A Tale of Two Imperialisms

First Things: A Tale of Two Imperialisms  Peter Liethart

It is common these days to read the Bible as an anti-imperial epic, the story of God and Israel, then (for Christians) God and Jesus, against empire. “Come out, come out from Babylon, my people!” is the theme.

It’s a hard sell for all sorts of reasons. Jeremiah urges the people of Judah to enter not exit Babylon (Jeremiah 27, 29). Isaiah invests Cyrus the Persian conqueror with Davidic titles—he is the Lord’s “servant” and “shepherd” and “anointed one” (Isaiah 44-45). Heroes like Joseph, Daniel, and Mordecai end up as chief advisors to emperors. In Scripture, there is no such thing as “empire” but only empires, and they are not all the same. Some are Babels, some beasts; some are rods of discipline, some provide refuge for the people of God.

God does frustrate empires of the Babelic and bestial sort. In the Bible’s earliest account of empire (Genesis 11:1-9), human beings erect a city and tower in the plains of Shinar. The fourfold repetition of “one” (Genesis 11:1, 6) shows their goal is uniformity. Babel, the prototype of all later “Babels,” is intolerant of linguistic, cultural, and religious difference. …

… After Babel’s fall, Yahweh calls Abram from Ur to initiate his counter-Babel program (Genesis 12:1-3). Given Yahweh’s vigorous opposition to Babel, it’s surprising that his promises to Abram share many features of Babelic imperialism. He promises Abram a “great name” (12:2). He assures Abram that he will produce “a great and mighty nation” (18:18), but not just one: “I have made you a father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:4-6, 16). Abram will become the father of kings (Genesis 17:6, 16), a patriarchal “king of kings.” The two great promises—land and seed—echo the dual aim of Babel to build a city and a tower. Abram’s children eventually conquer the land and build in it a city and a tower—Jerusalem and its temple, the true “gate of God,” which is the meaning of the name “Babylon.” …

… Israel has an imperial vocation to realize in truth what Babel sought in rebellion—unity among peoples, a link to heaven, a great name, righteousness and peace and security. Abrahamic empire is not a Babel imposing its will but the center of “a unified world community under God’s rule” (Oliver O’Donovan). Israel’s hope, and the church’s, is not “peace in isolation” but “a peaceful international community” gathered around Zion (O’Donovan).

The Bible is not a story of Israel in opposition to empire. It is a tale of two empires, written to assure believers that all Babels will crumble and that Abram’s empire will shine forever.