Does God do evil for the greater good? (Judg 9:22-29)

We tend to think of God as by definition good, and many, in fact, abandon Him because He does not live up to their idea of goodness. They cry for help and there is no answer. Their loved one dies despite fervent prayers. Although we take it for granted that God must be good if He is God, this was by no means the case in the ancient Near East, where the gods were seen as inscrutable and not necessarily morally upright.  While our ideas of goodness are often defined in relation to ourselves, the belief that God must be good in the moral sense is correct. Not surprisingly then, the statement that ‘God sent an evil spirit’ (Judg 9:23) is troubling. Does God dabble in evil for the greater good? How can we resolve the tension here?

First, the Hebrew raʿ means ‘bad’, and can simply denote trouble or something harmful without moral connotations like a bad storm, food gone bad, or lockdown and isolation being bad for people’s social well-being. Since the wider testimony of Scripture is that God is morally good (e.g. Deut 32:4; Hab 1:13; Gen 18:25;) we cannot identify the spirit sent in v.23 as morally evil. Thus, the NIV has ‘God stirred up animosity’ and the NLT paraphrases it as ‘God sent a spirit that stirred up trouble’ (v.23). However, there is a further difficulty of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. If God caused animosity between Abimelech and Shechem then does it absolve them from responsibility for the fighting and massacre that will follow? I explore this tantalising dilemma in connection with God hardening Pharaoh’s heart in another post. Suffice it to say, the OT often emphasises God’s sovereignty, so that it sounds like God is moving people (sometimes against their will) like puppets. However, the reality is that there are two levels at work. On the immediate level, human beings act according to their desires and plans, unaware of God’s sovereign hand that achieves its purposes according to His wisdom. Occasionally, these two levels are made explicit as in the story of Joseph, though how this works remains a mystery: ‘you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good…’ (Gen 50:20).

On one level, the animosity that develops between Abimelech and Shechem can be explained from a human perspective. An arrogant man who ruthlessly disposed of his father’s family will not hesitate to use force over those he rules, so he may have alienated his supporters after only three years. Likewise, it is to be expected that a city that had no scruples in betraying the family of the country’s hero (Gideon), will not hesitate to become traitor to their new leader, Abimelech, and indeed they strike out on their own robbing passers-by (Judg 9:25). Such a volatile situation built on violence and treachery creates the space for another opportunist, Gaal, to gain the city’s trust (Judg 9:26). Shechem probably had a mixed Israelite and Canaanite population and Gaal uses the intoxication of a festival with wine freely flowing to make a better claim to being ‘one of us’. He argues that as a descendant of Hamor, who was the Canaanite prince there in the time of Jacob (Judg 9:27-28; Gen 34:1-2), he is the true heir to the city’s leadership.

The seeds of destruction sown in the original situation bore fruit not long afterwards. The takeaway is that God is active on another level, even in a thoroughly evil world. He does not cause evil but has built into our universe moral principles such that actions have consequences and eventually we reap what we sow. Even if there is a delay, God will judge in the end. This is encouraging when we look at some of the evil around us and wonder how it can prosper and keep going. It is, however, also a sobering reflection because we cannot escape the principle either. Although the Lord saves us from ultimate judgment if we turn to Him in faith and our eternal life can never be taken away, even as believers we have to give an account of how we have lived (2 Cor 5:10; Rom 2:6-8; 14:10, 12).

If you enjoyed this post, please share it with others.