretations of divine wrath that dominate contemporary theo­
logy and preaching. Secondly, irresponsible applications of divine wrath may
occur when we neglect to engage and understand the wrath of God as inseparable
from God’s justice and love in Christian theology and proclamation.

Stephen Butler Murray is Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Boston,
Massachusetts, USA, and College Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Religion
at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. He is co-editor of Crossing By
Faith: Sermons on the Journey from Youth to Adulthood.

ISBN 978-3-0343-0703-1

www.peterlang.com

Peter Lang
Reclaiming Divine Wrath
 Studies in Theology
S o c i e t y a n d Cu lt u re

Series Editors:

Dr Declan Marmion
Dr Gesa Thiessen
Dr Norbert Hintersteiner

Volume 8

PETER LANG
Oxford Bern Berlin Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien
• • •
 Stephen Butler Murray

Reclaiming Divine Wrath

A History of a Christian Doctrine
and Its Interpretation

PETER LANG
Oxford Bern Berlin Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien
• • •
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-
bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at
http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Murray, Stephen Butler.

Reclaiming divine wrath : a history of a Christian doctrine and its
interpretation / Stephen Butler Murray.
p. cm. -- (Studies in theology, society, and culture ; ser. no.
8)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-3-0343-0703-1 (alk. paper)
1. God (Christianity)--Wrath--History of doctrines. I. Title.
BT153.W7M87 2011
231’.4--dc22
2011014278

Cover image: St Michael’s Victory over the Devil, a 1911 statue by August Vogel
at the entrance of St Michaelis Church in Hamburg, Germany.
Photograph by Rolf Diekhoff.

ISSN 1662-9930
ISBN 978-3-0343-0703-1 E‐ISBN 978‐3‐0353‐0178‐6

© Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2011

Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

Printed in Germany
To Cynthia and Hunter
Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

Chapter One
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath:
The Old Testament, the Inter-Testamental Period, and the
New Testament 9

Chapter Two
The Development of a Christian Theology of Divine Wrath:
From Early Christian Apologists to the Medieval Theologians 47

Chapter Three
The Development of Protestant Considerations of Divine Wrath:
The Era of the Reformations 105

Chapter Four
Divine Wrath Amidst the Rise of Evangelicalism and
Liberal Theology: From Wesley to Ritschl 151

Chapter Five
Divine Wrath in the Twentieth Century:
Theological Proponents and Opponents to the Wrath of God 181
viii

Chapter Six
Reclaiming Divine Wrath: An Apologetics for
Contemporary Christian Theology and Preaching 253

Bibliography 271

Index 297
Acknowledgements

It is a happy moment at the conclusion of a long project when an author is

able to look back and thank those who helped to bring him to this point.
In the case of this book, which began as a doctoral dissertation at Union
Theological Seminary in New York, it is easy to begin with one’s commit-
tee, those who have of fered long hours of assistance and guidance in the
course of my writing this monograph. Delores S. Williams, my disserta-
tion chair and indeed my invaluable advisor since I first walked through
the doors at Broadway and 121st Street into Union Theological Seminary,
has been not merely a friend to the writing of this dissertation. She has
been a friend in teaching me by her graceful example, in truly mentoring
a budding theologian while of fering the most sacrosanct of wisdom along
the way. Christopher L. Morse inspired me to pursue my doctoral studies
at Union Theological Seminary. It was in my first class with him at Yale
Divinity School that I realized, perhaps more than anywhere else, the vital
importance of examining the continuing relevance of the doctrines of the
Christian traditions in light of the contemporary challenges of church and
society. David L. Bartlett has been my dean, my professor, and my collabo-
rator, and it always is an honor to hear his unsurpassed sermons, just as it
was to learn by his example, from his classes, and through his counsel at
Yale University Divinity School.
Of course, there are others who have taught me along the way, who
have been especially inf luential to my development as a systematic theo-
logian and homiletician. I am grateful to Jim Squire, Alison Boden, Jerry
Streets, and Rick Spalding for being there as my pastors over the years. I am
especially appreciative for certain professors who went out of their way to
teach me throughout my undergraduate and graduate years of study: Doug
Sturm, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, Jef frey Turner, Frank Wilson, and
Maria Antonaccio at Bucknell University; Serene Jones, David Kelsey,
Letty Russell, Harry Baker Adams, and Tom Ogletree at Yale University
x Acknowledgements

Divinity School; and James H. Cone, Emilie M. Townes, Alan Cooper,

Larry Rasmussen, John A. McGuckin, Barbara Lundblad, and David W.
Lotz at Union Theological Seminary in New York. I am thankful for col-
leagues who have taught with me, and who have been “talking” divine wrath
with me for quite some time: Donna Giancola and Dennis Outwater at
Suf folk University; Laury Silvers, Mary Zeiss Stange, Kathleen Self, and
Joel Smith at Skidmore College; and Charlotte Gordon, Willie Young, and
Rocky Gangle at Endicott College. I am grateful for my friends at Union
Theological Seminary, whose conversations have brought both insight and
relaxation to the writing of this dissertation: Sarah Anderson, Margaret
Aymer, Robert Bolger, Keith Braddy, Nancy de Flon, Trevor Eppehimer,
Nancie Erhard, Bill Golderer, Greg Jones, Kimberly Keating, Christiana
Killian, Hector LaPorta, Jae Won Lee, Gabriella Lettini, Heather Nicholson,
Robin Owens, Maritim Rirei, Rosie Rodman, Jason Scarborough, Lakisha
Williams, Bill Wood, and Yuki Yamamoto. Also, my thanks especially to
Sara Myers and Betty Bolden of the Burke Library at Union Theological
Seminary, and to Amy Syrell of the Scribner Library at Skidmore College,
for ably discovering every obscure reference that I could muster. This was a
challenge that they took both professionally and personally on my behalf,
and I am grateful for their help.
I thank my family, who fostered me from the first opportunity to do
so, who took me to art museums and to the beach, those places where I find
God’s creation to be its most beautiful. They made sure that I was brought up
in the church even when I rebelled against it. My parents, Roger K. Murray,
Jr. and Bonnie Elaine Sebera, each have taught me in their own ways, with
their own erudition, and I am grateful for their ef forts and ef fects. My sister,
Laura Alexis Murray, is a constant source of inspiration and joy in my life,
as I watch her experience and navigate the world in her own, remarkable
way. Also, I must of fer a special thanks to my grand­parents, Roger and
Virginia Murray, who most generously contributed to the costs of my
graduate education with no expectations or demands in return. Sandy and
Ron Goodsite, my aunt and uncle, have been like a second set of parents
to me through the years, and I am honored to have been just as valued a
member of their family as their wonderful children, my esteemed cousins,
Debbie, Melissa, Michael, and Amy. My late grandparents, Nicholas and
Acknowledgements xi

Abby Sebera, taught their family, and all who came to be members of their
family, what hospitality means.
I am grateful for the support that Endicott College has given me in fin-
ishing this book, and to Skidmore College for the support that was given me
to finish my dissertation during my tenure there. Further, I am appreciative
of all those whom I have served as a chaplain at Endicott College, Skidmore
College and Suf folk University, and as a parish minister with the First
Baptist Church of Boston, Massachusetts, Charlton Freehold Presbyterian
Church in Charlton, New York, the First Presbyterian Church of Hudson
Falls, New York, the Saint Andrew Lutheran Church in South Glens Falls,
New York, and the Scarsdale Congregational Church in Scarsdale, New
York. It is my conviction that Christian systematic theology is served best
when its theologians are grounded in the life and work of the church.
These are the places where I have been privileged to serve and allowed to
consider how theology might escape the ivory tower and touch the lives
of people in the pews.
My most sincere appreciation as well goes to Declan Marmion, Norbert
Hintersteiner and Gesa Thiessen for welcoming this book to be part of the
Studies in Theology, Society, and Culture series at Peter Lang which they
oversee, and for their efforts in the vetting process by which this book was
reviewed. Further, my great thanks to Christabel Scaife, Mary Critchley,
and Isabel James of Peter Lang for their dedication in seeing this mono-
graph make the leap from drafts toward a published book.
Finally, I thank my wife and dearest friend, Cynthia Lee Baird Dawdy,
whom I met as a fellow student at Union Theological Seminary. Her bril-
liance is a constant source of wonder to me. She is a woman who is not
satisfied with merely understanding ideas, but who demands that she be at
play with all of their complexities. The congregations who have heard my
sermons over the years are well aware that my conversations with Cynthia
creep into the content of my preaching, whether through her knowledge
of clinical psychology, or her artistry as a concert harpist and painter, or
her life of athleticism as an outstanding sailor, or by the fine complexities
of a woman who sees the world more deeply than anyone I have known
before. I would be remiss if I did not admit that given all of our conversa-
tions, her voice is present in this book as well as mine. I utterly appreciate
xii Acknowledgements

all that Cynthia has done to see this book through, and for the hope and
happy expectation that she inspires in me each new day that we live our lives
together. Together, we work to bring our son, Hunter Hamilton Murray,
into a world in which he knows loyalty, love, support, af fection, and beauty.
Hunter is my inspiration to care deeply about how God interacts with the
world, for while Hunter will grow into his own man, he is the most lovely
legacy that I might leave. In a world of justice and love, our children must
be the greatest concern and care for any society. Rhetoric concerning God
must be carefully chosen, respectfully upheld, and theologically clear if we
are to provide a world for our next generations that might be more compas-
sionate and where their reality might tend toward justice and mercy.

Stephen Butler Murray

Boston, Massachusetts
January, 2011
Introduction

In this book, I argue for the reclamation of a theological paradigm of divine

wrath that approaches God’s love and God’s wrath as intrinsically enjoined
in a dynamic tension. Without such a commitment to this paradigm, this
important biblical aspect of God is in danger of suf fering two possible
outcomes. First, it may suf fer rejection through the conscious avoidance of
the narrow misinterpretations of divine wrath that dominate contemporary
theology and preaching. Second, it may endure the abuses implicit to the
irresponsible applications of divine wrath that occur when we neglect to
engage and understand the wrath of God as inseparable from God’s justice
and love in Christian theology and proclamation.
While the idea for this book first germinated in 1997, in New Haven,
Connecticut, in an exchange that I had with David Kelsey in his seminar
on Paul Tillich at Yale Divinity School, this book has been written in
the wake of 11 September 2001. I write this not because of any desire to
sensationalize the value of what I of fer herein, but as a recognition of the
context in which, and after which, it was composed. At the time of the
terrorist attacks upon the United States, and upon New York City in par-
ticular, I lived and studied as a doctoral student in Manhattan at Union
Theological Seminary in New York and served as the associate minister
of the Scarsdale Congregational Church in the suburbs outside of the
city. I lost friends when the towers came down in a cacophony of fire and
soot, and I volunteered in the hospitals where the injured were sent, and
where families arrived in hope that their lost loved ones might be among
the injured. It would be remiss not to admit that part of the impetus for
writing this book was driven by the events and aftermath of that day, wit-
nessing to and participating in the reaction of the ecclesia in the face of
such devastation.
In the aftermath of 9/11, I have been fascinated to read what was and
was not preached in the pulpits of America’s churches. The Monday after
2 Introduction

the attacks, the New York Times of fered excerpts from the sermons that all
sorts of congregations heard, from the Manhattan area and beyond, out
into the rolling fields of the Midwest and ranging the coast of California.
Appropriate to their dif ferent contexts, the plethora of preachers had a
variety of things to say to the people sitting in their pews. But on everyone’s
lips were the events of what happened at the World Trade Center, at the
Pentagon, in the crash outside of Pittsburgh on Tuesday 11 September. The
attention of the world was fixed on the trauma and tragedy that af fected
two of the great cities of the world.
Across the nation, church attendance was up at a phenomenal level,
the sort of attendance one simply does not see except for Christmas and
Easter, and maybe not even then. People found themselves deeply called,
or not so much called, but driven by something within them to leave their
television sets, to escape the comfort and safety of their homes, to move
out into the world in order to find and forge a community, somehow,
somewhere. And more often than not, what people sought were places
where word and sight and sound were dedicated to grappling with these
our tragic events in light of, and in spite of, God.
I read the New York Times article, and I took in the words of some of
America’s most highly respected, celebrated preachers, and I also heeded
the words of some of America’s most unknown, backwater preachers. There
was wisdom in their sermons, no matter from whence they came. Some
decided that what their congregations needed to hear most were rousing
words, fiery rhetoric, a clarion trumpet call to arms, to righteous anger, to
convicted courage and to God-imbued victory. Others sought the ground
of patience, the assurance of compassion, the possibility of hope despite
the sorrow.
Both are certainly what many of us felt, what we wrestled with, bound
between these two pillars of anger and patience. My guess is that more than
anything else, many of us were hedged in by a strange sense of ambiguity.
We do not know where we stood, whether we on solid ground or a crum-
bling precipice. That sense of ambiguity is disabling. The ambiguity is itself
what keeps us from knowing how to interpret the ongoing happenings in
the world; it keeps us from knowing what to do next in our lives, or even
how best to approach our loved ones and children. What words could we
Introduction 3

say in the wake of all that had happened? How could we possibly respond
adequately in the face of something so devastating? These are the questions
that I asked myself again and again, and my sense is that I probably was
not alone in those feelings.
I became fascinated with the sermons that were of fered on the topic
of the wrath of God in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on America,
largely because divine wrath has been abandoned by current theology and
preaching in the United States. Whether one sits in the pews of mainline
Protestant churches or reads books penned by contemporary theologians,
it is highly unlikely that a congregation at the end of the twentieth century
would hear, or that a student of systematic theology would read, a mes-
sage concerning the righteous vengeance of God.1 If one is observant, it
may become apparent that churches outside of evangelical circles inten-
tionally avoid discussions of godly anger, as both sermons and lectionary
texts actively disregarded any witness to heavenly judgment. Theological
texts tend to uphold the tenets of ecumenical and interfaith cooperation,
dogmatics of grace and reconciliation in ecclesia and society. Now, it is
only in times such as war that Christian preachers and theologians tend to
remind their audiences not only to love God, but to fear God as well. As

