Discussion No. 2: “Militaries Were First Established in Biblical Times”?

How it came up

This one grew straight out of the last one.

A friend of mine and I had a brief conversation about evil and violence and military duties, and that conversation became the first discussion in this House. But it kept going in my head after we were done talking. What stayed with me was this: most church services do not point these things out. They do not discuss them. People in general do not realize the Bible speaks of militaries at all. My friend didn’t.

So there are whole questions sitting in that book that nobody asks, because nobody realizes they are questions. This is one of them. People say “biblical times” like it’s a place. So let’s ask it plainly: were militaries first established in biblical times? Did the army start in the Bible?

Let’s open the book and go find where the armies come from.

Opening the book

The armies are already there when you get there

The Bible does not start with Israel. It starts with everybody, and ten chapters in, before there is an Abraham, there is this man:

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.” (Genesis 10:8)

“And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” (Genesis 10:10)

A mighty one, and a kingdom with four cities in it. The text doesn’t say the word army. But let’s be exact: you do not hold four cities with a strong handshake.

Four chapters later the book has its first war, and look at who is fighting it:

“And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.” (Genesis 14:1-2)

Four kings against five. Nine kings at war, and Israel does not exist yet. And then Abram, the man everybody knows for his faith, does this:

“And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.” (Genesis 14:14-15)

Trained servants. Three hundred and eighteen of them, born in his house, which means he kept them and he drilled them before he ever needed them. He armed them, split his force, and attacked at night. That is a man with a standing household army. Most church services never get to that one.

And by the time Israel is walking out of Egypt, Egypt has this:

“And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.” (Exodus 14:7)

Six hundred picked chariots, the rest of the chariot force behind them, and an officer over every single one. That is a professional military with a chain of command, and the Bible did not establish it. The Bible found it there.

The other books say where it started

The Scriptures don’t tell you when armies began. The other books do, and this House opens them too.

The Book of Jubilees puts it right after the flood, in the generations between Noah and Abraham. In the eleventh chapter it says the sons of Noah began to war on each other, to build strong cities and walls and towers, to found the beginnings of kingdoms, and, in its own words, “to acquire arms, and to teach their sons war” (Jubilees 11:2, as printed in the Ethiopian Bible edition in this House’s library). That is as plain a statement of the origin of the military as you will find anywhere: men started arming themselves and training their boys for it.

The Book of Jasher goes further and names the man. In its seventh chapter, Nimrod, the same Nimrod from Genesis 10, gathers about four hundred and sixty men of his own family, hires about eighty more and pays them, and goes to war with about five hundred. He wins, and then, the text says, he “placed standing officers over them in their respective places” (Jasher 7:37, Literal Standard Version, Covenant Press 2022). His brothers crown him king. And he makes a man named Terah “the prince of his host” (Jasher 7:41), his general. Terah is Abram’s father. If Jasher is right, Abraham was raised in the house of the first army’s commanding officer, and those three hundred and eighteen trained men in Genesis 14 start to make a lot of sense.

Now let’s be straight about these two books. Jubilees is Scripture to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and to Ethiopian Jews, and not to the Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox churches. The Jasher we have is a Hebrew work whose earliest surviving printing is from Venice in 1625 (its preface claims an earlier 1552 edition that no one has ever found), named after a Book of Jasher the Bible itself mentions, and the edition in this House’s library says plainly that it is not accepted as that original book. This House reads them as part of the discussion, not as the last word. But the Scriptures leave the question open, and these books answer it, and the answer they give is: after the flood, before Abraham, and Nimrod did it first.

One more, from outside the Bible’s family entirely. Babylon had its own creation story, the Enuma Elish, and in it the goddess Tiamat raises an army of monsters against the other gods and appoints a general. She exalts Kingu “to march before the forces, to lead [the host], to give the battle-signal, to advance to the attack, to direct the battle, to control the fight” (Tablet I, lines 129-131, L.W. King’s 1902 translation; the brackets are King’s, marking a restored word). Babylon had a commander in its creation story, before the world was even finished being made.

