The laws of modern warfare try to limit war and set in within a framework with accepted rules. In the world of the Bible can we point out any attempt of this kind to restrict war atrocities and its damage? Were there acts that were defined as “war crimes”?

Unexpected buds of thought regarding the concept of war crimes in the biblical period appear in the eighth century BCE, in the admonishing prophecy about the neighboring countries by the prophet Amos of Tekoa:

Amos 1:3 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron…”
Amos 1:6 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom…”
Amos 1:9 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they delivered up a whole people to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood…”
Amos 1:11 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever..”
Amos 1:13 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have ripped up women with child in Gilead that they might enlarge their border…”
Amos 2:1 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom…”
Amos 2:6 Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes – 7 they that trample the head of the poor into the dust and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go into the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned; 8 they lay themselves down beside every altar upon garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

The same actions that Amos harshly condemns are mentioned in other descriptions elsewhere in the Bible and in other non-biblical sources without any disfavor or denunciation. On the contrary, they reflect the power of the military. What therefore is Amos demanding of the different countries? In his opinion, does war not justify cruelty, exile or treating the bodies of the enemy’s dead with contempt?

In this lecture I will propose that based on Amos the “war crimes” are not the acts themselves; rather the exaggerated overwhelming intensity of them and their prolonged duration. He condemns the use of extreme and cruel measures that are unjustified. From this standpoint he indeed proposes new moral criteria; however, he is still well entrenched within his world of the eighth century BCE.