1 By “mainline” churches, I refer to the definition developed by Robert Wuthnow,

who directs a study of “mainline churches” at Princeton University’s Survey Research
Center. His understanding is as follows: “The largest number of mainline Protestants
are United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church
(USA), Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and American Baptist Churches
in the USA; the largest numbers of evangelical Protestants are Southern Baptists,
independent Baptists, nondenominational, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Lutheran
Church Missouri Synod, Church of Christ, and Presbyterian Church in America;
and black Protestants, African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal
Zion; National Baptist Church, National Progressive Baptist Church, and Churches
of God in Christ.” <http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/00/q2/0503-religion.
htm>. It should be noted, however, that I disagree with the overarching claim of
Wuthnow that “black Protestants” are, by definition, evangelicals. Certainly, there
are black Protestants who are members of “mainline” Protestant churches, such as
the United Church of Christ or the Presbyterian Church (USA) who do not identify
themselves, nor should be identified, as evangelicals.
4 Introduction

early as 1937, H. Richard Niebuhr famously warned that the direction of

Protestantism in the United States was moving toward, “A God without
wrath [who] brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment
through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”2 This strong critique
of liberal theology predates the radical social movements of the 1960s and
1970s, whereby theological discourse such as feminist theology, process
theology, the “death of God” movement, and Harvey Cox’s Secular City
disparately called into question the very being of a God who acted upon
humankind in a determinative manner.
Recent American history has disturbed the foundation of such theo-
logical underpinnings. Following the terrorist attacks of 11 September
2001, congregations of Christian believers throughout this country strug-
gled with the intense anger that they felt as individuals and communities.
At question was how would God’s justice be at work in the world? Were
Christian churches to play the role of pronouncing God’s blessing upon a
violent counterattack? Was the United States, by enjoining a war against
terrorism, acting as the instrument of God’s righteous wrath? Given these
questions, raised both in scholarly and public circles, it is vital for Christians
of all denominational and social backgrounds to be able to discuss God’s
wrath and judgment in an attentive, careful, faithful way. Such questions
are pertinent not only in times of international conf licts, but amidst the
dynamics of civil unrest, within the just desire for a righteous overturning
of inequitable societies.
If one peruses the Old and New Testaments, it is easy to find a mul-
titude of biblical narratives that relate the wrath of God. The scriptures
are rife with examples, such as the evocative language of God’s wrath in
Psalm 19:8, “Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his
mouth.” There is the combination of God’s love (“I have loved you with an
everlasting love”) and God’s sending Babylon against Israel in judgment in
Jeremiah 31:3. Divine wrath appears in the role of the Christ who exercises
judgment over the created order in Matthew 25:31–32 (“When the Son of

2 H. Richard Niebuhr. The Kingdom of God in America. Introduction by Martin E.

Marty (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1937, 1988), p. 193.
Introduction 5

Man comes in his glory, and all the angels are with him, then he will sit on
the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he
will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep
from the goats …”). Joel 1 portrays natural catastrophes as the result of
God’s wrath. Even John the Baptist announces the coming of the Messiah
as a time of judgment and wrath in Matthew 3:7–12.
Throughout the centuries of church history, theologians and ministers
bore witness to the activity of God’s hostility to sin and sinful behavior
through their writings and pulpit oratory. Testimony concerning God’s
wrath was not unusual theological or rhetorical discourse, but provided a
basis by which communal ethics and the limits of secular authority were
founded. And yet, such declarations are a body of dogmatics critiqued and
neglected by contemporary theological discourse, ignored and omitted
from sermonic repertoires. Rather than comprehending a fear of God as
accompanying and vital to a love for God, mainline Protestant thought and
speech tend to deride and disdain such notions as the antiquated, obsolete
construct of a patriarchal, vengeful religion whose time has passed.
I believe that only through a systematic evaluation of divine wrath, in
the history of its development and application, will it be possible to yield
faithful representations of this largely rejected aspect of God among con-
temporary churches. Over the course of the last two millennia, Christian
theologies have narrowed their understanding and usage of the original
biblical illustrations of the wrath of God. This winnowing process has left
the modern church with a meager interpretation of an obvious biblical
aspect of God, such that divine wrath either is ignored uncomfortably, or
used conveniently to promote and condone violence. Neither condition
is acceptable for religious communities that seek faithful hermeneutics of
their sacred texts. I posit that some of the models of divine wrath proposed
throughout the life of the Christian churches may find fresh expression
and relevance in our contemporary culture, in our modern pulpits. In this
way, I want to present through this book a paradigm of divine wrath that
explicates God’s love and God’s wrath as linked inextricably, a faithful vision
that may appeal to both the academy and the church. I do not mean merely
to reassert past traditions, but to speak faithfully to contemporary culture
in a way that does not ignore the relevance of biblical witness.
6 Introduction

A series of questions arise from this situation in which referring to

divine wrath has become unfashionable at best, and taboo at worst. Why is
it that Protestant churches, outside of evangelical circles, have turned away
from divine wrath in such a conscious, purposeful, almost willful manner?
What is the history behind the development of this aspect of God such
that it once held such a strong place in the Christian traditions, and yet
now has been left to the wayside? At what points in the development of
Christian doctrine have understandings of divine wrath changed, taken
new paths, adopted new definitions? All of these inquiries lead to the pri-
mary question that my book will seek to answer: Is it possible to reclaim
divine wrath for contemporary Christian theology and preaching? My
answer is yes, for in order to bear a faithful witness which does not exclude
the testimonies that make us uncomfortable, the wrath of God not only
can be, but must be recovered for the current situation. To do otherwise
is to succumb to a desire to tame our very notions of God, promoting a
hubris that we can determine the behavior and being of God, rather than
live humbly in the presence of God’s reality as recorded in biblical witness
and church traditions.
Recent history has shown that Protestant portrayals of divine wrath
have become increasingly narrow in their scope, concerned increasingly
with models of retribution, whereas biblical and early church models under-
stood and depicted God’s wrath in a variety of ways. The consequence
of this has been that when nations have gone to war or confronted civil
unrest, churches have found currency for divine wrath as an apologetics
for societal violence. In these cases, the desire for personal anger to have a
rightful grounding in religious belief has, time and again, resulted in misap-
propriations of a biblical aspect of God for secular and political purposes.
The fact that divine wrath has received so little attention amidst recent
Christian theology only facilitates the ease with which modern preachers
have manipulated divine wrath according to their own social contingen-
cies. For those who are concerned with how human actions are influenced
by faithful interpretations of the theological aspects of God, divine wrath
has been the subject of disturbing misapplications for far too long.
The promise of this book lies in the contribution that it may make
to both academic dialogue and the pulpits of contemporary churches.
Introduction 7

Among the former, it has the potential to draw both liberal and evangeli-
cal theologians into dialogue on a common topic. I believe that the divide
between these two theological camps has become too deep and entrenched,
resulting in a staid conversation, when there is discourse at all. Christian
theologians in each new generation must develop fresh approaches to the
classical problems posed by the beliefs of our traditions. Yet, outside the
philosophical quandaries posed by the problem of theodicy, the “hid-
denness of God,” or certain commentaries on biblical texts, recent non-
evangelical Christian theology has of fered little dialogue on the subject of
God’s wrath. Since it is impossible to ignore the instances of divine wrath
in the Bible, this is an untapped topic for current theologians to explore
from a variety of perspectives. It is my hope that this book has the poten-
tial to bring theological attention back to this discarded doctrine after a
dormant, stagnant period.
The first chapter of this book focuses on the biblical witness concern-
ing the wrath of God, examining how the concept of divine wrath develops
through the Old Testament, the Inter-Testamental period, and in the New
Testament. The second chapter traces how a Christian theology of divine
wrath developed from its origins in Greek philosophy, through the early
Christian apologists of the Patristic period, and among the medieval theo-
logians. The third chapter explores the dynamics of the new, Protestant
understandings of the wrath of God. In chapter four, I discuss how divine
wrath is underscored amidst the rise of evangelicalism and liberal theol-
ogy, focusing especially on John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, and then
Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl. The fifth chapter deals
with the rise and fall of discussions concerning the wrath of God in the
twentieth century. The sixth and final chapter of fers my analysis on how
divine wrath might be reclaimed for contemporary theology and preach-
ing, by considering certain models of divine wrath which have been of fered
throughout the history of the Christian witness to this neglected, and
oftentimes rejected, aspect of God.
Chapter One

The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath:

The Old Testament, the Inter-Testamental Period,
and the New Testament

One of the more interesting themes that can be traced through the Bible,
both in the Old and New Testaments, is that of the “wrath of God.” It is
a fascinating theme because divine wrath is static neither in its definition
nor in its dimensions, but developing throughout the biblical witness. In a
Christian reading of the Scriptures as a whole, we affirm that this is indeed
one God to whom the Scriptures testify, from Genesis through Revelation.
Consequently, to speak of divine wrath as a changing biblical theme is not
to attest to a God who vacillates and shifts, but to speak of a relationship
that transforms and metamorphoses throughout history. It is an avowal
that humankind, the recipients of God’s love and God’s wrath, has moved
through the millennia in a cacophonous progression of cultural and reli-
gious milieu that is not always constructive, and too often is destructive
in its ef fects. It is a confession that our relationship with the one constant
in an existence defined by commutations and transitions, God, must itself
change in accord with the contexts and environments in which we live and
by which we craft a world.
Although this book is a work first and foremost in systematic theology
and the history of Christian thought concerning divine wrath, it would be
remiss not to of fer an introductory exposition on the scriptural testimony
upon which any theological claims find their foundation. Although theolo-
gians throughout the centuries have advanced other sources by which they
have constructed their dogmatics and creeds, drawing in church tradition,
revelation through nature, and the contextual hermeneutics of our socio-
political identities, it is impossible to step away from the Bible and still
10 Chapter One

proclaim a faithful Christian witness. The Scriptures may be something

with which we grapple uncomfortably and reluctantly at times, finding
therein disappointment, disillusionment, and horror, but these holy words
nonetheless of fer testimony to a gospel of faith, hope, and love unavailable
through any other source with quite the same authenticity and authority.
While I am not claiming an inerrancy to the Bible, I do believe that it is a
witness that cannot and must not be ignored in any profession or protesta-
tion of the Christian faith.1
For this reason, what I of fer here is an overview of the ways in which
the biblical authors have dealt with the topic of divine wrath.2 This is an
examination of what such testimony proclaims about God, about the rela-
tionship between God and humanity, and about the motivations and func-
tionality by which the biblical authors portrayed divine wrath within the
overall dramaturgy of the scriptural narratives. It is through these biblical
perspectives that theology finds its wellspring and its reservoir, its dynamic
origin and its reliable source.

