Operation Mauling Scripture
On Thursday (June 12), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the Western Wall to place a note between the stones. The site, also called the Wailing Wall or the Kotel, is part of the ancient retaining wall built at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Today, Jews (and others) place prayers in cracks between the large stones — with more than a million deposited each year (which twice a year are collected and buried on the Mount of Olives).
“Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion,” Netanyahu wrote, drawing from Numbers 23:24.
The next day, Israel suddenly attacked Iran, damaging military installations and nuclear sites and killing hundreds of Iranians. It marked the largest attack on Iran since the Iran-Iraq War four decades ago. The Israeli strikes occurred two days before U.S. and Iranian figures were to meet in diplomatic negotiations, with the attacks seen as a move by Israel to block the U.S. from reaching a diplomatic deal. Iran quickly responded with retaliatory strikes on Israel. In addition to military officials and nuclear scientists killed in Iran, human rights activists say about 200 Iranian civilians have been killed in the first four days of fighting. A couple dozen Israeli civilians have also been killed.
After the launch of the first strikes on Friday, Netanyahu explained why he had written that prayer note with a partial verse from the Book of Numbers. His government named the military action “Operation Rising Lion.”
“Iran and its proxies tried to encircle Israel with a ‘ring of fire,’ and to attack us with the horrible attack of Oct. 7,” Netanyahu said as he referred to the deadly 2023 terrorist attacks by Iranian-backed Hamas. “But the people of Israel, the soldiers of Israel, rose like lions to defend our country.”
“When enemies build weapons of mass death, stop them. As the Bible teaches us: When someone comes to kill you, rise and act first. This is exactly what Israel has done today. We have risen like lions to defend ourselves,” Netanyahu added. “Over 3,000 years ago, Moses gave the people of Israel a message that has steeled their resolve ever since: ‘Be strong and courageous,’ he said. Today, our strong and courageous soldiers and people stand together to defend ourselves against those who seek our destruction.”
Netanyahu recorded both Hebrew and English versions of his announcement of Operation Rising Lion. The reference to the Bible teaching to kill first doesn’t appear to be in the Hebrew version. And while he said “the Bible” in English, the teaching he refers to is not actually in what Christians or Jews would call the Bible. Absent from the Jewish Tanakh (which is essentially the texts Christians call the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible), that line is instead found in the Babylonian Talmud, which is an important Jewish text collecting religious law and theology (including commentary on the Tanakh).
In addition to that misattribution and the “rising lion” language drawn from Numbers 23:24, Netanyahu also cited Moses from Deuteronomy 31:6. All of this Bible language has been largely ignored in U.S. media, except for by some conservative Christian sites that see the Numbers 23:24 usage as a prophetic sign. So this issue of A Public Witness opens a Bible and a (digital) newspaper to consider Netanyahu’s roaring use of scripture to start a war.
In Like a Lion
This isn’t the first time Netanyahu has quoted the Bible to justify killing people. A few weeks after the 2023 terrorist attacks by Hamas, the Israeli prime minister turned to Deuteronomy 25 to justify Israel’s escalating bombing campaign that was killing civilians.
“You must ‘remember what Amalek has done to you,’ says our holy Bible. And we do remember and we are fighting,” Netanyahu declared.
He drew from Moses’s speech urging the Hebrew people to eventually kill all of the Amalekites. As Moses added, “Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.”
That’s the command Netanyahu used to explain and justify what Israel was going to do in Gaza. It was a call for what the United Nations and international law today would consider genocide. A call to kill everyone. Not just enemy combatants but even infants. It was a call not for a “just war” but for a total war in the name of God.
Twenty months later, more than 55,000 people have been killed by Israel’s ongoing attacks in Gaza, with more than half of them women and children. Additionally, about 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced from their homes. Reading the Bible for a new “Amalek” to totally destroy is deadly, which we’ve seen in history with genocides against other people also said to be the Amalekites — like Native Americans in the colonial era and Tutsi people in Rwanda.
Even as Israel’s military campaign continues in Gaza, Netanyahu has started a new military campaign against Iran as he claimed Iran was just months away from having nuclear weapons. But he’s made that claim for decades as he’s long pushed the U.S. to join him in a war against Iran. Much like he was wrong about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction as he pushed President George W. Bush to invade, Netanyahu’s frequent claims about Iran’s nuclear program have been wrong. His biblical interpretation skills aren’t any better.
Netanyahu’s invoking of the modern nation of Israel as the “lion” in Numbers 23:24 is a concerning sign about his war mindset (and it’s worth noting he also quoted the verse during his speech to the U.S. Congress last year as he described how Israel was responding in Gaza). Consider what the verse says about how such a lion will act: “Look, a people rising up like a lioness and rousing itself like a lion! It does not lie down until it has eaten the prey and drunk the blood of the slain.” Eating the prey and drinking the blood of those killed? That’s not just a call for war but a pledge to enter into a cannibalistic assault with no respect for international law.
Despite a lack of interpretative context, the use of Numbers 23:24 by Netanyahu is being praised by some conservative Christians. Such rhetoric is particularly coming from those with an end-times eschatology that salivates over a massive war in the Middle East with Israel winning, which will allegedly usher in the return of Jesus.
