The
Biblical Relationship of Peace and Justice
We've all heard the saying: "If you
want peace, seek justice!" In this week's segment of
our study of Isaiah, there are some challenging words addressed
to us with similar meaning: "Right will dwell in the desert
and justice abide in the orchard. Justice will bring about
peace; right will produce calm and security. My people will
live in peaceful country, in secure dwellings and quiet resting
places" (Is 32:16-19). The notions of "Justice"
and "Peace" have very special meaning and application
in the Bible. This article will look into both of these concepts,
especially at their relationship to each other.
The basic meaning of the words, "justice
and righteousness" as used in the Bible, can be best expressed
through these applications: A weight-measure that is accurate is
right and just. A road that leads directly to the proper destination
is right; worship that is in accordance with ordained ritual is
right; a court that makes the correct decision renders true justice,
and living in right relationship to one's neighbors, as the Law
specifies, is living justly. The most important way to view
the meaning of these words is expressed as follows: to follow the
law of God in every detail is to stand in right relationship before
God. "Because your father dispensed justice to the weak
and the poor, it went well with him. Is this not true knowledge
of me, says the Lord" (Jer 22:16).
Regarding the word, "peace," a
linguistic study of the Hebrew word, "salom,"
offers an interesting perspective. The cognate verb of this
noun signifies to finish, to complete, to bring to a condition where
something is all it can be and nothing is lacking.
Biblical peace, therefore, is much more
that the "pact" or "treaty" which permits a
tranquil life. Its meaning goes deeper than a "time of
peace" as opposed to a "time of war." Peace
indicates the well-being of daily existence, the state of a person
living in harmony with nature, with self, and with God. To
be at peace is to be happy, to live without fear, and to live in
harmony with others.
Human beings desire peace from the very
depths of their being. But they are not always aware of what
true peace is and of the paths one must walk in order to obtain
it. One of Sacred Scripture's goals is to show the way on
both of these accounts. The biblical notion of justice is
front and center in the defining of this path to peace.
If we ask the question: "what detracts
from peace?" Jeremiah answers this way: "Small
and great alike are those greedy for gain; prophet and priest all
practice fraud. They would repair, as though it were nought,
the injury to my people: 'Peace, peace!' they say, though there
is no peace" (6:13-14). For Isaiah, peace is
in opposition to what is evil: "No peace for the wicked"
(Is 48:22).
The question, "what enhances peace?"
is answered in many ways in the Bible: "O God, with your judgment
endow the king, and with your justice, the king's son. He
shall govern your people with justice and your afflicted ones with
judgment. The mountains shall yield peace for the people,
and the hills justice" (Ps 72:1-3).
Peace brings many blessings. "Behold
the just one: there is a posterity for the person of peace"
(Ps 37:37); "the humble will possess the land and will taste
the delights of an unfathomable peace" (Ps 37:11). Peace
is the sum of the benefits granted to justice: to have a fruitful
land, to eat to fullness, to dwell in security, to sleep without
fear, to triumph over one's enemies, to be multiplied; all this,
because God is with us (Lev 26:1-13). According to Proverbs,
"those who counsel peace have joy." Peace, then, far from
being only an absence of war, is the fullness of happiness.
Isaiah lists many ways to link
justice and peace. In chapter 58, the prophesy urges true
fasting: "releasing those bound unjustly, setting free the
oppressed, sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless,
clothing the naked. . ." (6-7). The result, though the
word peace is not used, constitutes what peace truly is: "Then
light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become
for you like midday; Then the Lord will guide you always and give
you plenty even on the parched land. God will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water
never fails" (10-11).
Isaiah makes use of powerful and
moving symbolism to show how peace can result from a practice of
justice: "He (the shoot from the stump of Jesse) shall judge
the poor with justice and decide aright for the land's afflicted.
. . . Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness
a belt upon his hips. Then the wolf shall be a guest of the
lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kin. . . . There
shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain" (Is 11:4,
5-6, 9). "I will appoint peace your governor, and justice
your ruler" (Is 48:18). Peace will govern and righteousness
will rule (Is 60:17).
"Come let us climb the Lord's mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob, that the Lord may instruct us
in the Lord's ways, and we may walk in God's paths [the ultimate
state of justice]. . . . They shall beat their swords into
plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One nation
shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train
for war again" (Is 2:3-4).
Amos also demands a justice that
leads to peace: "Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
and destroy the poor of the land! . . . You say, 'we will
diminish the ephah, add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating'"
(8:4-5). Then this prophet goes on to describe the result,
a picture that is the opposite of true peace: "Shall not the
land tremble because of this, and all who dwell in it mourn? . .
. I, the Lord, will make them mourn as for an only child, and bring
their day to bitter end" (8:8, 10).
The people of the Bible were in relationship
with God because of the covenant that existed between God and Israel.
It is in this covenant that we find out how essential justice
is to the life of people walking God's way, because that same covenant
puts them in relationship with every other person, including poor
and needy people, strangers and aliens. Out of these relationships
responsibilities and demands arise. It is a fundamental concept
of the Hebrew Scriptures that facing up to these covenantal responsibilities
and demands is justice, and that from this justice peace, as the
song says, "is flowing like a river."
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| Text:
Isaiah 32:9-20
9 O complacent ladies, rise up and
hear my voice, overconfident women, give heed to my words.
10 In a little more than a year you
overconfident ones will be shaken; The vintage will fail, there
will be no harvest.
11 Tremble, you who are complacent!
Shudder, you who are overconfident! Strip yourselves bare,
with only a loincloth to cover you,
12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant
fields, the fruitful vine,
13 And the soil of my people, overgrown
with thorns and briers; For all the joyful houses, the wanton city.
14 Yes, the castle will be forsaken,
the noisy city deserted;
19 Down it comes, as trees come down
in the forest! The city will be utterly laid low. Hill and
tower will become wasteland forever for wild asses to frolic in,
and flocks to pasture,
15 Until the spirit from on high is
poured out on us. Then will the desert become an orchard and
the orchard be regarded as a forest.
16 Right will dwell in the desert
and justice abide in the orchard.
17 Justice will bring about peace;
right will produce calm and security.
18 My people will live in peaceful
country, in secure dwellings and quiet resting places.
20 Happy are you who sow beside every
stream, and let the ox and the ass go freely!
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