1 While I do not proclaim the Bible to be inerrantly the Word of God, I find Walter
Brueggemann’s invaluable distinction that the Bible is inherently the Word of God
to be compelling. This is a view of the biblical witness that I find both theologi-
cally sound and pastorally sustaining. Walter Brueggemann, “Biblical Authority: A
Personal Ref lection” The Christian Century 118 no. 1 Ja 3–10 2001, pp. 14–20.
2 In this overview, I am indebted to the unparalleled discussion of divine wrath as a
biblical theme in Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb (London: SPCK,
1957). I follow Hanson’s overall outline in this discussion of how divine wrath is
portrayed in the Old and New Testaments. I thank Miroslav Volf for referring me
to this essential work. Another excellent work on this subject is H.G.L. Peels, The
Vengeance of God: The Meaning of the Root NQM and the Function of the NQM-Texts
in the Context of Divine Revelation in the Old Testament (Leiden, New York, and
Köln: E.J. Brill, 1995).
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 11

The Wrath of God in the Old Testament

When considering divine wrath as it appears in the Old Testament, it is

important to explore the dif ferences of its dimensions between the pre-
exilic and post-exilic periods.3 The oldest part of the Old Testament where
divine wrath appears is in 1 and 2 Samuel, wherein the author seems to have
some first-hand knowledge of the court of Solomon, and perhaps even of
David.4 In these books, divine wrath is not necessarily accountable, rational,
or even morally motivated. For instance, in 2 Samuel 6:6–8, when Uzzah
reached out to steady the ark, since he was not ritually prepared to touch
it, “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him
there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside
the ark of God. David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an
outburst upon Uzzah.” David seems to be angry with God because Uzzah
seems unnecessarily punished directly by God, killed for an action that
seemed to be without malice, indeed, performed with good intent. This
display of divine wrath comes without mention of any intermediary force,
and the punishment takes place irrevocably in the form of a sudden death.
Furthermore, in this ancient writing, it is interesting that both 1 Samuel
26:19 and 2 Samuel 24:25 imply that the wrath of God can be appeased by
an appropriate of fering.
In the older parts of the Pentateuch, those attributed to J and E, a
similar understanding of divine wrath is presented, although there is a
greater emphasis on the moral motives of God’s wrath.5 However, this
is not always the case, for there are certain instances of divine wrath that
appear to be amoral, or at least supposing an inadequate moral infrac-
tion. In Exodus 19:22 and 19:24, conveying the holiness of Mount Sinai

3 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 1–40. Also helpful was Bruce
Edward Baloian, Anger in the Old Testament, American University Studies, Series
VII: Theology and Religion, Vol. 99 (New York and San Francisco: Peter Lang,
1992).
4 Ibid., pp. 1–3.
5 Ibid., pp. 3–6.
12 Chapter One

through instructions given to Moses, God warns the priests and people not
to approach the mountain too closely, “otherwise he will break out against
them.”6 Such cases set aside, the overall depiction of divine wrath in the
oldest parts of the Pentateuch not only moralizes it, but portrays God’s
wrath as occurring through secondary means, such as disease, rather than 1
and 2 Samuel’s depictions of divine wrath occurring directly, immediately,
and decisively. Numbers 16:31–35 narrates how Dathan and Abiram are
swallowed up by the earth and destroyed by fire, while Numbers 21:6 relates
that God sends fiery serpents upon those with whom God is angry, and in
Numbers 12:10, Miriam is punished with leprosy. Each of these exempli-
fies how divine wrath in the oldest parts of the Pentateuch is expressed
through secondary, intermediary agencies. To be sure, in these sections
of J and E, such conceptions of divine wrath predate two later models of
divine wrath as provoked automatically by sin, or as traceable in any and
all forms of adversity.7 The Deuteronomic literature represents the full
moralization of divine wrath, normally inf licted indirectly, functioning
as a working principle in history.8

6 In an interesting interpretation of Exodus 18:20, Baba Metsia 30b relates Rabbi

Yohanan’s explication that God punishes those who do not follow both the din Torah,
biblical law, and the lifnim mishurat hadin, the act of going above and beyond the
law. The implication of this is that God requires his people to act with even greater
mercy than the letter of the law requires. Louis E. Newman, Past Imperatives: Studies
in the History and Theory of Jewish Ethics, SUNY Series in Jewish Philosophy, Kenneth
Seeskin, ed. (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 27–28.
7 Hanson is quick to dismiss H. Wheeler Robinson’s assertion that “Adversity is always
felt as God’s wrath,” as inappropriate to these oldest parts of the Old Testament. For
Wheeler’s statement, see H. Wheeler Robinson, ed. Record and Revelation (Oxford:
The Clarendon Press, 1938), p. 342.
8 There are some instances in the Deuteronomic literature of God’s direct wrath, but
these examples tend to be those referring to traditional narratives already described
as such in earlier narratives. Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb,
pp. 5–6.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 13

The turn to the prophetic literature provides further insights into the
biblical depictions of divine wrath.9 Hosea prominently utilizes divine
wrath. His language invests a strong, emotional content to the wrath of
God, such as, “on them I will pour out my wrath like water,” in Hosea 5:10.10
Hosea tends to represent divine wrath as occurring through indirect means,
but despite this indirect manifestation, it is nonetheless the very personal
wrath of God. This is recounted well in Hosea 11:8–9:

My heart recoils within me;

   my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
   I will not again destroy Ephraim;
For I am God and no mortal,
   the Holy One in your midst,
   and I will not come in wrath.

While Yahweh has a strong, personal reaction to Israel’s transgressions,

God is “no mortal,” and unlike the overruling passions of humankind, God
does not succumb to the base instincts of anger. While Hosea certainly
anthropomorphised God, as did many of the eighth century prophets, he
did not present God’s wrath as unchecked by God’s love. In fact, Hosea
of fers an important origin for any study of the conf luence of both love
and wrath in the nature of God. Rather than resolving this conf lict, Hosea
understands the love and wrath of God to be contradictory and conf lict-
ing, whereby God’s eternal purpose of love is able to counteract the passing
emotionality of God’s wrath.
Isaiah of fers another grasp on wrath, especially in his insistent refrain
that, “For all this his anger has not turned away; and his hand is stretched

9 Gerhard von Rad maintains that the prophets “spoke of the divine wrath as a fact,
and designated as its proper object their contemporaries’ whole way of life, their
social and economic attitudes, the political behaviour and, in particular, their cultic
practice.” Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Volume II: The Theology of
Israel’s Prophetic Traditions. D.M.G. Stalker, trans. (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
1960, 1965), p. 179.
10 Ibid., pp. 6–7.
14 Chapter One

out still.”11 This repetition understands the wrath of God as mediated by

the operation of history and nature, enacted through foreign invasions,
death in war, drought, famine, and civil war.12 This is an understanding of
divine wrath as non-automatic, and utterly the personal act of Yahweh.
This is expressed well in Isaiah 10:5, “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger – the
club in their hands is my fury!” Here, Isaiah makes a claim that is neither
unusual nor unprecedented, that God is using a Gentile nation as a form of
divine wrath upon Israel. However, the claim here is that what might seem
like an ordinary historical event, the conquest of one country by another,
more powerful country, is actually the manifestation of God’s wrath.
Jeremiah refers to divine wrath frequently, often using the metaphor of
“pouring out,” and comparing the wrath of God to the consuming power
of an unstoppable fire.13 There is a certain consciousness in Jeremiah that
divine wrath cannot be disassociated from its effects, the very consequence
of God’s nature manifesting in a human history f lush with disobedience
and wrongdoing. Yet, there is a sensitivity concerning divine wrath that
is distinctive to Jeremiah. Both in Jeremiah 7:18–19 and 8:19, there is a
sense that Jeremiah is not angered that Israel transgresses and resists God
in willfulness, but that Jeremiah expresses grief and sorrow. Despite this
sense, in Jeremiah 6:11 and 23:9, Jeremiah describes himself as “full” of
divine wrath, becoming “a vessel of wrath” in an active sense. The message
that he bears is the very word of God, and the word is itself the wrath of
God that must be fulfilled and ef fected.
Ezekiel’s use of divine wrath is similar to Jeremiah, referring frequently to
the wrath of God as an explanation of his people’s current, disastrous situa-
tions, associating divine wrath with its effects, using the metaphors of “fire” and

11 This refrain appears in Isaiah 5:25; 9:12, 17, 21; and 10:4. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
12 In a similar vein, speaking on Joshua 11, Walter Brueggemann states that, “The trou-
blesome part is that Yahweh’s transforming governance takes place in such con-
crete, human ways as hamstringing and burning… In Biblical faith the great gift of
deliverance comes in historical concreteness.” Walter Brueggemann, Revelation and
Violence: A Study in Contextualization. The 1986 Père Marquette Theology Lecture
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1986), p. 57.
13 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 8–10.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 15

“pouring out.”14 However, Ezekiel tends to be less sensitive in his anthropo-

morphic language concerning wrath, instilling a strong, emotional content to
divine wrath that always is “quieted” or “expended” by God, not by the agency
of human beings. However, Ezekiel makes a watershed turn in speaking of
God’s anger toward Judah’s oppressors. This is especially true after the fall of
Jerusalem, when Ezekiel describes divine wrath as manifested increasingly
against the Gentiles, and not against the humbled Israel. This is an important
movement in the history of divine wrath, as before the Exile, God’s wrath
almost always is described as intended and effected against Israel. Neither
the titanic devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah, nor the drowning of the
Egyptian army in the Red Sea, were portrayed as instances of divine wrath.
Ezekiel acts as a witness to this fundamental change in how the wrath of
God is understood, spanning the historical era during which Jerusalem fell.
The post-exilic period offers a number of important new developments
in the theology and rhetorical use of divine wrath, particularly through an
increasing awareness of the problem presented by the mutual activity of the
wrath and mercy of God, an increasingly impersonal characterization of
divine wrath, apocalyptic dimensions of divine wrath, and the metaphor of
the “cup of wrath.”15 In the writings of the exilic prophet Deutero-Isaiah,
there is a distinctive passage that highlights the burgeoning cognizance of
the problematic contrasts between the wrath and the love of God.16 The
unusual passage of Isaiah 48:9 of fers the voice of Yahweh, “For my name’s
sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, so that
I may not cut you of f.” Unlike Hosea, who spoke of God restraining wrath
in favor of love, Deutero-Isaiah presents God as holding of f his righteous
wrath in order to preserve and enhance God’s own reputation, “for my
name’s sake.”17 However, an important reading of this passage is not that
this refers to a sort of prideful narcissism on the part of God, but that in

14 Ibid., pp. 10–12.

15 Ibid., pp. 13–36.
16 Ibid., p. 13.
17 See the annotated commentary of J.J.M. Roberts in The Harper Collins Study Bible:
New Revised Standard Version, Wayne A. Meeks, ed. (New York and London:
HarperCollins, 1989), p. 1082.
16 Chapter One

the God who is “I AM THAT I AM,” the name of God is synonymous

with the nature of God. In this interpretation, the loving nature of God is
what circumvents the wrath of God.
Isaiah 42:25 presents another dimension in the relationship between
God and Israel, that divine wrath had become so customary to Israel, so
identified as part of the natural process of history, that Israel no longer
recognizes divine wrath as something extraordinary.18 Hanson points out
that this is a marked shift from earlier biblical passages, where “no one
could possibly have failed to recognize the action of the wrath of God as
they understood it.”19 There is an interesting inversion of this principle in
Zechariah 6:8, whereby earlier understandings of the possibility of God’s
wrath being appeased are shifted from the deliberate appeasement by human
beings, instead appeased simply through the process of human history.20
This said, however, it is decisive that Deutero-Isaiah and Zechariah mark a
shift in expressing divine wrath as directed primarily against the Gentiles, an
expression marked by its increased frequency in use. This is depicted well,
in brilliant and gory detail, in the Trito-Isaiah passage of Isaiah 63:1–6:

“Who is this that comes from Edom, from Bozrah in garments stained crimson?
Who is this so splendidly robed, marching in his great might?”
“It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save.”
“Why are your robes red, and your garments like theirs who tread the wine
press?”
“I have trodden the wine press alone, and from the people no one was with me;
I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their juice spattered on
my garments, and stained all my robes. For the day of vengeance was in my heart,
and the year for my redeeming work had come. I looked, but there was no helper; I
stared, but there was no one to sustain me; so my own arm brought me victory, and
my wrath sustained me. I trampled down peoples in my anger, I crushed them in my
wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”

18 Isaiah 42:25 states, “So he poured upon him the heat of his anger and the fury of
war; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him, but he
did not take it to heart.”
19 Anthony Tyrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 13–14.
20 Ibid., p. 14. The text of Zechariah 6:8 is “Then he cried out to me, ‘Lo, those who
go toward the north country have set my spirit at rest in the north country.’”
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 17

It is probable that the intense experiences of the Exile, much like con-
temporary Judaism’s experiences during the Holocaust, prompted a renewed
and deeper consideration among Jews on the nature of sin, wrath, and grace,
both individually and in concert. In both Isaiah 57:16–18 and 60:10, wrath
and mercy are contiguous and alternating, with the mercy of God check-
ing and limiting divine wrath as an expression of God’s justice.21 However,
in Isaiah 63:17 and 64:6–9, there is the suggestion that sin is not only the
cause of divine wrath, but its consequence as well.22 This is a fascinating
rhetorical shift in the prophetic voice, for it proclaims that the wrath of
God enacts a condition of helpless sinfulness. Israel is helpless to right itself
without the mercy of God, a condition that is impossible unless the wrath
of God relents.23 This requires God to intervene decisively upon God’s
own self, to stop this endless cycle of sin and wrath through the infusion
of God’s merciful love. The call, “Now consider, we are all your people,” is

