2 - The Cosmic Ecology of Violence

Summary

Chapter 2 examines 6:11–13 where creation had become saturated with violence. The Hebrew חמס often connotes systemic violence, and is thus an appropriate term for capturing the way that violence was understood to fill an environment. Once filled, the land could no longer sustain human, plant, or animal populations. Violence works like termites destroying the wood framing on the house. The house may appear reasonably solid from the outside until the moment before it collapses. There are several auditory terms writers use to describe creation in this crisis state. Some describe it in terms of acoustic tumult or uproar. The sound of violence also reverberates horizontally throughout creation in an ever increasing ‘tumult’, bringing creation to its breaking point. But the tumultuous sound of the violent also sends out shockwaves that reach God, because the basic impulse of violence is heavenward arrogance. This undermines the power of the arrogant because God responds decisively against arrogant claimants to Yhwh’s throne.