Israel’s own army is born walking out of Egypt

This is the part I didn’t give enough room to in the first discussion, so let’s give it room now. When Israel leaves Egypt, the text does not describe a crowd. It describes a force:

“These are that Aaron and Moses, to whom the LORD said, Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies.” (Exodus 6:26)

“And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.” (Exodus 12:37-38)

“And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:41)

“And it came to pass the selfsame day, that the LORD did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.” (Exodus 12:51)

Armies. Hosts. Six hundred thousand men on foot, counted as men, with children on top of that and a mixed multitude of people who were not even Israelites going out with them. Hold on to that “host” word, because it matters. In the King James, a host is an army. So when the Bible calls God “the LORD of hosts,” it is calling him the LORD of armies. One scholar’s note says the same: in The Gnostic Scriptures, the editor’s note on the name Sabaoth explains it as Hebrew for “armies,” from the old title “god of the armies.” David spells it out himself, standing in front of Goliath:

“Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.” (1 Samuel 17:45)

The God of the armies of Israel. Now you know what that title means.

Now watch the route out of Egypt, because God makes a military decision about it:

“And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt: But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:17-18)

They went up harnessed, which the English Standard Version renders “equipped for battle,” the New International Version “ready for battle,” and the Ethiopian Bible edition in this House’s library “In battle array.” But look at the verse before it. God took the long way on purpose because these people were not ready to see war yet. He knew what he had. An army in formation that had never fought.

And the first time an enemy comes at them, at the sea, they don’t fight:

“The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” (Exodus 14:14)

Their first battle is won without a sword drawn. The first time they do fight is three chapters later, and listen to how it’s handled:

“Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek: to morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.” (Exodus 17:8-9)

“Choose us out men.” Moses does not send everybody. He has Joshua select troops. That is the first Israelite commander in the field being named and given a mission, and it ends in Exodus 17:13 with Joshua defeating Amalek with the edge of the sword.

So where did Moses learn to think like that? The Scriptures don’t say. Jasher does. In its seventy-second and seventy-third chapters, Moses flees Egypt as a young man and lands in the camp of the king of Cush, who is besieging his own rebel capital. Moses spends nine years in that siege camp, “and Moses went out and came in with them” (Jasher 72:23, LSV). When the king dies, the army makes Moses king, and he reigns over Cush forty years before he ever comes back to Egypt. Whether you take that as history or not, it is the other books’ answer to a question the Scriptures leave hanging: the man who marched Israel out in battle array had, in that telling, been a soldier and a king before he was ever a prophet.

The army gets a structure

Marching out is one thing. Here is where it becomes an organization. Moses’ father-in-law looks at what Moses is doing and tells him to build a chain of command:

“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:” (Exodus 18:21)

“And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.” (Exodus 18:25)

Thousands, hundreds, fifties, tens. Anybody who has served recognizes that instantly. When Moses tells it again in Deuteronomy, the King James calls them “captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens” (Deuteronomy 1:15). And that structure never goes away. Long after Moses, in the Apocrypha, Judas Maccabeus is still using it:

“And after this Judas ordained captains over the people, even captains over thousands, and over hundreds, and over fifties, and over tens. But as for such as were building houses, or had betrothed wives, or were planting vineyards, or were fearful, those he commanded that they should return, every man to his own house, according to the law.” (1 Maccabees 3:55-56, King James Apocrypha)

According to the law. We’ll come back to that law in a minute, because he is quoting it.

Then comes the census. The first discussion touched this; here is the whole shape of it:

“From twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies.” (Numbers 1:3)

“Even all they that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty.” (Numbers 1:46)

Six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty men of fighting age, which lines up with the “about six hundred thousand” that walked out of Egypt. And then this:

“But the Levites after the tribe of their fathers were not numbered among them.” (Numbers 1:47)

“But thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony, and over all the vessels thereof, and over all things that belong to it: they shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof; and they shall minister unto it, and shall encamp round about the tabernacle.” (Numbers 1:50)

A whole tribe exempted from the fighting count and assigned to carry, guard, and serve. That is a non-combatant branch, written into the book at the same time as the draft. The army had people in it who were not counted to go out and fight. It always did.