21 Ibid., pp. 14–15. Isaiah 57:16–18 is “For I will not continually accuse, nor will I always
be angry; for then the spirits would grow faint before me, even the souls that I have
made. Because of their wicked covetousness I was angry; I struck them, I hid and
was angry; but they kept turning back to their own ways. I have seen their ways, but
I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort, creating for their
mourners the fruit of the lips,” while Isaiah 60:10 is “Foreigners shall build up your
walls, and their kinds shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you down, but
in my favor I have had mercy on you.” Brevard S. Childs notes that Isaiah 1–11 also
juxtapose themes of eschatological judgment and salvation. Brevard S. Childs, Old
Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985),
p. 240.
22 Isaiah 63:17 is “Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our
heart, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the
sake of the tribes that are your heritage.” Isaiah 64:6–9 is “We have all become like
one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like
a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on
your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be
exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider,
we are all your people.”
23 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, p. 17.
18 Chapter One

the heartfelt cry of the prophet to God to recall the historical intimacy of
the relationship between God and Israel, to remember the covenant and
stand by its claims once more.
Erich Zenger describes, and I think quite rightly, that the basic model
of human life as portrayed in the book of Psalms as a whole is that both
individual lives and the lives of the people Israel appear overwhelmingly
to be a daily struggle, and an ongoing battle against enemies.24 In a certain
respect, the writers of certain psalms seem to transfer their anger and frustra-
tion into divine imagery, evoking divine wrath as an intensified, infinitely
more potent expression of their own emotional state. The substantive hope
implied in the despair of certain prayers within the Psalms is that there is
a God whose love and justice might be expressed through the destructive
qualities of retaliation and vengeance.25 However, it is vital to recognize
that this desperate, suf fering cry for judgment is nothing less than a cry
for a judgment that bears justice, restoring a broken, fractured situation
into right relationship again, confronting the wicked with their injustice
so as to honor justice through earnest repentance.26 In the lived, passionate
conviction that justice must be done, a response by God that brings wrath

24 Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance?: Understanding the Psalms of Divine Wrath.

Linda M. Maloney, trans. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 1996),
p. 9. Zenger’s short, fine monograph is perhaps the most elegant contemporary
examination of divine wrath by a biblical scholar, with a mind toward the pastoral
repercussions of a liturgical tradition which includes such psalms.
25 Franz Buggle, a clinical psychologist who rejects the Bible as a fundamentally violent
and inhuman book, writes on the raw emotionality of the Psalms: “[This is] what
the psalms really are: in large part, and to a degree seldom encountered otherwise,
a text dominated by primitive and uncontrolled feelings of hatred, desire for venge-
ance, and self-righteousness… In spite of all apparent ‘matters of fact’ that seem to
deny it, I must acknowledge that for a long time I have not read any text so marked
by excessive and unbridled hatred and thirst for revenge.” Franz Buggle, Denn sie
wissen nicht, was sie glauben. Oder warum man redlicherweise nicht mehr Christ sein
kann. Eine Streitschrfit [For they know not what they believe. Or: why no one can be
honest and remain a Christian. A polemic] (Reinbek, 1992), pp. 79–80, as referenced
in Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance?, pp. 22, 98.
26 Ibid., p. 64.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 19

upon the enemies of Israel is good news indeed.27 In this respect, the one
who suf fers of fers prayer for the relief of a God who is not apolitical, and
this is a struggle simultaneously with and against God.28
The author of Job, in no uncertain terms, rejects the belief that mis-
fortune is necessarily a sign of divine wrath.29 In this book, Job seems
to accept the idea that misfortune can be a sign of God’s wrath, but not
necessarily so, and certainly not in his own particular case! However, Job
does not simply accept that God’s wrath is upon him, but appeals to God’s
mercy several times, and emphatically in Job 14:13 when he exclaims, “Oh
that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your
wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!”
Job becomes increasingly frustrated as his petitions for God’s righteous-
ness to recognize Job’s lack of sinfulness go unanswered, accusing in Job
16:9 that, “He has torn me in his wrath, and hated me; he has gnashed his
teeth at me; my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.” It is a remarkable
accusation, because Job would seem to indicate that not even his appeals
for God’s mercy bring about succor. Indeed, God’s wrath seems all the more
whetted to its acuity upon Job. However, in the end, the wrath of God
is not the climax of the Job narrative, merely its catalyst. It is the mercy
of God, even God’s love, that rewards Job in the end for his suf ferings
once Job has learned the lesson that his sense of justice is not paramount
in determining his fate, but God’s decision for graciousness and love that
distinguish how Job will fare. The conclusion of Job is stunningly eschato-

27 Gottfried Bachl states that, “Judgment is the way God helps human beings to self-
discovery, it is liberation from the delusion of innocence, awakening from the sleep
of conscience, release from life’s lie. Because this help comes from God, it is unavoid-
able, ef ficient, painful and final in a healing way, occurring at the end of a human life,
in death. In this way the human being gains himself or herself completely, becomes
genuine, capable of loving, and ready to receive the full presence of God.” Gottfried
Bachl, “Das Gericht,” Christ in der Gegenwart 45 (1993): 397.
28 Jan Assmann, Politische Theologie zwischen Ägypten und Israel (Munich, 1992),
pp. 85–87, 93 and Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance?, p. 74.
29 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 20–21.
20 Chapter One

logical in its scope, envisioning a graceful future despite whatever agonies

inhabit and define the present.
Following the Exile, another theme emerges among certain bibli-
cal writers who speak of divine wrath in a highly impersonal fashion.30
This theme begins to appear in the Priestly Document, the last part of the
Pentateuch to be written. While the wrath of God is referred to only five
times in this body of literature, two of the instances are couched in a stag-
geringly impersonal manner. In Numbers 14:34, after promising a punish-
ment of forty years duration that corresponds to the Israelites’ fears, God
proclaims that, “you shall know my displeasure.” Rather than presenting
God’s wrath directly, there is the implication here that God’s wrath will work
so slowly, so impersonally, that it is only in the wake of the punishment that
the punished will realize that their forty years of suf fering was the work
of divine wrath. A better example is Numbers 16:46, where Moses says to
Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire on it from the altar and lay incense on
it, and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them.
For wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.” In this case,
divine wrath has no emotional or personal context, simply acknowledg-
ing that its source is God. In fact, wrath here is given an embodiment in a
sense, named as the plague.
By the time of 350 to 250 BC, the Chronicler tends to stay away from
describing God in anthropomorphic terms, and so refers consistently to
divine wrath in an impersonal way.31 While both 1 and 2 Chronicles refers
often to divine wrath, it presents the wrath of God as a process in history,
attributing every misfortune of Judah, whether by disease or military defeat,
to divine wrath.32 Often provoked by idolatry, the Chronicler depicts divine
wrath as a natural phenomenon, impersonal and mysterious. This articula-
tion tends to be so impersonal as to avoid speaking of wrath as being sent
by God, sometimes even referring to “wrath” alone without any sort of

30 Ibid., pp. 21–27.

31 Ibid., pp. 22–24.
32 The exceptions to this are when the Chronicler references previous narratives from
Samuel and Kings.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 21

divine attribution of its source.33 The Chronicler even goes so far as to “cor-
rect” earlier narratives of divine wrath, such as in 1 Chronicles 15:13, when
he attributes Uzzah’s death to the fact that laymen, not the Levite priests,
bore the Ark of the Covenant. Attempting to erase any notion of God’s
wrath as amoral and irrational, the Chronicler’s ef forts to systematize the
wrath of God are noticeable.
The Book of Daniel presents divine wrath in a similar light to the
Chronicler, intentionally unemotional and impersonal in its scope, although
reverting to a pre-exilic tradition among the prophets of describing divine
wrath as enacted primarily upon Israel.34 However, this impersonal con-
ception of divine wrath is combined in Daniel with the third post-exilic
theme, that of the apocalyptic treatment of divine wrath that takes on
eschatological dimensions. While Daniel is rife with this imagery, cer-
tain later, post-exilic parts of Isaiah render this idea as well. Isaiah 13:9–11
presentation of “the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce
anger,” adheres to a certain, linguistically unrestrained level of violence.
This apocalyptic anger is jarringly direct, progressing to the apocalyptic
end of Isaiah in chapters 65 and 66, where God is described theophanously
in Isaiah 66:14–16 as personally slaying those who stand against God.35
These apocalyptic writings tend to be more direct and personal in their
portrayals of divine wrath, but also more receptive to the moral claims of
divine justice than earlier writers, whose personal images of divine wrath
often were paired with irrational, emotive bursts of anger.

33 Some examples of this impersonalized wrath are 1 Chronicles 27:24 and 2 Chronicles
19:2; 19:10; 28:9–13; 32:25–26; 36:16. Examples where wrath is referenced with naming
God as its source include 1 Chronicles 27:24; 2 Chronicles 19:10; 24:18; 28:13; Ezra
7:23; and Nehemiah 13:18.
34 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 24–27.
35 Isaiah 66:14–16 reads, “You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies shall
f lourish like the grass; and it shall be known that the hand of the Lord is with his
servants, and his indignation is against his enemies. For the Lord will come in fire,
and his chariots like the whirlwind, to pay back his anger in fury, and his rebuke in
f lames of fire. For by fire will the Lord execute judgment, and by his sword, on all
f lesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many.”
22 Chapter One

The fourth metaphor of divine wrath that developed in the post-

exilic period is “the cup of wrath,” which emerges out of a protracted,
multi-religious background.36 By the time that certain aspects of the Old
Testament literature were written in the eighth and seventh centuries BC,
the wine cup was established in North Semitic mythology as a symbol of
destiny, especially evil destiny. The cup of wrath implies a condemnation
of those who, consciously or unconsciously, drink from the cup, becoming
helplessly drunk with disaster and the very wrath of God, rather than with
wine.37 In the prophetic literature, such as Jeremiah, the prophet delivers
the cup of wrath to nations who may try to refuse the cup, although always
in vain.38 The Psalms and Zechariah bear witness to the cup of wrath as
well, although Zechariah 12:2 renames it as the “cup of reeling” that God
will make Jerusalem upon all of the surrounding peoples. Associated with
the cup of wrath is another symbol, the pouring out of wrath, which first

36 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 27–36.

37 Perhaps the best example of this in the Old Testament is of fered in Isaiah 51:17–23:
“Rouse yourself, rouse yourself ! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the
hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath; who have drunk to the dregs the bowl of
staggering. There is no one to guide her among all the children she has borne; there
is no one to take her by the hand among all the children she has brought up. These
two things have befallen you – who will grieve with you? – devastation and destruc-
tion, famine and sword – who will comfort you? Your children have fainted, they lie
at the head of every street like an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of the
Lord, the rebuke of your God. Therefore hear this, you who are wounded, who are
drunk, but not with wine: Thus says your Sovereign, the Lord, your God who pleads
the cause of his people: See, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; you
shall drink no more from the bowl of my wrath. And I will put it into the hand of
your tormentors, who have said to you, ‘Bow down, that we may walk on you’; and
you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to walk on.”
38 For example, Jeremiah 25:27–28 reads, “Then you shall say to them, Thus says the
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, get drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more,
because of the sword that I am sending among you. And if they refuse to accept the
cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord of hosts:
You must drink!”
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 23

appears in Hosea 5:10.39 Despite this association, it is interesting that the

only time that both the “cup of wrath” and the “pouring out of the wrath”
appear together is Psalm 75:8.40 What is important about both symbols is
how lacking in eschatological significance both are in the Old Testament,
referring overwhelmingly to definite events in history.

