Gypsum wall panel depicting, in relief, an attack by Tiglath-pileser III on an enemy town, 730-727 B.C.E. British Museum
Justifying War Crimes in the Bible and the Ancient Near East
In the ancient world, as now, indiscriminate violence and mass killing in war is explained as a struggle to defend “our” way of life against those who threaten to destroy it.
Published: August 29, 2022
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
An earlier version of this article appeared as “The Ethics of War in Ancient Israel and Assyria,” The Bible and Interpretation (2017).
Cf. Deuteronomy 7:1–2. Biblical translations follow NJPS, with modifications.
We see in many ancient Near Eastern cultures the idea that the world is a bubble of order situated in the midst of a watery chaos. For example, Mesopotamian mythology pictured a primordial battle between the gods and chaotic monsters, leading to the creation of the ordered world. The Egyptians envisioned a nightly battle of the sun-god against chaos to maintain ma’at “order,” with the Pharaoh doing the same by quashing the enemies of Egypt. See discussion in Jan Assman, Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, trans. by David Lorton (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 69–70; Erik Hornung, Idea into Image: Essays on Ancient Egyptian Thought, trans. Elizabeth Bredeck (Princeton, NJ: Timken Pub. 1992), 131–146.
They rejoiced, they proclaimed: “Marduk is King!”
They invested him with sceptre, throne, and staff-of-office.
They gave him an unfaceable weapon to crush the foe.
“Go, and cut off the life of Tiamat!
Let the winds bear her blood to us as good news!” (EE IV 28–32)Translations of Enuma elish follow Philippe Talon, Enūma Eliš: The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth, SAACT 4 (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2005); and Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
The centrality of Marduk, a Babylonian god, in these inscriptions requires explanation, since the Assyrians had their own national deity, Ashur, whom they viewed as the head of the pantheon. Sargon’s Letter to Aššur claims that Marduk has, from the beginning, given authority over the territories of the world to Ashur to honor him (D. D. Luckenbill, Historical Records of Assyria from Sargon to the End, vol. 2 of Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1927), §170). One way that the Assyrians used the Marduk-centered Enuma elish in their rhetoric was to place the Assyrian king in the role of Marduk. Acting as Marduk’s earthly counterpart, the Assyrian king conquered territory and placed it under Ashur’s authority. Sennacherib’s scribes apparently attempted to solve the problem of Marduk’s central role in the story in another way, by rewriting Enuma elish with Ashur replacing Marduk. This revised version of the myth does not appear to have become dominant, however. Note also that invocations of Enuma elish are rare in the inscriptions of the last two major kings of Assyria, Esarhaddon (r. 680–669) and Assurbanipal (r. 668–626). Both kings elected instead to establish their synergy with the gods, and justify their military actions, through appeals to divination, especially prophecy.
Translation based on Tiglath-pileser 53, line 2 (Hayim Tadmor and Shigeo Yamada, The Royal Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III [744–727 BC] and Shalmaneser V [726–722 BC], Kings of Assyria, RINAP 1 [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011], 138); and Summ. 11:2 (Hayim Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III King of Assyria: Critical Edition, with Introductions, Translations and Commentary [Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994]).
Sargon II 4, line 60 (Grant Frame, The Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, King of Assyria (721–705 BC) RINAP 2 [University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2021], 121).
Sargon II 2, line 338 (Frame, Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, 69). Sargon also employs fog imagery—“Angrily, I mustered the numerous troops of Assyria and, like a fog, overwhelmed extensive districts within the lands of Kammanu and Gurgum, together with settlements in their environs” (Sargon II 74, lines 53–58 [Frame, Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, 331]). Fog is not one of Marduk’s initial weapons in his battle, but he subsequently makes it out of Tiamat’s spittle (EE V 51).
For more on this term in Assyrian rhetoric, see the chapter, “Without Rival: The Royal Performance of Masculinity in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and Palace Reliefs,” in Cynthia Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter, Harvard Semitic Monographs 62 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 20–59.
Luckenbill, Historical Records of Assyria from Sargon to the End, §§54, 104, 107; cf. Enuma elish VI 106.
Sargon II 7, lines 131 (Frame, Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, 149)
Sargon II 7, lines 121b–122 (Frame, Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, 148).
Sennacherib 22, col. vi, lines 2–12 (A. Kirk Grayson and Jamie Novotny, The Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria [704–681 BC], Part 1, RINAP 3/1, [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012], 183).
Sennacherib 22, col. v, lines 17–19 (Grayson and Novotny, Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria [704–681 BC], Part 1, 181).
Sennacherib 22, col. v, line 29 and Sennacherib 23, col. v, line 21 (Grayson and Novotny, Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria [704–681 BC], Part 1, 181 and 198).
Sennacherib 22, col. v, lines 76–77 (Grayson and Novotny, Royal Inscriptions of Sennacherib, King of Assyria [704–681 BC], Part 1, 183).
D. D. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib, OIP 2 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 23:4–5, 7–9; 48:2–3; 55:2–3; 66:1–2.
Luckenbill, Historical Records of Assyria from Sargon to the End, §6. For the Akkadian text, see Sargon II 1, lines 66–68a (Frame, Royal Inscriptions of Sargon II, 58). Akkadian ḫiṭṭi iḫṭû, from the root ḫ.ṭ.ʾ, can refer to making a mistake or committing a sin (CAD Ḫ, s.v. ḫaṭû, 6:156). The root is cognate with Hebrew ח.ט.א, which carries a similar range of senses.
The similarity in themes to the Assyrian tradition does not indicate that a direct relationship exists between the written texts. Rather, it reflects a similar conception of the universe and a similar social provenance: like the Assyrian inscriptions, the psalms mostly derive from the royal temple and court.
A nearly identical psalm appears in 2 Samuel 22.
Though the English spelling is the same, this name should not be confused with that of the prostitute in Joshua 2, which is spelled with a chet: רחב.
