God’s Miracles in Israel’s Military History
Without God’s hand in Israel’s history, we would not exist. Israel’s continued existence, in the face of near-continuous threat, can only be attributed to God’s miraculous intervention and faithfulness to His promises. As we look at examples of God’s hand in Israel’s military history, it is helpful to keep in mind that Jewish tradition discusses two kinds of miracles, revealed and hidden.
Revealed Miracles in Biblical History
Revealed miracles are observable, divine interventions in the natural world. We witnessed revealed miracles when God intervened in Egypt with the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and leading us out with pillars of cloud and fire. We were then homeless in the wilderness, facing extinction and starvation, but God provided manna from heaven to sustain us (Exod 16:4–15). These are examples of revealed miracles preserving the Jewish people in times when our existence was under threat.
Even after these revealed miracles enabled our escape from Egypt and survival in the wilderness, our continued existence was still uncertain. We arrived at our homeland only to discover it was occupied by violent and evil idolaters who were guilty of barbarous acts of child sacrifice and bestiality.1 The Tanakh shares how God sent “the hornet” before the Israelite army to aid in defeating these evil regimes (Exod 23:28; Josh 24:12). One of the most famous miracles of Joshua and the Israelite army occurred in the famed city of Jericho. God instructed Joshua to lead the Israelite army in marching around the city of Jericho for seven days. On the seventh day, the walls of the great city of Jericho fell, allowing the Israelite army to rush in and defeat the Canaanites (Josh 6:1–5). We see God has openly intervened on behalf of the Jewish people in times of existential threat.
Hidden Miracles in Biblical History
Jewish tradition also speaks of hidden miracles, which are extremely unlikely and timely successes that are best explained by God’s intervention. Purim is one of the clearest examples of God’s hidden miracles in our history. God is not mentioned a single time in the book of Esther, nor is there a report of any supernatural intervention. However, we credit him with preserving the Jewish people against the genocidal agenda of Haman through the courageous actions of Esther and Mordecai. God placed the right people in the right places at the right time. The odds were so against the Jewish people that the success of Esther and Mordecai is best explained by God being “behind the scenes” bringing them victory over Haman.
Hidden? Or Revealed?
However, I think there are two ways this delineation between revealed and hidden becomes murky. One way this delineation is challenged is that it is not always so easy to determine if a miraculous moment is revealed or hidden. Sometimes the odds are so against the Jewish people that certain moments feel like God’s hand is more revealed than it is hidden. Think of David defeating Goliath. Unlike Esther and Mordecai, who were the right people, in the right place, at the right time, you read the story of David and Goliath and David seems like the wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Goliath is literally a giant trained to kill whatever steps before him and David is a diminutive shepherd boy who no one in Israel would have wagered could defeat Goliath. Against all odds, David, at the perfect time, slung a perfect stone, at the perfect speed, landing in the perfect spot on Goliath’s forehead to slay him and defeat the Philistine army. While David technically defeated Goliath using natural means, it is difficult to place this moment in our history squarely in the hidden miracles category without a second thought.
The second challenge is the level of subjectivity in how miraculous events are interpreted. What is a hidden miracle to one may seem revealed to another. This interpretive difference is played out in two accounts of the Maccabees’ Hanukkah victory:
- 1 Maccabees: Our earliest account reads more like the Book of Esther. God is not undeniably intervening with supernatural phenomena; rather, the Maccabean army, through wit and will, manages to defeat the Syrian-Greek forces. Even so, Judas Maccabeus encourages his men by stating: “It is not on the size of the army that victory in battle depends, but strength comes from Heaven” (1 Macc 3:19).
- 2 Maccabees: A later account brings God to the foreground with revealed miracles. The author describes heavenly beings helping Judas directly: “There appeared to the enemy from heaven five resplendent men on horses with golden bridles, and they were leading the Jews… they showered arrows and thunderbolts on the enemy” (2 Macc 10:29–30).
While there is no way of knowing the exact physical nature of these events, these texts show that the authors had different understandings of just how “revealed” God’s intervention was. Both agree, however, that God’s hand brought the victory.
God’s Miracles Today
We continue to see God’s miracles, often hidden (or semi-hidden), in modern Israeli military victories. To take one of many examples, the Valley of Tears Battle took place in the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War from October 6 to October 9, 1973. This war started with a Syrian surprise attack on the day where most members of the Israeli Defense Force are fasting in synagogue with their families. In the Valley of Tears northern front, the Israeli 7th Brigade, with 100 tanks, faced a Syrian force of 500 tanks and 700 armored personnel carriers. Across the entire Golan front, there were 177 Israeli tanks against over 1,400 Syrian tanks. Not only that, but the Syrian tanks were equipped with night vision and the Israeli tanks were not, leaving them fighting blind at night. As the battle in the Valley of Tears raged for four days, the Israeli 7th Brigade found itself with only six tanks remaining and almost no ammunition left. With the defeat of the Israeli force seeming inevitable, the Israeli troops were shocked to see the 200 remaining Syrian tanks withdrawing from the battlefield. Later, it was learned they withdrew when they saw 15 Israeli tanks arriving at the battlefield and thought this was only the beginning wave of major Israeli reinforcements (which was not the case).
Whether God’s miracles are revealed or hidden, we know that the sheer survival of the Jewish people across thousands of years, multiple continents, thousands of battles, and countless persecutions shows that God is real and faithful to His promise to sustain the Jewish people. As King David writes, “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps 121:4).
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