The Wrath of God in the Inter-Testamental Period

In the inter-Testamental period, the major conceptions of the Deuteronomic

school and of the prophets continue to bear fruit from their origins in the
Old Testament.41 However, the dynamic interplay of these dif fering themes
evidence themselves disparately in the Apocrypha, the Jewish apocalyp-
tic literature, rabbinical writings from the period, and a group of writers
who Hanson refers to as “The Hellenizers,” who were concerned with
presenting the Old Testament in a favorable light to the Greco-Roman
intellectual world.
In the Apocrypha, Jesus ben Sirach’s Ecclesiasticus tends to favor the
depictions of divine wrath evident in 1 and 2 Chronicles, rather than those
of the prophetic tradition.42 Both Ecclesiasticus 5:6 and 16:11 repeat a phrase

39 Hosea 5:10 reads, “The princes of Judah have become like those who remove the
landmark; on them I will pour out my wrath like water.” The pouring out of the wrath
appears four times in Jeremiah (7:20; 10:25; 42:18; 44:6), frequently throughout
Ezekiel, and sporadically in Nahum, Zephaniah, the Psalms, Job, Chronicles, and
Daniel. For an excellent commentary on divine wrath as it appears in Habakkuk
and Zephaniah, see Mária Eszenyei Széles, Wrath and Mercy: A Commentary on the
Books of Habakkuk and Zephaniah. George A.F. Knight, trans. (Grand Rapids: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and Edinburgh: The Handsel Press Ltd, 1987).
40 Psalm 75:8 reads, “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well
mixed; he will pour a draught from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it
down to the dregs.”
41 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 41–67.
42 Ibid., pp. 41–42.
24 Chapter One

which presents God’s wrath and mercy as contiguous, without hinting at

the possibility of their polarization: “Do not say, ‘His mercy is great, he
will forgive the multitude of my sins,’ for both mercy and wrath are with
him, and his anger will rest on sinners.” Whereas certain of the prophets
juxtaposed divine wrath and divine mercy, the prophetic tradition tended
to explore the tensions between them, whereas Ecclesiasticus either ignores
or dismisses the possibility of a polarizing tension. It is perhaps for this
reason that Ecclesiasticus so easily accepts the very idea of the possibility
of appeasing divine wrath.
In 1 and 2 Maccabees, this assumption concerning the capacity of human
beings appeasing the wrath of God is expounded further, demonstrating a
common theme that overlaps the plural authorship of these works.43 This
assumption is expressed sometimes through mere allusion, as in 1 Maccabees
3:8, or through indisputably clear endorsement, such as 2 Maccabees 7:38.
In this latter passage, concerning the seven martyr brothers, there is a new
idea that the death of righteous persons can conciliate the wrath of God. The
Maccabees literature communicates an intensely impersonal sense of divine
wrath, evidenced well in the “time of ruin and furious anger” described in
1 Maccabees 2:49. In 1 Maccabees, divine wrath is so impersonal as to be
referred to simply as “the wrath.” While 2 Maccabees always refers to wrath
as the wrath of God, it does so in a manner similar to Daniel, rather than
in the apocalyptic tradition of the prophets. In this way, 2 Maccabees often
endows divine wrath with a disciplinary, chastening character.
The Wisdom of Solomon further develops this understanding of
divine wrath as disciplinary, focusing on the ef fects of divine wrath rather
than upon the wrath of God as a godly trait.44 Distinctively, while the
author often attempts to explain or dismiss those traditional illustrations of
divine wrath against Israel, he is prolific in of fering examples of the wrath
of God enacted against the Gentiles. When the author of the Wisdom of
Solomon does admit to instances of divine wrath executed against Israel,
the motif of this wrath is decidedly disciplinary, and not retributive. His

43 Ibid., pp. 42–44.

44 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 44–46.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 25

descriptions of wrath tend to be impersonal, occurring through the agency

of an avenging angel or by natural forces.45
Baruch presents another perspective on divine wrath, as something
temporary that must be endured.46 In Baruch 4:25, Israel is told, “My chil-
dren, endure with patience the wrath that has come upon you from God.
Your enemy has overtaken you, but you will soon see their destruction
and will tread upon their necks.” Hanson argues that in Baruch, divine
wrath and secular misfortune are so identified that wrath almost loses it
wrathful character altogether, the very “ossification of the concept of the
divine wrath.”47
The second literary body, the Jewish apocalyptic literature, of fers its
own distinguishing concepts of divine wrath.48 1 Enoch provides a dual
vision of the wrath of God as utterly eschatological, and as emphasiz-
ing that wrath can be abiding.49 The Zadokite Fragment of the Dead Sea
Scrolls of fers a staggeringly frequent array of references to divine wrath,
unrestrained and fearsome in their scope.50 This fragment even advances a
sort of doctrine of reprobation in 2:6, “For God chose [the wicked] from
the beginning of the world, and ere they were formed he knew their works,”
representing a larger movement in the inter-Testamental period advocating
that people were preordained to sin.
2 Esdras posits a singular attempt at solving the problem of the mutual
mercy and wrath of God.51 In a section called the Salathiel Apocalypse, the
author proclaims in 2 Esdras 8:30, “Do not be angry with those who are
deemed worse than wild animals,” and then comments in 8:34, “But what

45 See the Wisdom of Solomon 5:20 and 18:15–16.

46 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 46–47.
47 Ibid., pp. 46–47.
48 Ibid., pp. 47–54.
49 See 1 Enoch 55:3; 62:12; 64:4.
50 An excellent translation of this document is of fered in Solomon Schechter, Documents
of Jewish Sectaries, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910), and an
excellent early commentary remains Harold Henry Rowley, The Zadokite Fragments
and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1952).
51 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 51–52.
26 Chapter One

are mortals, that you are angry with them; or what is a corruptible race,
that you are so bitter against it?” He goes on to suggest that those persons
who are destroyed by the wrath of God are less important, in a qualitative
sense, than the righteous who are saved.
A third body of inter-Testamental literature, the rabbinical writings,
attempts to temper the more severe descriptions of divine wrath in the
Old Testament.52 Judah the Prince proclaims, “The Lord controls his anger
and is not controlled by it,” and “I am a jealous God, but jealousy does not
rule over me.”53 Samuel ben Nahmani made the discriminating comment
that when God makes a promise to provide well on the condition of good
conduct, that God may keep the promise even if the human behavior is
not good. Yet, ben Nahmani continues by writing, “when God swore in
his wrath he did retract, for he swore to punish. For God said, I am not a
mortal man to swear to punish and to exult in doing so.”54 The underlying
message seems to be that the wrath of God is less pronounced than God’s
love, and that divine wrath is subordinate to the love of God. There is a
tinge of discussing divine wrath as disciplinary, but used mostly to modify
the Old Testament writings.
The fourth and last set of writers to consider in the inter-Testamental
period are the Hellenizers, those writers who desired to prof fer the Old
Testament in a favorable light to the Greco-Roman intellectual circles.55
This need to work toward some diplomatic ways of addressing divine wrath
implies that there is, indeed, a problem or set of problems inherent in
speaking of divine wrath. For this reason, the Letter to Aristeas intention-
ally attempts to ignore the wrath of God because it bespeaks a personal
attribute of the divine. In a similar manner, Philo goes even farther by
utterly denying the wrath of God as too anthropomorphic to be appealing
to the passionless divinity of Greek philosophy, a mindset that he tries to

52 C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, eds, A Rabbinic Anthology (London: Macmillan,

1938), p. 52, as referenced in Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb,
pp. 54–55.
53 C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, eds., A Rabbinic Anthology, pp. 52, 54.
54 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, p. 54.
55 Ibid., pp. 55–65.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 27

reconcile with the Hebrew scriptures in his metaphysics. He explains Old

Testament references to divine wrath in three ways: first, the language of
wrath is utilized to teach those who, because of their foolishness, cannot
be instructed otherwise; second, as a means of explaining that bad people
become so through God’s wrath, while good people become so through
God’s grace; and third, as a metaphysical argument which states that just as
human beings cannot bear the vision of God, we cannot bear the unadul-
terated mercy of God, meaning that some amount of wrath is necessary
so that we can bear witness to God’s mercy at all. Interestingly, in Philo’s
more homiletical works, he did utilize the concept of divine wrath, while
spurning it in his metaphysical works. An example of this utility of divine
wrath is that in his De Sacrificiis Abel, Philo speaks of God’s justice as being
executed wrathfully through servants.
Josephus held no compunctions against speaking of God as angry.56
His Archaeologia was a popular treatise on Jewish history aimed at a Gentile
audience, and the early parts of the Archaeologia candidly represent God as
angry in accordance with the Hebrew scriptures. At times, Josephus even
uses the language of divine wrath when discussing a biblical passage that
does not relate divine wrath. One encounters a shift in Josephus’ writings,
however, when he must address the issue of seeming irrational wrath in
God. He dif ferentiates between human passions and divine judgment,
always careful to present the latter in ways that emphasize the justice and
dignity of the wrath of God.

The Wrath of God in the New Testament

No matter whether I find myself talking with college students and profes-
sors or among congregants in parish churches, one of the aphorisms that
I often hear among Christians when I mention divine wrath is that “all of

56 Ibid., pp. 62–65.

28 Chapter One

that is in the Old Testament.” There is a pervasive tendency to characterize

the New Testament as singularly about Jesus’ messages concerning love and
salvation, with any hint of God’s wrath subsumed in reference to the Old
Testament. Furthermore, this attitude seems to maintain that if the New
Testament does mention divine wrath, it only does so out of an outmoded
obligation to its Old Testament heritage.57 This gross generalization has
been repeated to me time and again by both laypersons and ordained clergy,
in both Protestant and Roman Catholic contexts, although evangelicals
seem more ready to grapple with divine wrath in the context of the New
Testament. Due to this pervasive misconception, especially in the context
of describing the sources by which early Christians came to believe what
they did about the wrath of God, it is important to of fer some explica-
tion of how the authors of the New Testament dealt with the subject of
divine wrath.
To be sure, the Pauline epistles develop a subtle theology of divine
wrath that exceeds that of the Synoptic Gospels in both depth and breadth.58
In his treatment of the wrath of God, Paul depicts divine wrath as utterly
impersonal. There is a certain manner in which Paul does not describe wrath
as an attitude or attribute of God, but as part of the human condition. He
maintains that in its realization, divine wrath works generally through his-
tory. This lends an eschatological dimension to the wrath of God, whereby
any execution of divine wrath is a revelation, and any revelation of divine

57 This concern also is expressed in the Preface of Murdoch Dahl, Daughter of Love
(Worthing: Churchman Publishing, 1989), p. 1.
58 Ibid., pp. 68–111. To be sure, Peter G. Bolt points out that Paul’s rhetoric of a coming
judgment day on which God would inf lict wrath would have seemed utterly foreign
to many among his Gentile audiences, especially those who held to the Stoic and
Epicurean philosophical traditions. Bolt argues that Paul would have found allies
among the Middle Platonists who also would have been among his audiences, devel-
oped by his contemporary Plutarch of Chaeronea. Peter G. Bolt, “The Philosopher
in the Hands of an Angry God,” in The Gospel to the Nations: Perspectives on Paul’s
Mission. Peter Bolt and Mark Thompson, eds. (Leicester: Apollos and Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), pp. 327–343.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 29

wrath is itself an execution.59 In his later letters, Paul steps away from the
eschatological aspect of divine wrath, focusing instead on the circumstances
and reality of how wrath is realized in the present, rather than in the future,
even in an envisioned immanent future.60

59 A good example of this is 2 Thessalonians 1:3–10, “We must always give thanks to
God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly,
and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves
boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all
your persecutions and the af f lictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the
righteous judgment of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom
of God, for which you are also suf fering. For it is indeed just of God to repay with
af f liction those who af f lict you, and to give relief to the af f licted as well as to us,
when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in f laming fire,
inf licting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey
the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction,
and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to
be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to
you was believed.” Elaine Pagels finds that this eschatological treatment of divine
wrath is a dimension that Christians add to the Jewish portrayals of divine wrath.
In an excellent essay, Pagels argues that while pagan stories (by which she refers to
Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek mythologies) tend to express their gods expressing
emotions such as undif ferentiated rage, Jewish sources tend instead to moralize anger,
dividing it into the negative category of rage and the positive category of righteous
wrath. On the other hand, Pagels found that Christians tend to inhibit the expression
of rage, power, and aggression in themselves, while simultaneously projecting these
qualities onto God, with an expectation that God will avenge those wrongs done
to Christians in the future, demonizing those who oppose them. See Elaine Pagels,
“The Rage of Angels,” in Rage, Power, and Aggression. Robert A. Glick and Steven P.
Roose, eds. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 235–244.
60 R.F. Fuller writes of Paul, “He is using the familiar prophetic device of speaking of a
future event as though it were already present. The certainty of the event is so over-
whelming, the signs of its impendingness so sure, that it is said to have occurred or
to be occurring already.” R.F. Fuller, The Mission and Achievement of Jesus (Chicago:
Alec R. Allenson, 1954), p. 26. Another perspective is that of R.V.G. Tasker, who
speaks of this as a “prophetic perfect,” whereby divine wrath has so nearly happened
that it is spoken of as being in the past. R.V.G. Tasker, The Biblical Doctrine of the
Wrath of God (London: Tyndale Press, 1951), pp. 43–44. Both of these are referred
to in Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, p. 70.
30 Chapter One

Paul composes this present, realized wrath as directed first upon indi-
viduals or groups, but then he expands the scope of this enactment of wrath
to all unbelievers.61 However, to be sure, Paul depicts divine wrath not only
as a process, but also as a condition that is qualitative of all unbelievers.62
Furthermore, Paul presents the law that is broken and its accompanying
wrath as not only ordained by God, but as rarely applied directly by God.
Instead, in Paul’s compositions, the wrath of God is a self-operating process
whereby wrath is not something to be satisfied or propitiated, but some-
thing that abides upon us.63 Paul goes out of his way to not portray God

