Ripping Up?

What was Ripping Up?

Thus saith the LORD;

For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead,

that they might enlarge their border:

Amos 1:13

"One of the most violent and brutal conducts in times of war was the Assyrian practice of ripping open pregnant women in order to expose their fetus. In his article, “‘Ripping Open Pregnant Women’ in Light of an Assyrian Analogue,” Mordechai Cogan quotes an Assyrian poem, probably dated to the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076), in which the poet praises the actions of the victorious king. On one section of the poem, in which the poet relates the victory of the Assyrian king against his enemy, reads as follow:

He slits the wombs of pregnant women
he blinds the infants
He cuts the throats of their strong ones.

In commenting on the words of the poet describing the acts of the victorious king, Cogan wrote: “Out of the entire catalogue of the horrors of war, he singled out the attack upon the defenseless women and children; and this in order to impress upon all that the cruelest of punishments awaits those who sin against Assyria’s god” (1983:756).


However, the biblical record shows that the practice of ripping open pregnant women was also the practice of war of other nations in the ancient Near East.
When the prophet Elisha anointed Hazael to be the next king of Damascus, Elisha wept aloud when he saw how Hazael would cause violence and horror against the women of Israel. When Hazael saw the prophet weeping, he asked: “‘Why does my lord weep?’ [Elisha] answered, ‘Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel; you will set their fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women’” (2 Kings 8:11-12).


In his oracle against the Ammonites, Amos said the Lord would punish them because of their violence against the women of Gilead: “Thus says the LORD: For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead in order to enlarge their territory” (Amos 1:13).


In his oracle against Israel, the prophet Hosea pronounced a judgment against the Northern Kingdom. The judgment would be an Assyrian invasion that would bring untold terror and violence against the inhabitants of Samaria: “Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open” (Hosea 13:16).


The writer of the book of Kings says that Menahem, after he became king of Israel, invaded Tappuah to punish them for not supporting him. Most texts read “Tiphsah” (2 King 15:16 NIV), a city near the Euphrates River. However, the text should be read “Tappuah,” a town located in the tribe of Ephraim (Joshua 17:8).


During the invasion, “Menahem punished Tappuah, all the inhabitants of the town and of its whole district, because on his way from Tirzah they did not let him in. He punished them even to ripping open all the pregnant women” (2 Kings 15:16 NAB).
In his description of Menahem’s act, Josephus wrote:

Menahem, the general of his army, . . . made himself king, he went thence, and came to the city Tiphsah; but the citizens that were in it shut their gates, and barred them against the king, and would not admit him;
but in order to be avenged on them, he burnt the country round about it, and took the city by force, upon a siege; and being very much displeased at what the inhabitants of Tiphsah had done, he slew them all, and spared not so much as the infants, without omitting the utmost instances of cruelty and barbarity; for he used such severity upon his own countrymen, as would not be pardonable with regard to strangers who had been conquered by him.
And after this manner it was that this Menahem continued to reign with cruelty and barbarity for ten years.

Josephus was so appalled at the cruelty and barbarity Menahem used against his own countrymen that he said such a practice would be unforgivable even if it were done against foreign enemies.
Such are the barbarities of war.
But, there is hope. The Bible says that when the Messiah comes, there shall be peace among the nations: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary