Alliances

An alliance is a binding agreement between individuals, peoples, or states for mutual aid, protection, or advantage, and Scripture most often describes such agreements in the language of covenant. Not every alliance is treated negatively: the text says that Abimelech and Phicol came to Abraham because "God is with you in all that you do" (Genesis 21:22), and the narrative that follows records a sworn agreement between them. Linguistically, Hebrew does not use a separate word for treaty; the same term, berit, covers personal oaths, national treaties, and Israel's covenant with Yahweh, so the moral question in any given passage has to be settled from context rather than from the vocabulary alone.

The strongest prohibitions concern covenants with the inhabitants of Canaan. The text says, "You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods" (Exodus 23:32), and warns that such an agreement "will surely be a snare" (Exodus 23:33); the parallel in Exodus 34:12 calls it "a snare among you," with the stated reason given two verses later: "you shall worship no other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Exodus 34:14), and the danger named is that a covenant partner "call you and you eat of his sacrifice" (Exodus 34:15). Deuteronomy 7:2 states the ban in the harshest form, "You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them." In each case the concern the text gives is religious: the snare is idolatry and the table fellowship that accompanies it, not merely a foreign policy.

A second strand of material addresses military alliances, and there the criticism is framed around trust. The text says, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many… but they don't look to the Holy One of Israel" (Isaiah 31:1). Ezekiel 17:15 describes Zedekiah sending ambassadors to Egypt for horses and troops in breach of his oath to Babylon, asking whether one who "breaks the covenant" will escape. Hosea 12:1 charges Ephraim with making "a covenant with Assyria" while oil is carried to Egypt, and 2 Chronicles 19:2 has Jehu rebuke Jehoshaphat: "Should you help the wicked, and love those who hate Yahweh?" Isaiah 8:12 is a related case: the Hebrew word rendered "conspiracy" can denote a feared coalition or confederacy, and the prophet forbids sharing the people's dread of it.

Christian traditions read this material differently, and the difference is worth stating plainly. One common reading holds that the Canaanite ban was a land-specific safeguard of Israel's worship in the conquest era, and that the oracles against Egypt and Assyria condemn misplaced confidence rather than diplomacy as such, so neither passage yields a general rule against treaties. Another reading, prominent in Anabaptist and peace-church teaching, takes these texts as a standing word against entangling military alliances and the fear that drives them. Still another, characteristic of traditions that distinguish Israel's theocratic existence from the church's situation among the nations, applies the passages chiefly to the believer's exclusive loyalty to God rather than to affairs of state. What the text itself states as grounds for the prohibition is jealousy for exclusive worship (Exodus 34:14) and the refusal to look to Yahweh for help (Isaiah 31:1).

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.