61 For a good example of this, see Romans 1:18–23, “For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wicked-
ness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because
God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and
divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the
things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they
did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their
thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became
fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a
mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.” Luke Timothy
Johnson argues that in Romans, “God’s wrath … is not a psychological category but
a symbol for the retribution that comes to humans because of their willful turning
away from God … for those alienated from God, even the face of mercy is hateful.
The retribution here results from the very distortion of their existence that they
chose.” Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), p. 320.
62 In this respect, Karl Barth comments on the human situation that the reign of
death and sin also is the realm of wrath. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans.
Edwyn Hoskyns (London, Oxford, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1933),
pp. 176–180.
63 C.H. Dodd describes divine wrath in Paul’s epistles as an ef fect of human sin, as
“inevitable process of cause and ef fect in a moral universe.” C.H. Dodd, ed. Romans
(London: Mof fatt Commentary, 1932), pp. 20–24. Bringing Romans 1 into conversa-
tion with René Girard’s work, Steve Finamore concludes that, “The wrath of God is
God’s in that it is initiated by the revelation of the gospel which breaks into human
culture and exposes the violence on which it is based. The violence is not God’s but
humanity’s: the responsibility for the ef fects of the process lie with humans rather
than with God. However, it is God’s process in that it is God who has acted in a
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 31

as angry, in a sense transforming what previously had been an attribute

of God into a process that sinners bring upon themselves by violating the
moral laws of a universal God.
While this is particularly groundbreaking work in the biblical devel-
opment of divine wrath, what makes Paul’s epistles truly innovative is the
assertion that this abiding wrath of God is something from which we are
rescued in the work of the Christ. While Jesus did not endure wrath himself,
he of fered himself up to divine wrath as the consequence of humankind’s
sins. In submitting to the wrath of God, Christ transcended this wrath,
proving that the very principle by which this self-operating, abiding wrath
worked, the law, was inef fective. In this way, Christ opened a way to escape
the aspect of the law that was an abiding curse, the very enactment of wrath
itself.64 In acknowledging that we are saved through the work of Christ, we
also must acknowledge what it is from which we are saved. Due to Christ’s
salvific participation, the cross can be understood as a revelation of the

way which generates the process and prevents its resolution. God has acted so that
humans are liberated from their endless cycles of cultures founded on violence and
lies,” and that Finamore “understands the gospel to be an agent for the revelation of
God’s wrath and of God’s integrity; the two are related for both are processes set in
train by the Christ-event and its representation in the gospel. This twin process is
eschatological because it presents humanity with a final crisis in which the choices
are the gospel or destruction.” Steve Finamore, “The Gospel and the Wrath of God
in Romans 1,” in Understanding, Studying and Reading: New Testament Essays in
Honour of John Ashton. Christopher Rowland and Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis,
eds. Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series 153. (Shef field:
Shef field Academic Press, 1998), pp. 137–154.
64 See Galatians 3:13–14, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a
curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ – in order that
in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might
receive the promise of the Sprit through faith.” Although it is not a large theme in
Paul’s epistles, it is important to point out the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where
Paul discusses dif ferent instances of divine wrath in the Old Testament, he then asks
in 10:22, “Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy?” This is a unique question, of
whether Christ himself might be inclined toward wrath given suf ficient cause in
jealousy.
32 Chapter One

wrath, but only insofar it is a revelation of salvation itself.65 In exhibiting

the Christological salvation of the faithful, recognizing the condemnation
of the unfaithful is inescapable in comparison.66 For this very reason, faith
is what allows human beings to perceive both the wrath of God and the
love of God.67 As revealed in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 and 2:16, this work of
Christ does not deliver us from a wrath that is to be enacted in the future,

65 I find Krister Stendahl’s rhetoric compelling when he says that, “Judgment and mercy
are not balanced over against each other in a scheme in which a last judgment is
tempered and adjusted by God’s grace, or Christ, or the blood, or the cross, or the
intercession of the saints. That is not the way it is. Mercy, salvation, liberation are
all part of God’s judgment. God’s judgment bring mercy to those who need mercy.
Judgment is justice for those who hunger and thirst after it, those deprived of it. God’s
judgment is in his activity, when he puts things right, when he establishes justice.
It is important to revive and revitalize the biblical meaning of judgment (krisis) as
that establishment of justice which by necessity means mercy for the wronged and
loss for those who have too much.” Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 100.
66 It is important, however, to note that Paul does not articulate a full-blown doctrine
of reprobation in the course of providing a discourse on the fate of those who are
not saved through Christ, but who are themselves condemned in their faithlessness.
Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, p. 111. This is not to say that Paul
does not of fer certain discourses that border on reprobation, such as Romans 9:14–33,
without actually crossing the line into theological declaration. For those who live in
faith, Ephesians 6:10–20 of fers an exhortation to put on the whole armor of God
in faith. This is an activity of those who are capable as moral agents.
67 2 Corinthians 2:14–16 provides a sensatory estimation of this capacity of faith to
reveal to human beings the dif ferent between salvation and condemnation: “But
thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphant procession, and
through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For
we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among
those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a
fragrance from life to life. Who is suf ficient for these things?” Furthermore, Rudolph
Bultmann writes of Paul that, “The preaching of faith does not introduce a new
concept of God as if God were not the Judge who requires good works but were
only the Merciful. No, we may speak of God’s ‘grace’ only when we also speak of His
‘wrath.’” Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the Old Testament, Volume One. Kenrick
Grobel, trans. (London: SCM Press, 1952), p. 262.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 33

but from a wrathful process that already has begun in the contemporary
moment, reaching toward its fruition in the imminent future.
In comparison to Paul’s letters, divine wrath receives little treatment
in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Still, as the primary
texts by which Christians bear testimony to the life, teachings, and works
of Jesus, it is important to mine what they might of fer to this exposition
of how divine wrath develops in the Bible.68 In Luke 3:7, John the Baptist
asks his audience, “Who warned you to f lee from the wrath to come?” The
implication here is that in God’s kingdom, coming in onrushing imminence,
this kingdom will be experienced as wrath for those who are unprepared for
its judgment. Hence, John the Baptist questions those who have come to
be baptized how it is that they have come to repent. Luke 21:23 also speaks
of divine wrath: “For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath
against this people.” In his apocalyptic discourse concerning the Temple,
Jesus of fers a vision of the fall of Jerusalem as one that occurs through the
wrath of God. In both cases, the wrath that is mentioned is unqualified
and impersonal, bearing a remarkable similarity to the quality of divine
wrath as portrayed in the Pauline epistles.
In several instances, Mark seems to represent Jesus as displaying anger.
In Mark 3:5, at the Synagogue where the Pharisees were watching Jesus to
see if he would heal on the Sabbath, he “looked around at them with anger;
he was grieved at their hardness of heart …”, and in Mark 10:14, Jesus is
described as indignant when the disciples speak sternly to the people who
were bringing their children so that Jesus might touch them. These instances
in which Jesus exhibits anger lead to the question of whether Jesus, as a
revelation of God’s character, indicates that there is anger in the nature of
God.69 There is a certain danger to this sort of logic, however, for if every
instance of Jesus’ exhibition of utterly human emotions and experiences
correspond to God’s nature, then one also could speak of God as weep-
ing, sorrowful, in pain, suf fering, and dying. In my opinion, it would be a
specious move to assert that every emotive moment of Jesus’ life indicates

68 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 112–131.

69 Tasker, The Biblical Doctrine of the Wrath of God, pp. 30–31.
34 Chapter One

absolute truths about the nature of God. There is a real danger to assert by
extrapolation that God is angry in the sense that human beings are angry,
by witnessing to Jesus’ very human manifestations of anger. However, to
cast doubt upon this sort of logic is not to say that the author of Mark
discounts divine wrath, for it is important to distinguish between the anger
of God, an emotive state, and the wrath of God, a relational capacity.
The parables provide narrative illustrations wherein one may gain a
better sense of a theology of divine wrath in the Synoptic Gospels than
one does in looking at the emotive qualities of Jesus. In Matthew 18:23–35,
the parable of the unforgiving servant, Jesus prof fers an understanding of
God as ready to hand unforgiving persons over to torment if they do not
find the capacities within their own hearts to forgive their brothers and
sisters. This is an expression not only of the destructive capacities of God’s
wrath, but an attribution of the process of wrath itself. Exemption from
the wrath of God is possible for those who accept God’s of fer of grace and
enact it in their own lives among others, whereas rejection of this grace
leads to sure devastation. The parables of the talents in Matthew 25:14–30
and Luke 19:12–27 suggests that God is kind and generous to those who
respond to God’s grace, but is stern toward those who favor strict legalisms
over an acceptance of God’s love.70 Hanson suggests, and I think rightly
so, that if we simply assume that the behavior of any figure in a parable
likened to God corresponds with the very nature of God, this leads to
disastrous misunderstandings of the divine nature.71 The parables do not
give us a picture of God’s nature, but submit illustrations of the relation-

70 Ulrich Luz says of Matthew’s theology that, “Jesus is both Immanuel and the Son
of Man; God is both Father and Lord. Perhaps judgment and grace belong in a dia-
lectical relationship. A God who only loves but does not pass judgement would be
a forgiveness dispenser who could be manipulated at will. A God who only passes
judgement but does not love, first and foremost, would be a monster.” Ulrich Luz,
The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew. New Testament Theology, James D.G. Dunn,
ed., J. Bradford Robinson, trans. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1993, 1995), p. 132.
71 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, p. 121.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 35

ship between God and a humanity who consigns itself through unbelief
to a process of sin and law.
While divine wrath is not mentioned in Acts, there is a traceable theme
that judgment is something automatic, self-inf licted. In Acts 3:19 and 3:26,
the author describes salvation in the sense that one is saved from sin by
being brought into the presence of the Messiah. When this is brought into
conversation with Acts 2:40, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation,”
one begins to see that salvation here is from one’s self-imposed spiritual
desolation. While God does not seem to punish directly in Acts, there is the
sense that there is a punishment for the one who brings oneself into ruin
through a lack of faith or spurious faith. Acts of fers both an eschatologi-
cal sense of judgment, as in Acts 17:31, and a more realized understanding
of judgment, such as Acts 18:6. It would not be incorrect, as one reads
Acts, to see this realized judgment as happening in the form of the state
of unbelief. In this way, unbelief begets unbelief, a self-fulfilling prophecy
of alienation from God. What may be fascinating to note is that in read-
ing Acts, all of the traces of self-operating judgment are associated with
the utterances of apostles, especially in reporting the words of Peter and
Paul. For this reason, it is dif ficult to say whether this theology of divine
wrath is that of the author of Acts, or whether it is attributed better to his
sources. However, when the author of Acts is not reporting on the words
of others, there is evidence of a conception of divine punishment as direct,
even exemplary. A prime example of this is Acts 1:18–20, where the grue-
some death of Judas is emphasized as God’s punishment by referencing
Psalm 69:25.72 What is remarkable about each of the instances where God’s
punishment is direct, is that each deals in some way with those persons
who sinned against Jesus himself or against the work of God’s revelation
through the person of the Christ.
The Letter to the Hebrews presents a dif ferent rhetorical style in
addressing divine wrath, referring to divine punishments in reserved

72 For other examples see the death of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1–11, the curse
pronounced upon Simon Magus in Acts 8:20, and Acts 12:23, which relates that an
angel of the Lord struck Herod.
36 Chapter One

language, emphasizing the grace of God over the wrath of God.73 Hebrews
approaches divine wrath as systematic, and the author exhibits comfort-
ability with the idea of divine wrath, referring to instances of it in the Old
Testament without trying to explain these away.74 However, the author of
Hebrews is not warning against the fate of Israel in his discussions of divine
wrath, but against disbelief. Unlike the Pauline literature, Hebrews does
not stress the provocation of God or threaten his readers with physical
destruction. Rather, Hebrews provides a spiritual conception of the word
of God in a judiciary role, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart
with a piercing acuity.75 Moreover, this is a judgment that finds its bearing
distinctively and uniquely in the cross, as Hebrews 6:4–8 portrays the cross
as the judgment, and renders those who incur judgment as reproducing the
crucifixion upon themselves. This crucifixion of the self does not lead to
everlasting torment, but to spiritual death, eternal annihilation.76 It seems
that the author of Hebrews believes that this sort of utter annihilation is a
far worse fate than that of suf fering from the materiality of hellfire.77 This
characteristic of God as Judge is intimately enjoined with that of Christ
as Redeemer, leading to a theology of one who redeems, and those who
reject this redemption are thereby judged. Recalling Deuteronomy 4:24
and Isaiah 33:14, the author of Hebrews exclaims in 12:29, “for indeed our
God is a consuming fire.” This is meant in the manner of destruction, ret-
ribution, or judgment, rather than in a purgative sense.
The Johannine writings tend to proclaim judgment and wrath as already
realized, as do the later Pauline epistles.78 Rather than something imposed
from the outside by God, both the Gospel of John and the Johannine
epistles understand judgment as the condition in which humanity finds
itself, having imposed this judgment upon itself. John 3:16–21 argues that

73 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 132–141.

