“No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel,
can avail against the Lord.
The horse is made ready for the day of battle,
but the victory belongs to the Lord.”
Proverbs 21:30-31

            I write these lines on the fifth day of the Russian invasion into Ukraine. Thus far the war has been filled with surprise and unpredictability.  This far Ukrainian resistance has been tougher, stiffer, and more resilient than expected. Thus far the Russian military (with its fragile supply lines) has been less effective than expected. Thus far world opinion in rejecting the invasion (including protests in Russia, restraint in China, and ambiguity in fascist Hungary) has been more nearly unanimous and vigorous than had been expected. Of course no one knows the outcome of the war, and events will surely evolve before these lines of mine can be circulated.

            Nonetheless the present circumstance of tough resistance, military ineffectiveness, and unanimous dissent taken all together is enough to pay attention the lines of the Proverb quoted above. We may take it that verse 20 lays down a deep conviction of the wisdom teachers in ancient Israel, namely, that there is a hidden sovereignty of God present and operative in the world that will not and cannot be penetrated by human intelligence. This does not mean that there should not be wisdom, smart calculation, and serious planning. It does mean, nonetheless, that such wisdom, smart planning, and serious preparation should know, from the outset, that this work has a quite penultimate quality to it. Of this deep caveat, Gerhard von Rad writes:

Its aim, rather, is to put a stop to the erroneous concept that a guarantee of success was to be found simply in practicing human wisdom and in making preparations. Man must always keep himself open to the activity of God, an activity which completely escapes all calculation,  for between the putting into practice of the most reliable wisdom and that which then actually takes place, there always lies a great unknown.
Gerhard Von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 101

Thus the saying bears witness to the “wild card” in human affairs that is beyond human control. Beyond that, moreover, the saying dares to link that wild card to the holiness of God that is pervaded, in varying ways, with divine righteousness, justice, compassion, faithfulness, and truthfulness. The saying is characteristically elusive, so that God’s working will not be pinned down in any precise way. The saying is a recognition that qualifies human wisdom, understanding, and counsel in retrospect. Thus in the wake of these five long day in Ukraine, we already have sufficient data to see that the best wisdom and understanding could not have anticipated the tentative outcomes of toughness, ineffectiveness, and unanimity. The formula of the proverb refuses precision exactly because it concerns the holiness of God who operates in hiddenness and in freedom. And of course, this elusive reference to God allows that some unexpected “slippage” can be explained and justified in other ways, if we choose to do so.

            Verse 30 nonetheless invites us to reflect on the God to whom the Proverb bears witness. It is to be noticed that no active verbs are assigned to God, so we plausibly do not have to do here with emancipatory God of the Exodus or the covenant-enforcing God of the prophets. Rather we have here the remote inscrutable God of the sapiential tradition who works in ways we cannot identify or measure. Which is why we sing:

God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year;
God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near;
Nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,
When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God
As the waters cover the sea (Arthur Campbell Ainger, 1894).

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill
He treasures up his bright designs and works His sov’reign will.
His purposes will ripen fast unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste but sweet will be the flow’r.
Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter, and he will make it plain.
William Cowper, 1774

This is the God attested in the prophetic formulation of Isaiah 14:24, 26-27:

The Lord of hosts has sworn:
As I have designed, so shall it be;
and as I have planned, so shall it come to pass…
This is the plan that is planned concerning the whole earth;
and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
For the Lord of hosts has planned and who will annul it?
His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?
Isaiah 14:24, 26-27

To be sure, this prophetic declaration is filled out with an active verb in verse 25, but the primary accent in this prophetic utterance is less clear about implementation. Thus God’s work is hidden and functions in this text primarily to curb unacceptable human conduct:

Hardly anything was said about “cooperation” or “accompaniment” on the part of Yahweh. One knew about him, but in this business of discovering an order, Yahweh only appeared, on the whole, more in the sense of a limitation imposed on men (Von Rad, Wisdom in Israel 399-300).

Thus limit is imposed on human wisdom, understanding, and counsel. Limit is placed on military plans and on political resolve. And no matter how much technology, manpower, or equipment can be mustered, human reason cannot and will not transgress that limit.

            At the moment the invasion of Russia into Ukraine is a replication of the long-running military action of the United States in Vietnam. All the money, all the technology, all the equipment, and all the manpower gave the United States an illusionary edge in the war with the Viet Cong, an edge that left US presidents and military planners confident in their work. But of course all of that “successful” preparation cut no ice in the reality of combat. In his retrospect after the war and an acknowledgement of his shameless leadership, Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, utilized the telling phrase, “The Fog of War” (The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons Learned from the Life of Robert S. McNamara by James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang). As soon as combat begins, there is fog of bewilderment and confusion that quickly overrides careful planning.  (There are important exceptions to that, as is the case of the German planners who, in the First World War, calculated the exact movement of troops by train into France). Speaking of that same war, McGeorge Bundy, a guiding leader of the war who sneered at its protesters, said in a final retrospect, “We were very smart, but we were not as smart as we thought we were.” (I can no longer identify the quote that I read a long time ago). So it is, over and over, that the fog of war teaches us that we were not as smart as we thought we were!