Then the camp:

“Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father’s house: far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch.” (Numbers 2:2)

“And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies: and Nahshon the son of Amminadab shall be captain of the children of Judah.” (Numbers 2:3)

Standards. Ensigns. An assigned side of the camp, and a named captain for each tribe. And when they move, “as they encamp, so shall they set forward, every man in his place by their standards” (Numbers 2:17). They had unit flags and a marching order, and a trumpet signal for war on top of it: “if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets” (Numbers 10:9).

And then the law Judas Maccabeus was quoting. The first discussion opened only the first verse of Deuteronomy 20. Here is the rest of what it does. Before a battle, the officers stand up and send people home:

“And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it. And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.” (Deuteronomy 20:5-7)

“And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.” (Deuteronomy 20:8)

New house, new vineyard, new bride, or just scared: go home. The scared man is sent home not as punishment but because fear spreads. Then, and only then, “they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people” (Deuteronomy 20:9). And before a city is attacked:

“When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.” (Deuteronomy 20:10)

Peace first. But read on, because the text doesn’t stop there. That rule is for “all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations” (Deuteronomy 20:15). For the cities of the land itself, the very next verse says “thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth” (Deuteronomy 20:16). So not every time, and the book says so itself. And even in a long siege, “thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them” (Deuteronomy 20:19). Exemptions, a terms-of-surrender rule, and a rule about what you may not destroy. That is a code of conduct for an army, and it is in the fifth book of the Bible.

The kings build standing armies

Everything above is a people’s militia, raised when needed. The standing army comes with the kings, and the Bible saw it coming. When Israel asks for a king, Samuel warns them exactly what a king does:

“And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.” (1 Samuel 8:11-12)

A draft, a chariot corps, officers, and a war industry. They asked for a king anyway, and the very first one does this:

“Saul chose him three thousand men of Israel; whereof two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and in mount Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin: and the rest of the people he sent every man to his tent.” (1 Samuel 13:2)

Three thousand kept, split into two commands, and everybody else sent home. That is Israel’s first standing army, and it starts out nearly unarmed, because the enemy controlled the weapons:

“Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears:” (1 Samuel 13:19)

“So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found.” (1 Samuel 13:22)

An arms embargo, in the book. Two swords in the whole army. From there it grows. David’s force runs in monthly rotations, “of every course were twenty and four thousand” (1 Chronicles 27:1), twelve divisions, one for each month. Solomon has “a thousand and four hundred chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots” (1 Kings 10:26), cities set aside for a chariot corps. And later two kings, Abijah of Judah and Jeroboam of Israel, line up against each other with four hundred thousand on one side and eight hundred thousand on the other, both “chosen men” (2 Chronicles 13:3). Israelite armies, plural, and fighting each other.

Then there is Uzziah:

“Moreover Uzziah had an host of fighting men, that went out to war by bands, according to the number of their account by the hand of Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s captains.” (2 Chronicles 26:11)

“And Uzziah prepared for them throughout all the host shields, and spears, and helmets, and habergeons, and bows, and slings to cast stones. And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong.” (2 Chronicles 26:14-15)

A muster roll kept by a named scribe. Units. Issued equipment, down to the helmets and body armor. And engineers building machines on the city walls to throw stones and arrows. That is a king with a quartermaster and a weapons program, and it’s sitting in Second Chronicles.

Where it landed

So, were militaries first established in biblical times?

The Bible never says so. On its own pages, the armies are already standing there when the story begins: Nimrod’s kingdom in chapter ten, nine kings at war in chapter fourteen, Pharaoh’s chariot corps with an officer on every chariot. The other books push the beginning back to the generations right after the flood and put Nimrod’s name on it, and even Babylon’s own creation story has a general in it. “Biblical times” is a very long stretch of time, and nowhere in it does the book mark a first army. They are already there.

What the Bible does do, in detail, is let you watch one army get built from nothing. A slave people walks out of Egypt in formation. It gets a chain of command, a census, a camp with flags, a non-combatant branch, a trumpet code, and a code of conduct that sends the scared man home and offers peace before a siege on a city far off. Then its kings turn the militia into a standing force with garrisons, rotations, and engines on the walls. All of that is in the Bible, chapter and verse.

Whether that answers the question or just opens a bigger one, I’ll leave to you. That’s what this House is for.

Come as you are. Bring the question you actually have.