15. That we conquer him

15. That we conquer him

These four words form the transition between what the Vow Makers implore from the Lord, and what they undertake to do from their side. Please note: “...if He... shall give into our hands our enemy...”, is still part of what the Lord is asked to do; “...that we shall conquer him...”, is what they undertake to do. It forms already part of what they promise to the Lord; naturally especially in the execution thereof also still always deeply dependant from “...that He will be with us...”
They bind themselves not only with respect to clearly stamped doings in their own people’s life. Also their relation to the conquered enemy will be payment of Vow debt to the Lord. If it may please the Lord to give their enemy into their hands, they will utilize it as an opportunity to conquer him. The Vow People also undertook this on behalf of their “upcoming generations”, and remain as Vow Descendants therefore always indebted to the Lord.

To retaliate double ferociously to a defeated enemy who committed ferocious injustice, is to be overcome by the wrong did to you. You make yourself forced from your fixed life course as called “fellow worker” of God. (1 Corinthians 3:9). You increase the wrong in the world in multiples of the wrong committed to you by your enemy. To send him back with what is his to his place with the challenge to another, better, a joyful possibility, like the Vow People the defeated Zulu People who was delivered in their hands, is to overcome the evil with the good of the God who is love, who lets rain over the righteous and unjust (Mathews 5:45), the God whose commandments determine your coming and going. You stop your enemy, carried away in the grip of evil, in his headway from evil to more evil; you change his course into the opposite direction, which will be in accordance with the purpose of the God to whom you belong.