74 For this systematic sense of divine wrath, see Hebrews 6:7–8, where the process of
judgment is compared to the cycle of nature.
75 See Hebrews 4:12–13.
76 See Hebrews 10:26–31.
77 See Hebrews 12:18–19.
78 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 141–150.
The Biblical Accounts Concerning Divine Wrath 37

judgment is a by-product of salvation, rather than a direct act of God.79 It is

enacted already on the basis of our reaction to Christ through the working
out of an absolute law, not an arbitrary sentence.80 This temporality of the
wrath of God appears again in John 3:36, which refers not only to enduring
God’s wrath, but to the condition of this wrath as abiding, a pre-existing
condition. In John, the wrath of God is revealed by the Incarnation and the
Cross, and the revelation of God as Father is an indirect revelation of this
wrath. Moreover, rather than speaking of the consequences of sin as bring-
ing the wrath of God, for John, the consequences of sin are the very wrath
of God in a present, contemporary sense. There are several instances in John
whereby, in referring to the Old Testament, he adds a connection between
judgment and salvation that were not present in the original texts.81
While wrath is not mentioned specifically in the Pastoral Epistles, the
concept of realized judgment is, as are the contrasts between the legal char-
acter of judgment and the graceful character of salvation.82 While many of
the Pastoral Epistles follow previously mentioned New Testament themes
concerning the judgment of God, Jude and 2 Peter abandon the previous
literature’s restraint concerning final punishment, and present instead
rather crude visions of judgments after death, used as warnings against
false teachers. Jude 4 even goes so far as to adopt a doctrine of reproba-
tion. In both Jude and 2 Peter, there is a distinctly explicit description of
the sort of punishment that sinners are to meet in the day of judgment.
Eschewing symbolism, these two authors are overtly literal, propounding
considerably violent and crude language pertaining to materialistic con-
ceptions of both judgment and divine punishment, raging this rhetoric
against their enemies.
Certainly, the Book of Revelation is the literature of the New Testament
wherein the wrath of God is a more prominent theme than in any other

79 C.H. Dodd goes so far as to present this impersonal judgment primarily as a meta-
physical process. C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1953).
80 B.F. Westcott, ed., John (London: Macmillan, 1889), p. 56.
81 In particular, see John 6:48; 12:37–41; and 15:25.
82 Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Wrath of the Lamb, pp. 151–158.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Baron Von Rahden orders his men to work and fight as much as
possible side by side with our marines, as in this way he hopes to
increase the efficiency of his untrained guard. These men can’t
speak the others’ language, but are the best of friends. The
Russians are all called “Rouskies” by our guard.
The Germans are somewhat by themselves, and fraternize with no
one. Their Legation is at one end of the defended lines, and opposite
the French. They are full of sullen rage at the unavenged death of
their Minister, and when they are fighting or defending barricades in
conjunction with other nationalities, and perhaps under command of
an American or British officer, they have become notorious for their
utter disregard of ordinary military precaution and unnecessary
daredevil recklessness. The French are also far from the base of the
defended area, and come in for attacks. They are assisted by the
Austrian guard, some Belgians, some Customs students and
unattached Continentals who are able to use a gun. The Customs
students constitute a splendid force of young men, but as they are of
all nationalities, they are apt, in taking their active fighting positions,
to gravitate to the guards of their respective countries, although in
many instances they simply join the weakest spot. The Japanese are
defending the Fu with the greatest valour, and, needless to say, are
tremendously pro-English and anti-Russian.
We now feel that our tactics must be entirely defensive. Although
to-day is Sunday, most of the women in the compound, missionary
women included, are working hard at sewing sandbags, the non-
fighting men filling them. Beautiful material of all kinds is being used
for these bags. Liberty satin curtains from London and linen
monogrammed sheets from Paris are cut up ruthlessly to be used.
One hundred thousand bags, as near as they can be counted, have
been made already. It was principally in the Fu, defended by gallant
Colonel Shiba, that the materials procured were so gorgeous. Bags
were made from the bolts and rolls of brocades and satins that
constituted part of the treasure left by Prince Su in his palace when
he so kindly turned it over to his persecuted fellow-citizens. This is
the one bright, wonderful bit of colouring in the compound: it is the
barricades of thousands of big sandbags made entirely of these
gorgeous-coloured satin brocades—sky-blues, blood-red, Imperial
yellows—thousands and thousands piled one upon the other. It has
been built from the ground up to the second story of the Chancery
building—a rather high house for Peking. It was made at this
building, as the firing has been very heavy here—a most
extraordinary, butterfly-coloured barricade; and if it were anywhere in
the world except in this siege in Peking, there would be seen lines of
artists, with sketch-book and easel, trying to put this unusual effect
on canvas.

Tuesday, July 3.
For several days past the Chinese on the Tartar Wall have been
bolder and bolder, and yesterday they built their last barricade so
near ours that they could, and did, throw big rocks over into our
lines, which, by a lucky chance, hurt no one. The moral effect of this
dangerous propinquity was terrible on our men. They felt that there
was only one almost ineffective barricade between them and hordes
of Tu Fu-hsiang’s soldiers—the notoriously cruel Mohammedan chief
and his bandits. Mr. Squiers was the first to appreciate this great
danger, and certainly the first to think of the cure, and, what was
more to the point, he put it through. The pros and cons were
discussed with Sir Claude in conference, and it was decided that a
charge down the Wall must be made, and soon, or else we must
leave it entirely, and that none of the Americans were willing to do,
as we had been there from the beginning, and although the
Germans gave up their position on the Wall, we were not content to
do the same.
Captain Myers was more than ready to lead the charge, and he
was given twenty British marines, fifteen Russians, and thirty of our
own men. At dawn this morning, about three o’clock, he charged the
Wall. No one in the compound had gone to bed; the excitement was
very great. We sent sixty of our fighting men on this sortie, and if
they failed we should have lost what we could ill afford to lose. We
felt that the odds were about even, and that waiting at the hour of
dawn was frightful. The charge was successful, and two Chinese
regimental flags were captured. Sixty-five dead Chinese soldiers
were afterwards found between the two barricades, but the actual
number killed and wounded is unknown. Our men came back at five
o’clock carrying their dead and wounded. This has been the only
effectual offensive measure accomplished during the siege. Captain
Myers led it most gallantly—an inspiration to his men—and was
wounded by a spear-thrust in the leg.
CAPTAIN JOHN T. MYERS
 Thursday, July 5.
The Glorious Fourth came in during the last twenty-four hours, and
the Chinese kindly announced the fact about 3 o’clock a.m. by a
violent firing from all sides, which terrified everybody, but like most of
the similar attempts recently made, only resulted in giving everyone
a bad fright, and materially weakening some one or two points of our
defence. Von Below, of the German Legation, notwithstanding his
military physique, seems to be developing into a man of moods
instead of a man of action, and the story comes over from his
quarters that during this last terrifying attack he was seized with the
premonition that this was the end. He preferred to meet his doom by
making his piano interpret his last feeling. The music from the
“Valkyrie” that he drew from that instrument was marvellous. He
played, regardless of time and place, in a soul agony, but was rudely
awakened some hours later to be told that the attack was all over,
and that for this time at least he was not to be massacred in a storm
of music.
To-day the moral atmosphere seems worse. I think that it is
because absolutely nothing has reached us from the outside world to
let us know that our respective Governments care what becomes of
us. My personal attitude, compared with my co-besieged friends, is
one of extraordinary cheerfulness, simply because, perhaps owing to
my youth and health, I can feel no terrible fear for the future, but, on
the contrary, am distinctly hopeful.
All the hope that has been caused by seeing nightly green lights
that look like search-lights is falling very low, because they have not
got nearer at all, which would not be the case were they signals used
by our approaching troops. Where can the troops be? Are all the
Governments so gullible as to believe the Chinese Ministers in their
different countries, who are probably assuring them of our safety, or
can they be so criminally selfish as to be fighting diplomatically
among themselves as to what each Power shall have in the way of
future sharing of China after our rescue?
The consensus of opinion among the Ministers here is that the
different nations will agree to allow the Japanese or the Russians,
who control large fighting forces within a week’s march of Peking, to
send a relief column to Peking with the sole object of relieving their
eleven Ministers Plenipotentiary, exacting a promise that on this
expedition there should be no coup d’état or punitive measures, but
simply relief of their distressed representatives. Weeks ago we were
told to come to the British compound for a day or two, but as yet
there is not a sign of help. Every day deaths occur of our best
fighting men and officers, and the question is, with men going in this
painfully regular way, how long can we hold out? Soon women and
children will constitute the only forces of the compound. The deaths
each day are fortunately small in number, but a great many are
wounded, some very badly, which make them as good as dead as
far as fighting goes. The Russian officer in command says that we
cannot hold out longer than for one week at the most, but more
sanguine people say that, with good luck, three weeks can be tided
over.
Captain Myers’s wound of his spear-thrust is not as slight as was
expected, and he has much fever. It was very sad to-day to see the
funeral of another baby. The second funeral of the day was one of
the most popular and attractive of the Customs students. He was
shot through the liver while cutting down a tree near the Hanlin
Library, and died two hours later.
Fifty men are in the hospital, twelve have been killed, and there
are a few convalescents walking about the compound. We did not
say so at the time, but we can say now, thank Heaven! the Chinese
have tried to fire us on all sides, so that in this way there are very
few places or houses where the Chinese, who are sniping at near
range, can secure cover. By means of terrific efforts, in which
everybody joined, to extinguish the fires, serious harm was averted,
although our enormous wall, giving on to the Mongolian Market
Place, had a breach in it that took a great deal of hard work on the
part of the men to rebuild, or, I should say, to mend, with rocks and
sandbags, in such a way as to make it safe.
These rocks were moved with great difficulty; they had been in
place so long forming the pavements in this compound. How
fortunate, from a defensive standpoint, that when we came here we
were allowed some servants, our coolies included! Most of these are
Christians, because the Buddha men as a rule deserted when they
saw how things were going; and now these servants are put in
gangs, all of them having to work for the common need in building
barricades, filling the thousands of sandbags to strengthen the
defences, and doing necessary sanitary work, also at times working
shoulder to shoulder with our soldiers when a barricade caves in
from the enemy’s heavy fire. One barricade, for instance, was
destroyed by the Chinese. The coolies, working with the soldiers,
rebuilt it, though exposed to a galling fire from Tu Fu-hsiang’s men
all the time. One afternoon six coolies were killed.
These men, whom we call by the general term of “coolie,” classing
them thus for convenience, are often scholars, being teachers of
Chinese to the missionaries or interpreters, and yet they work
without complaint in the gangs, though they are in every way
unaccustomed to manual labour.
At four o’clock we had another funeral, for Oliphant, who was shot.
I was present, and the English chaplain, Mr. Norris, gave us a short
service. It was very sad to see his body, wrapped only in a piece of
sacking, let down into the ground. The grey sky, occasional bullets
flying over our heads, and a few claps of thunder, with flashes of
lightning, made a fitting background for the burial of this lovable
young man. His brother, a great tall, gaunt fellow, looked his part in
the most pitiful way as chief mourner. Before we leave Peking many
will be the Chinamen who will be killed without quarter by the
Customs students in revenge for the untimely death of their
comrade. All the Ministers Plenipotentiary were there, and poor Sir
Robert Hart looked weak and haggard from deep grief at the loss of
his favourite subordinate. Oliphant was buried only three hours after
his death. We have no way of keeping the dead for a greater length
of time.
Horse is the principal article of diet. Several days after we arrived
here the beef was eaten up, and there remained but a small flock of
sheep, which fortunately was brought here while there was time.
There are 1,293 Europeans to feed daily in this compound, and rice
is the dish par excellence for everyone. Mutton, however, is
distributed to the sick, women and children, to the extent of a quarter
of a pound apiece every third day. There are a lot of horses, ponies,
and mules in the compound which we have kept alive by feeding
with straw, and every day two animals have been slaughtered and
distributed among the messes. Then the coolies have a kitchen,
where they can come whenever their work makes it possible, and
they get rice and horse-meat. It is queer to see how many people
acknowledge that they like it, having eaten it now for two weeks. Of
course, a great deal depends upon the animal, but they agree that
mule and pony are better than horse. Some people even who have
among their stores plenty of canned or tinned beef prefer the fresh
horse-meat. At our mess, however, we have a prejudice against it,
and as long as we continue to have the tinned beef we will not send
for our share of the animal.
The May races having come off before the siege, most of the
diplomats had not disposed of their horses and polo ponies, and the
all-important question now is not if “Cochon” will win more cups in
future, but if his steaks will be tender. Things are so queer now. The
one cow which still gives a small amount of milk, needless to say,
has not been killed for her beef, but is carefully tended for her baby-
saving fluid. The president of the largest and most influential bank in
Peking, besieged here with us, has received a wound which
absolutely incapacitates him for active work. He can only hobble
around on a crutch. He has volunteered to tend “Miss Cow” and
assist her to find the few blades of grass which are still to be had.
I went with an officer to the Hanlin Library, where the sniping is still
constant, but not quite as severe as it was, owing to the good
barricades with which we have strengthened the position. The
Chinese fired this wonderful library of Peking so ruthlessly that
nothing is left there but thousands of charred and burnt books, and
some evidences of the charming courtyard and grass plot where the
old Chinese savants used to go and read the ancient manuscripts in
Sanskrit and other dead languages. Here I found the bank president,
a great power in China in ordinary times, quietly tending the cow,
watching her from an antique stone bench. Surely the shade of some
ancient philosopher must be shocked into asking himself, “And what
have we here?”
The Customs mess at Sir Robert Hart’s has an invariable menu. At
breakfast, rice, tea, and jam; at tiffin, rice and horse; at dinner, rice,
horse, and jam. We have splendid stores—better than any in the
compound—so we live better than any mess here. We have quite a
supply of Bishop’s wonderful preserved California fruits, not very
sweet, which are most delicious during this hot weather, because
they do not make one thirsty; then we have macaroni and tinned
tomatoes. We make our corned beef into croquettes sometimes, but
generally have it put into a curry with rice. Yesterday we had a great
treat for dinner. Our cook, who is an enterprising and daring soul,
went outside of our lines into the Mongol markets at great risk to his
life from snipers or being waylaid by the enemy, and procured one
dozen tiny chickens. Sir Robert Hart came to our party.