            To McNamara’s phrase I have added only “Holy.” It is enough talk of the fog of war that at the moment overwhelms the careful Russian calculation. If, however, we follow our proverb, it is not mere “fog.” It is fog dispatched by the Holy One of Israel; presumably this mighty God can dispatch fog in the same way that frogs, hail, and gnats were dispatched in the plagues of Egypt (see Exodus 7-10).

            Proverbs 20:31 takes the general principle enunciated in verse 30 and applies it to military planning. The saying acknowledges the best military equipment on offer, “horses.” The military planners are always relying on “horses” (that is, on tanks bombs, and missiles). Thus the representative of Assyria in ancient Jerusalem is so sure of Assyrian horses that he willing to toy with the feeble Israelites:

Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egyptian for chariots and for horsemen?
Isaiah 36:8-9

Even the Assyrian however, mediated through Israelite dialect, can recognize that horses are penultimate:

Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.
Isaiah 36:10

Thus he claims to be fighting the battle of YHWH, as the God of Israel has turned against Israel. Indeed, Isaiah can warn his people that reliance on horses is a futile enterprise:

Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help
and who rely in horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!
Isaiah 31:1

It is the same with military planners:

Oh, rebellious children, says the Lord,
Who carry out a plan, but not mine;
who make an alliance, but against my will,
adding sin to sin;
who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my counsel,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh,
and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt.
Isaiah 30:1-2

Horses can be made ready! But victory (teshua’) belongs not to the horses, nor to the horsemen, nor to the military planners. It belongs to God! Still no active verb! YHWH doesn’t “do” anything! It is as though YHWH simply waits for events to turn as willed: Keeping watch over God’s own! Wait as limit; wait as holy purpose; wait as the creator, perhaps wait in solidarity with “the least. More one cannot say. And more the proverb does not claim. It is enough. Do not imagine the cunning of human history without the overriding of holiness. Do not be so impressed with technological capacity as to think it is the clue to wellbeing. Do not give in to the pride that our ways are adequate or will prevail, because they will not (see Isaiah 55:8-9).

            Religious communities—and thus the church—are the only venues in town in which this unmanaged holiness can be talked about. The Holy One who may dispatch fog is no chaplain of a nation, is not a patron of one’s side in war, and is not a nice uncle who offers consolation. This rather is a God will not be mocked, not by all the hubris we may muster. Thus the king in ancient Jerusalem can hope:

It may be that the Lord our God has heard the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the Lord our God has heard.
Isaiah 37:4

Thus the king prays:

O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God…So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord.
Isaiah 37:16-20

There is doxology addressed to YHWH; there is a description of the threat in case God has not noticed; and there is petition: “Save us.” The prophetic response to the prayer of the king picks up on the theme of “mocking”:

Whom have you mocked and reviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice and haughtily lifted your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
By your servants you have mocked the Lord,
and you have said,
“With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon; I felled it tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses; 
I came to its remotest height, its densest forest.
I dug wells and drank waters.
I dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt.”
Isaiah 37:23-25

The Assyrian overlord is filled with the “I” of royal arrogance. But then the divine resolve:

Because you have raged against me
and your arrogance has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth;
I will turn you back on the way by which you came.
Isaiah 37:29

God in God’s holiness will not be mocked, not by the violence of war, not by the arrogance of invasion, not by the merciless indifference of the strong against the weak, not by the planning that is scientifically perfect and technologically effective, not by all the hubris we can muster.

            And we in the church get to talk about this! We are summoned out of our complacent church theology, out of our comfortable context of vexed families, and out of our easy talk of love and forgiveness. We are summoned to the daring claim of divine sovereignty in a world seemingly ordered according to the will of the ones with the most horses. The horses may have their way in war. The counsel of wisdom and understanding might provisionally prevail. But we are left to speak about the One who is not greatly impressed with horses, but has another purpose for the world. The odd claim entrusted to us is that this purpose is now at work in, with, and under the ordeals of the day. This holy purpose will not be identified with the United States or with Russia. It is this holy fog that gives cover to the vulnerable, that gives vexation to the proud, and that precludes excessive human management. The one of whom we speak is, in a moment of inexplicable emancipation, dubbed as a warrior, even as “a man of war.”

The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he cast into the sea;
his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power—
your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy…
The Lord will reign forever and ever
Exodus 15:3-6, 18

Walter Brueggemann
March 1, 2022