Threats

Intimidating announcements of action to be taken unless conditions are met. God uses threats against tyrannical and disobedient earthly rulers as a means of restoring them to obedience and humility in his sight. God's people are not to threaten others and though the wicked will sometimes seek to intimidate them, they are to rely on God's protection.

God threatened Pharaoh

God threatened his own people

In general

Joshua 23:15–16 See also Leviticus 26:14–20; Deuteronomy 11:26–28, Deuteronomy 28:15–20; 1 Samuel 12:15, 1 Samuel 12:25; 1 Kings 9:6–7

But just as every good thing the LORD your God promised you has come to pass, likewise the LORD will bring upon you the calamity He has threatened, until He has destroyed you from this good land He has given you. If you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from this good land He has given you.”

Regarding the Babylonian captivity

Ezekiel 6:9–10 See also Jeremiah 6:8, Jeremiah 22:5–7, Jeremiah 44:28–29

Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me — how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations. And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not declare in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.

Threats made by God may be averted

Through a faithful intercessor

Exodus 32:11–14 See also Nehemiah 1:8–9

But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’” So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

Through turning from evil

Jonah 3:10

When God saw their actions— that they had turned from their evil ways— He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

The result of threats inflicted by God may be alleviated

Through returning to the LORD

Deuteronomy 30:1–3

“When all these things come upon you— the blessings and curses I have set before you— and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey His voice with all your heart and all your soul according to everything I am giving you today, then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you.

Through submission to God's will

See also Jeremiah 27:6–13

God's people may be threatened by others

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He approached the high priest

God's people, when threatened, are to rely on him

Psalm 64:1–10 See also 2 Kings 19:6–7 parallel Isaiah 37:6–7; Nehemiah 6:11–14; Isaiah 30:17–18; Acts 4:17–21, Acts 4:29–30

God's people are not to threaten others

Ephesians 6:9 See also 1 Peter 2:20–23

And masters, do the same for your slaves. Give up your use of threats, because you know that He who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him.

The rich are more likely to be threatened than the poor

Proverbs 13:8