In a recent book entitled YHWH Fights for Them!, Charlie Trimm analyzes the use of martial imagery to describe God in the first fifteen chapters of the book of Exodus. Peter Leithart writes in his review:

[Trimm] isolates divine-warrior passages partly by looking for military terminology; even when God is not identified as a “mighty man” (gibbor), he might be carrying on a war by “striking” the Egyptians. . . . God uses the weapons of nature to carry on his war against Pharaoh, and he looks at the “psychological” effects of the divine warrior, especially the panic he strikes in his enemies. . . .

Putting the divine-warrior motif in the context of the exodus narrative demonstrates that God’s is a just war. Trimm runs through the appearances of Egypt in Genesis, showing that it is depicted positively in the main. This [depiction] climaxes with the offer of the land of Goshen to Jacob and his family; Trimm sees in this a sign of God’s intention to bless nations through Israel.

[But] this generosity is in the background when Exodus begins, and we see Pharaoh and indeed all Egypt rejecting God and reneging on the gift of land.

Last week, Jordanian police arrested sixteen members of the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood for acquiring explosives, trying to manufacture drones, and planning rocket attacks. The cell was likely working in coordination with Hamas (the Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood) and Hizballah, and perhaps receiving funding from Iran. Ghaith al-Omari provides some background:

The Brotherhood has been active in Jordan since the 1940s, and its relations with the government remained largely cooperative for decades even as other political parties were banned in the 1950s. In exchange, the Brotherhood usually (but not always) supported the palace’s foreign policy and security measures, particularly against Communist and socialist parties.

Relations became more adversarial near the turn of the century after the Brotherhood vociferously opposed the 1994 peace treaty with Israel. The Arab Spring movement that emerged in 2011 saw further deterioration. Unlike other states in the region, however, Jordan did not completely crack down on the MB, instead seeking to limit its influence.

Yet the current Gaza war has seen another escalation, with the MB repeatedly accusing the government of cooperating with Israel and not doing enough to support the Palestinians.

Jordanian security circles are particularly worried about the MB’s vocal wartime identification with Hamas, an organization that was considered such a grave security threat that it was expelled from the kingdom in 1999. The sentiment among many Jordanian officials is that the previous lenient approach failed to change the MB’s behavior, emboldening the group instead.