“That verse … affirms the prophetic strength and resilience of Israel, not merely as a nation, but as a covenant people chosen by the Lord,” gushed James Lasher of the charismatic publication Charisma. “The operation that followed, Operation Rising Lion, bore the unmistakable imprint of that verse. Just as Gideon once laid out a fleece to seek the Lord’s will before confronting the Midianites (Judg. 6), and just as King David inquired of the Lord before engaging the Philistines (2 Sam. 5:19), so too did Netanyahu invoke Scripture before unleashing what could become a defining moment in Middle East history.”
Evangelist Stephen Flurry at the end-times publication The Trumpet similarly saw Netanyahu’s use of the verse as prophetic (though Flurry and his father said Trump would stay in office after the 2020 election so their prophetic signals seem fuzzy at best). Writing after Israel’s strikes on Iran, Flurry argued that Numbers 23:24 was not just a prophecy about the Israelites at that time, “but it is also an end-time prophecy about the Messiah’s return.”
“So it is not surprising to see Netanyahu acting with lionlike courage to forestall the nuclear holocaust Iran has planned,” Flurry added. “Courageous, lionlike leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu are God’s instruments to ensure the Jewish people survive until the day when the 12 tribes are regathered in Jerusalem under the Messiah’s rule.”
A branch of Christians United for Israel, which was founded by end-times MAGA preacher John Hagee, offered Bible passages for Christians to “proclaim as Israel enters battle.” Starting with Numbers 23:24 because Netanyahu had invoked it, the group explained it was “taking inspiration from Israel’s Prime Minister” and listing “seven Scriptures that we can arm ourselves with as Israel defends itself from the Iranian regime.”
Netanyahu and his end-times Christian allies think Numbers 23:24 proves God is on the side of Israel in its attacks against Iran. But the passage doesn’t actually promise that.
Throwing the Bible to the Lions
The line about lions eating their prey and drinking the blood comes in the second oracle offered by Balaam, who is probably up there with Jonah for the choice of worst prophet in the Bible (in terms of character, not necessarily accuracy). Best known for his donkey talking to him, Balaam was a mercenary prophet willing to offer blessings or curses for hire (which is also how some “prophets” today could be described). A non-Jewish diviner, he agreed to curse Israel on behalf of Balak, the Moabite king. But explaining he could only say what God gave him, Balaam instead kept offering blessings on the Israelites and predictions of their coming successes.
Balaam, however, should not be considered a moral figure just because he uttered some words from God. Scripture also says he gave advice to the Moabites and Midianites about how to lead the Israelites astray by sending women to get Hebrew men to engage in sexual immorality and idolatrous sacrifices. As a result of Balaam’s plot, the Bible says a plague struck the Israelites and killed 24,000 people. Later, Balaam was killed by the Israelites. And in the New Testament, he’s held up as an example of a false prophet to avoid.
Despite his track record, his oracles are often treated as divine proclamations that came through despite — not because — of the one who uttered them. But some of his comments were specific insights about a particular moment. Balaam predicted the Israelites would defeat the Moabites and Midianites. It was not necessarily a prophecy promising Israel would always defeat its enemies like a ruthless lion. As the Bible documents, the nation of Israel was later literally defeated with its people dragged off to exile. That’s acting like a lion only if we’re talking about one like Mufasa.
A hint of how Israel could fall despite being compared to a lion in Numbers 23:24 is even found in the texts about Balaam. He suggested the scheme of leading the Israelites into immorality and idolatry as a way to weaken them and remove God’s protection. Clearly, the lion reference wasn’t intended to be a universal prophecy to cover any and all military conflicts by a nation called Israel.
The wider context of the Numbers 23:24 text is also important. The second oracle, like the others from Balaam, isn’t really about the strength and power of Israel. Rather, it’s about God’s greatness. He noted that God delivered them from Egyptian slavery and that he could offer no curses against Israel because of God. The line right before the lion references in verse 24 is “See what God has done!” (or as it’s known from the KJV: “What hath God wrought!”). Balaam’s oracles, along with the wider Pentateuch, are about the importance of faithfulness to God. It’s not about Israel’s inherent greatness but about God’s inherent greatness.
Given the Pentateuchal context of Numbers 23:24, Israeli Palestinian theologian Yohanna Katanacho argued over the weekend that Netanyahu was “misapplying the biblical text for political purposes.” Katanacho explained that the poetic text could not be applied literally since drinking blood is “expressly forbidden” in the Pentateuch. And he questioned using the verse in a way that “seems to justify a violent and bloody approach to secure a divine blessing.”
“The clear message of the text is not to encourage wars but to promote obedience to the covenant. The blessing is not guaranteed outside the covenant. In fact, the opposite is true. Those who disobey God will suffer his wrath,” added Katanacho, academic dean at Nazareth Evangelical College in Israel and author of Reading the Gospel of John through Palestinian Eyes. “The blessing of Israel cannot be a tool for cursing the nations. It must be a means for blessing the nations. It is not for selfish protection or for using divine power to wage wars. Moreover, such a blessing will not be accomplished through militant means. The dreams of the prophets included the end of wars and weapons.”
Even in a time of wars and rumors of wars, may we hold up the prophetic dream of an end to war. And may we also stand up against those who do violence to Scripture in order to justify violence against people.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
Thank you Brian...An understanding of the misunderstandings and proof texting of Scripture is going to be an essential tool in resisting the war mongers of our day.
Excellent work.