Menu.
Remarks.
Celery bouillon Liebig extract, celery.
Anchovy on toast Anchovy paste.
Broiled chicken Procured at risk of cook’s life.
Green peas, fried Tinned peas and two potatoes.
potatoes
Bean salad Tinned beans.
Black coffee Plenty of coffee.
The chickens remaining from the cook’s raid are being kept in a
basket and fed as if they were babies, and will be used entirely for
the children. We count eight at our mess as regular members, but
our guests are constant and numerous. Its personnel consists of Dr.
Velde (who does such glorious surgical work), Dr. Morrison, Mr.
Cheshire, Mr. Pethick, Mr. Squiers, Fargo Squiers (who is Captain
Strouts’ orderly), Mrs. Squiers (who, because of the great generosity
in freely supplying from her limited stores those who are in need, has
been called by many in this compound the “Lady Bountiful”), the
three children and two governesses, and myself. We usually have
missionaries in to tiffin, and our more intimate friends, many of whom
are sadly in need of food, to breakfast and dinner.
The Russian Legation is so situated that at one point their defence
is very weak, and they have almost nightly attacks at such close
quarters with the Chinese, that the fighting is sometimes hand to
hand. The men of the Russian guard were undrilled sailors, who had
been forcibly enlisted from inland villages in Russia, and Von
Rahden, their commander, and his under-officer, to keep them from
running away when these close-range fights begin, get behind them
and stick them with the ends of bayonets, so that they in turn will
advance on the Chinese with fury. He claims that this is the only way
to teach undisciplined troops to advance at close quarters, as they
always become seized with terror—and I don’t wonder a bit, for the
Chinese in attacking blow on shrill horns, shriek, howl, dance with
the wildness of dervishes, and advance with the cruelty and cunning
of Indians.
MRS. SQUIERS
 Von Rahden is frequently up all night, and when he is, he usually
comes to us for breakfast, which we have at any time between 6.30
and 8 o’clock. I have especial charge of the coffee-pot, and when the
members of our mess have been up all night on duty, they look as if
they could drink it all, instead of the one cup I have to limit them to.
What a difference, instead of having your maid bring your breakfast-
tray in the morning when you ring for it, to be waked up from a heavy
morning nap at six o’clock by knocking on the door, to find two or
three powder-begrimed members of your mess humbly inquiring:
“How soon will breakfast be ready?” They have probably been up all
night on the firing-line, and are dog-tired and faint.
We tell them to come back in half an hour, and then our skirmish
begins. The sleepy cook is routed out of the Chinese-filled courtyard
under our windows, and told it is time to cook the wheatena, the
coffee and soda-raised biscuits, for which purpose he repairs to the
broken stove in the box-like kitchen. We take a hasty sponge-bath,
and our rough-dried shirt-waists and golf-skirts are donned, and we
are ready for the day. Next we roll up our straw mattress, place it in a
corner, and put the small eight-sided Chinese table in the middle of
the room. We boast four chairs, and as our mess ranges from eight
to twelve people, the ones who come late sit on the silver trunks or
on the floor.
A fresh table-napkin we have procured from somewhere, and on
the table we place some green leaves for decoration, and breakfast
is announced. Besides Von Rahden, another breakfast guest we
have almost daily is the Rev. Mr. Gamewell, a missionary who
appears the mildest of men, but who is developing into one of the
strongest in Peking. He is the brains of the Defence and Fortification
Committee. Before entering the ministry he was a star student at
Cornell, in the engineering department; and now this entire
compound and the outer lines are included in his hands, and his
recommendation for barricades, countermining to protect against the
Chinese undermining, of which we are constantly aware, are all
carried out as near as possible from his orders. Before dawn he is at
work to take advantage of these hours of comparative quiet, to see
just where the weak spots are, and how he can best provide for their
strengthening during the coming day. He is a stooping figure, very
quiet, and rarely speaks to us, and, when he does speak, never
about what he is doing. He told me his working hours are so
continuous, and everybody calling for him from every quarter, that he
did not believe he could keep on if it were not for the hour’s rest and
good hot breakfast that he gets daily in Mrs. Squiers’s rooms.
Another member of the mess is Dr. Velde, the German surgeon,
who is doing such wonderful and constant work at the hospital day
and night. He performs unheard-of operations one after another, and
on the same old kitchen table that we found for him. The antique
rifles used so frequently by the Chinese inflict the most heart-rending
wounds, the treatment of which, to be successful, surely calls for
surgical genius, and, thank Heaven! Velde has that. He is short,
thick-set, and blond, with stumpy little hands and a keen blue eye,
and is wonderfully practical and matter-of-fact. The various messes
near the hospital asked him to join them, but without affectation—he
knows he is the only surgeon in Peking, and he must guard his
health—he answered: “No, I go only where I get the best and the
most food;” and having been asked by Mr. Squiers to come to us, he
gladly accepted, while reiterating the same reason for joining us that
he had given for refusing the others. His duties are so constant that
he usually is only able to get in to breakfast and dinner.
Another feature of this siege is one which shows what marvellous
executive ability some people have. The proprietor of the Peking
Hotel is Chamot, a Swiss who has played a wonderful part in the
drama of our imprisonment. There have naturally been numbers of
people without stores of any kind, and people who, if they had
stores, would have no place to cook them; so Chamot stepped
forward and undertook to feed daily I don’t know how many people.
When we were first assembled in the British compound the
confusion was something terrific, and he gave food to all those who
had nothing, and later he made a permanent business arrangement
to provide food for those who had no means of messing themselves.
Among these are many Roman Catholic priests and twenty-five
Roman Catholic Sisters, saved by himself and his wife from the Nan-
t’ang just before it was burned, besides numerous families and
detached individuals having no stores, who would have had a most
serious time without his assistance.
These Sisters were fed by Mrs. Squiers for many days before
Chamot volunteered their care. Of course, the variety that he
supplies is not wonderful, but he gives them horse-meat, rice,
occasionally some tinned vegetables, and a kind of coarse brown
bread, made from an inferior flour, which he bakes himself. For so
many people it is quite marvellous how he feeds them so regularly.
He has a few coolies to help him at his hotel, which is near the
French Legation, and there he personally superintends the cooking
of the two messes, one at twelve and one at six o’clock, and brings it
up in a Chinese cart to the British compound, always at the risk of
his own life from snipers. One cannot but wonder how long he will be
able to continue his good work. Chamot’s Hotel in Peking is known in
the siege vernacular as the Swiss Legation.

Monday, July 9.
A day or two ago an old-fashioned cannon was found in a shop
near Legation Street, where they made Chinese stoves—a kind of
foundry. It is undoubtedly one of the guns brought up to Peking by
the English and French in 1860. Mr. Squiers promptly took a great
interest in this ancient piece of ordnance, hoping that we might make
some use of it. He, with Mitchell, a gunner’s mate from the Newark,
have worked assiduously in their efforts to clean off the rust of forty
years and get it ready for use. During the cleaning process they
made projectiles of bags of nails. They took the “International,” as
the gun was christened, over to the Fu and fired the bags of nails at
a Chinese barricade, thus serving the double purpose of cleaning the
gun and causing some damage and immense fright to the enemy.
The noise of the explosion was so much greater than anything the
Chinese had heard coming from our lines that five sentries
incautiously put their heads above the Imperial Wall to ascertain
what was going on, and were promptly shot down by our guards.
Some Russian ammunition is here, intended for a gun which should
have been forwarded from Tien-tsin at the same time as the
ammunition, but which, most unfortunately, Colonel Wogack failed to
have put on the last, train, and we find it can be fired from the
“International.”
LOADING THE “INTERNATIONAL”
 Copyright, M. S. Woodward

AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN MARINES AT WORK ON THE BARRICADE.

BARON VON RAHDEN ON THE RIGHT

To-day a European boy died of dysentery. Last night the

“International” was taken over to the Hanlin, where it was used to
great advantage in breaking up a barricade that the Chinese had
made, and which they have been strengthening daily for their
convenience and protection while engaged in the pleasant
occupation of sniping our men. The day before yesterday Von
Rostand, Austrian Chargé d’Affaires, was shot at the French
Legation—where, I understand, the rifle-firing and shelling is terrific
—somewhere near the eye, and they fear he may lose it. His wife is
nursing him there. M. Merghelynckem, the First Secretary of the
Belgian Legation, killed two Chinese yesterday, and in killing one he
undoubtedly saved the life of the French commanding officer. He
does good work, and is a fine shot, but is erratic to a degree, and I
don’t believe he loves his English colleagues as much as he might.
He left yesterday for the French Legation to take up his abode there,
where he surely will be treated with great consideration, having
saved the life of their officer, although there he is given eight hours of
sentry duty, while here he had but six hours.
The other day he brought me five long Chinamen’s queues, which
he had cut off the heads of Boxers he had killed, as a souvenir of a
day’s work. It means to some Chinese—the cutting-off of the queue
—a great and unholy mutilation, and these trophies hanging up in
our living-room for a few days were obviously things of terror to our
Chinese servants, although they had been cut from the heads of
their dread enemies, and we soon disposed of them. Yesterday the
Austrian commanding officer was killed, shot through the heart. At
first we kept a record of the dead or badly wounded men as they
would be brought into the hospital, but now they come in so often
that we cease to note the exact number.
People—the sanguine ones—say that it is quite likely and
reasonable that help will not come for a week or two, and in this way,
if the troops do not come, they can say, with childish satisfaction,
“Oh, I never expected them before.” When we first got here all the
Ministers and everyone said: “Certainly by the first of July at the
latest.” Now they are actually saying: “Certainly by the first of
August”!
Yesterday—Sunday—there was a lot of good work done.
Nevertheless, Mr. Norris, the chaplain, who is one of the hard-
working members of the Committee on Fortifications, gave us half an
hour for the service held in Lady Macdonald’s dining-room—the
regular chapel of the compound being occupied by the American
Protestant missionaries—and I must say that it was comforting. This
room is something of a wreck, denuded of all draperies for
sandbags, walls riddled with large and small bullet-holes, a life-sized
painting of Queen Victoria occupying the entire wall at one end of the
room, hung quite crooked and peppered with shot. A great beam
from the ceiling protruded some 4 or 5 feet down into the room,
where it had been forced by a spent cannonball crashing into the
side of the house, and over all this ruin was the unmistakable
atmosphere which clings to a room where many people eat three
times a day, and where the staff of servants is not equal to the work.
It was but six weeks ago that I was a guest at a most charming
dinner given in this very room, surrounded by what then seemed to
be the unutterable and interminable calm that comes from the
possession of the best things to make life pleasant in the Far East.
The other denominations had their services as well some time during
the day.
The hot weather began last week, and the thermometer is 109° in
the shade. I wear shirt-waists and short skirts; the men wear filthy
clothes that they work in and most of them sleep in. They never wear
collars—no washing of linen for three weeks, and, from the looks of
them, most of them only shave every fourth or fifth day. Life is now
settling down to a routine, and one would think that the people of this
compound had never done anything else all their lives but get up
during each night when a general attack begins. Each man goes to
his appointed post, or if for a change we have no general attack, the
men quietly get up at all hours and go to their sentry work.