‘For everything there is a season, and a time for
every matter under heaven: … a time for war, and a time for peace.’ Ecclesiastes
3:1, 8
‘Beat
your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears;
let the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior.’’ Joel 3:10
‘He
shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they
shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more.’ Isaiah 2:4
‘He
shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations
far away; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears
into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more;’ Micah 4:3
In the
turbulent days of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the prophetic
imagination picked up an image from an earlier, turbulent time, the days of the
tribal Judges. Then, an oppressing neighbour had sought to control God’s people
by removing the skill of the smith from among them: now, they would have to go
cap-in-hand to their enemy to have their agricultural tools repaired. In this
way, the enemy both ensured the harvest they would plunder, and that there would
be no armed uprising against them. So, some centuries on, Joel imagines those
agricultural tools being repurposed for a just war; and Isaiah and Micah imagine
a day when those makeshift weapons will be returned to their peaceable original
intention.
Like
ploughshares and pruning-hooks, we are ore of the earth, taken, and fashioned
to break the earth for fruitful grain and prune the vine for fruitful wine—a communion,
if you will. And yet, time and chance and circumstance push us to heat and bend
and beat ourselves into a new shape, a weapon, against our neighbour, with whom
we believe we must compete for scant resources. But when the Lord arbitrates
between us, then we shall cooperate, labouring at the forge, refashioning our
lives for peace. Come, Lord Jesus.
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