In the Bible it is represented as moral and physical. We choose
to discuss the subject under these heads. Many of the evils that
come upon us have not been intended by those who suffer for them.
Disease, individual and national calamity, drought, scarcity of
food, may not always be charged to the account of intentional
wrong. Many times the innocent suffer with, and even for, the
guilty. In such cases, only physical evil is apparent. Even when
the suffering has been occasioned by sin or dereliction of duty,
whether the wrong is active or passive, many, perhaps the majority
of those who are injured, are not accountable in any way for the
ills which come upon them. Neither is God the author of moral
evil. “God cannot be tempted with evil, and God tempts no
one” (Jas 1:13).
1.
MORAL EVIL
By this term we refer to wrongs done to our companions, where
the actor is responsible for the action. The immorality may be
present when the action is not possible. “But if that evil
servant shall say in his heart” (Mt 24:48, 49), whether he
shall smite his fellow-servants or not, the moral evil is present.
“All these evil things proceed from within, and defile the
person” (Mk 7:21-23). The last six commandments of the Decalogue
apply here (Ex 20:12-17). To dishonor one’s parents, to kill,
to commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness and to covet
are moral evils. The spiritual import of these commandments will
be found in Mt 5:21, 22, 27, 28. “But if your eye be evil,
your whole body shall be full of darkness” (6:23).
Words
and deeds are coined in the heart before the world sees or hears
them (12:34, 35). The word ought or its equal may be found in
all languages; hence, it is in the mind of all people as well
as in our laws that for the deeds and words we do and speak, we
are responsible. “Break off thy sins by righteousness”
(Dan 4:27) shows that, in God’s thought, it was a person’s
duty, and therefore within his power, to keep the commandment.
“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings
from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well”
(Isa 1:16 f).
We
cannot think of God commanding us to do what God knew they had
no ability to do! God has a standing offer of pardon to all those
who turn from their evil ways and do that which is right (Ezek
33:11-14 f). Evil begins in the least objectionable things. In
Rom 1:18-23, we have Paul’s view of the falling away of the
Gentiles. “Knowing God” (verse 21), they were “without
excuse” (verse 20), but “glorified him not as God, neither
gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless
heart was darkened” (verse 21). “Professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools” (verse 22). This led the way
into idolatry, and that was followed by all the corruption and
wrongdoing to be instigated by a heart turned away from all purity,
and practiced in all the iniquity to be suggested by lust without
control. Paul gives fifteen steps in the ladder on which we descend
into darkness and ruin (Gal 5:19-21). When people become evil
in themselves, they necessarily become evil in thought and deed
toward others. This they bring upon themselves, or give way to,
till God shall give “them up unto a reprobate mind, to do
those things which are not fitting” (Rom 1:28). Those thus
fallen into habits of error, we should in meekness correct, that
“they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil,
having been taken captive by him unto his will” (2 Tim 2:25,
26).
2.
PHYSICAL EVIL
Usually, in the Old Testament the Hebrew word is employed to denote
that which is bad. Many times the bad is physical; it may have
been occasioned by the sins for which the people of the nation
were responsible, or it may have come, not as a retribution, but
from accident or mismanagement or causes unknown. Very many times
the evil is a corrective, to cause people to forsake the wrong
and accept the right. The flood was sent upon the earth because
“all flesh had corrupted their way” (Gen 6:12). This
evil was to serve as a warning to those who were to live after.
The ground had already been cursed for the good of Cain (Gen 4:12).
Two purposes seemed to direct the treatment:
(1)
to leave in the minds of Cain and his descendants the knowledge
that sin brings punishment, and
(2)
to increase the toil that would make them a better people. God
overthrew Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, cities of the plain,
making them “an example unto those that should live ungodly”
(2 Pet 2:6).
In
the Book of Isaiah the prophet, we find a number of “burdens”:
the burden of Babylon; the burden of Moab; the burden of Damascus;
the burden of Egypt; the burden of the Wilderness of the Sea;
the burden of Dumah; the burden upon Arabia; the burden of the
Valley of Vision ; the burden of Tyre; the burden of the Beasts
of the South; the burden of the Weary Beast. These may serve as
an introduction to the story of wrongdoing and physical suffering
threatened and executed. Isaiah contains many denunciations against
Israel: against the Ten Tribes for following the sin introduced
by Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and the threatening against Judah
and Benjamin for not heeding the warnings.
Jeremiah
saw the woes that were sure to come upon Judah; for declaring
them, he was shut up in prison, and yet they came, and the people
were carried away into Babylon. These were the evils or afflictions
brought upon the nations for their persistence in sin. “I
form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create
evil; I am Yahweh, that doee all these things” (Isa 45:7).
These chastisements seemed grievous, and yet they yielded peaceable
fruit unto them that were exercised thereby (Heb 12:11).
--DAVID ROBERTS DUGAN
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (adapted)
