Warfare in the Old Testament: The Organization, Weapons, and Tactics of Ancient Near Eastern Armies

Written by Boyd Seevers Reviewed By Charlie Trimm

Although this book is a popular-level revision of Seevers’s dissertation (completed in 1998 at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), do not be scared to pick it up! Seevers has done an excellent job giving the reader a guided tour of his dissertation and showing how his research can help us understand the OT. As the subtitle indicates, Seevers examines the mechanics of warfare in the OT world. Each chapter focuses on a different nation, arranged so the book moves chronologically through Israelite history (Israel, Egypt, Philistia, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia). Seevers has arranged each chapter similarly (though Israel, Egypt, and Assyria are spread over two chapters): a fictional story about a soldier from that nation, a brief history of the nation and its connection with Israel, the military organization of the country, the weapons employed by their warriors (divided into short-rang, medium-range, and long-range weapons), and tactics (including motivation for warfare, strategy, battle tactics, and activities after the battle).

The audience of the book will be those who want to understand more of this aspect of life in the OT, such as pastors preaching an OT book, a layperson reading through the OT, or a theological student writing a research paper. The book will also be helpful more broadly for anyone interested in military history or the ancient Near East.

The book has several strong points. One of my favorite parts of the book was the fictional stories Seevers created, often based on real people. Seevers’s story of the Egyptian Nakt-her-Peri fighting at Megiddo under Thutmose III or the Samarian Nabu-belu-ukin fighting for the Assyrian army (and all the other stories as well) were a great way to teach history as well as help the material come to life. More of this kind of imaginative reconstruction of life in ancient times is needed by those who teach the OT at any level. Beside the stories mentioned above, Seevers includes accounts of an Israelite soldier at Jericho, a Philistine soldier fighting Saul at Mount Gilboa, a Babylonian officer at Jerusalem, and a Persian cavalry officer conquering Babylon.

Another highlight of the book is the illustrations, most of which are drawn from reliefs. Instead of including pictures of reliefs themselves, which are often difficult to see clearly, Seevers enlisted his son Josh to provide over seventy line drawings of various aspects of the reliefs to make it easier for the reader to see what Seevers is trying to highlight. These line drawings are a gold mine, providing the reader not only access to the reliefs (which are sometimes hard to track down), but also clear images of important aspects of the relief. The chapters on Israel will be particularly helpful to most readers of this journal, as Seevers nicely summarizes a great amount of research to help us understand how battles were fought in ancient Israel. Whenever a weapon, a tactic, or a military role is mentioned in Scripture, this book is a great resource to find out more about that topic.

As strong as the book is, I think that it could have been improved in a few ways. The biggest change I would have liked to have seen is more attention to the ethics and theology of warfare in the OT. I realize that this book was based on his already written dissertation, but the major questions in the minds of most readers today concerning warfare in the OT are not about the mechanics of warfare, but how we should think about it as Christians serving a God who commanded those acts of warfare. Even just an additional chapter at the end of the book would have been helpful to discuss the issue. Also, the book is missing a few recent important bibliographic entries, most notably Anthony Spalinger’s War in Ancient Egypt: The New Kingdom (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005) and Bustenay Oded’s War, Peace, and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (Ludwig Reichert, 1992). Very modest textual and archaeological evidence remain from Philistia and Babylon in military matters, leaving Seevers with little to draw on for those chapters (Aram might have been a better choice).

Having said all that, I highly recommend this book. While it may not be an essential part of a pastor’s library, it is a great “luxury” book at a good price to have on one’s shelf to help you understand the OT and bring it to life.


Charlie Trimm

Charlie Trimm
Biola University
La Mirada, California, USA

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