Strife
Strife in scripture is the negative correlate of peace and unity — the heat of quarrels, factions, contention, and division that breaks fellowship between persons, households, kingdoms, and churches. It is the umbrella under which contention falls, with its causes routed through anger, envy, and jealousy. The UPDV preserves the harsh edges of the vocabulary — strife, contention, faction, schism, quarrelling — and lets the canon speak in its own four registers: the patriarchal narratives where strife begins as a herdsmen's water-fight; the wisdom literature, which reads strife as fire and the contentious person as fuel; the prophetic outcry against strife within the covenant community; and the apostolic letters, which name strife as a mark of carnality and forbid it inside the body of Christ.
Strife Begins Among the Patriarchs
The first named strife in the canon arises not from war between nations but from competition between dependents inside a single migrant household. "And there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelt then in the land" (Ge 13:7). Abram's response is to refuse the strife outright on the grounds of kinship: "And Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray you, between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brothers" (Ge 13:8). The same herdsmen-pattern returns a generation later at Gerar: "And the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, The water is ours. And he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him" (Ge 26:20). The well-name Esek is a memorial to the contention; the canon's first vocabulary of strife is the dispute over a scarce resource.
Family strife also enters the patriarchal narratives by the rivalry of two mothers and two sons. Sarah's demand reframes household tension as inheritance-strife: "Therefore she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave and her son. For the son of this slave will not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Ge 21:10).
Strife Inside Israel
By the time of Moses the strife of the people has grown beyond the capacity of one judge to absorb. "How can I myself alone bear your⁺ cumbrance, and your⁺ burden, and your⁺ strife?" (De 1:12). Strife is one of three burdens — the others being cumbrance and burden proper — that force the appointment of subordinate judges. Generations later, the same strife runs along the seam between the northern tribes and Judah at the moment of David's restoration: "And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more [right] in David than you⁺: why then did you⁺ despise us, that our advice should not be had first in bringing back our king? And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel" (2Sa 19:43). The fierceness of the words is the canon's metric of escalation.
Sirach reads the schism that followed Solomon as the same strife on a national scale: "So the people became two scepters, And from Ephraim [arose] a sinful kingdom" (Sir 47:21). The two scepters are the structural form of an unresolved strife.
The Contentious Spirit
The Psalter and the prophets name the inward disposition that drives strife — a spirit set on war while the righteous person is set on peace. "I am [for] peace: But when I speak, they are for war" (Ps 120:7). The pilgrim psalmist describes a settled enmity that responds to peace-speech with war-readiness. The same disposition is exposed in the praying voice of Psalm 140: "Who devise mischiefs in their heart; Continually they gather themselves together for war" (Ps 140:2). Habakkuk lifts the indictment to the prophetic register: "Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perverseness? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention rises up" (Hab 1:3). Strife and contention rise up in pair, named alongside destruction and violence.
Proverbs gives the contentious person a clinical profile. The wrathful man is the kindling: "A wrathful man stirs up contention; But he who is slow to anger appeases strife" (Pr 15:18). The fool's mouth is the firing-pin: "A fool's lips enter into contention, And his mouth calls for stripes" (Pr 18:6). The transgression-lover is the addict: "He who loves transgression loves strife: He who raises his gate high seeks destruction" (Pr 17:19). And the contentious man is the fuel itself: "[As] coals are to hot embers, and wood to fire, So is a contentious man to inflame strife" (Pr 26:21).
The Causes of Strife
The wisdom corpus identifies the inner sources of strife as discrete sins — hatred, pride, anger, and the puffed-up obsession with words. "Hatred stirs up strifes; But love covers all transgressions" (Pr 10:12). "By pride comes only contention; But with the well-advised is wisdom" (Pr 13:10). "An angry man stirs up strife, And a wrathful man abounds in transgression" (Pr 29:22). The apostolic vocabulary tracks the same diagnosis. Paul names the puffed-up teacher as a strife-generator: "he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, from which comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings" (1Ti 6:4). James condenses the cause to a heart-pair: "For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile action" (Jas 3:16).
Strife in the Family
Wisdom literature locates a particular form of strife inside the household. The brother-quarrel sets a fortified line that resists reconciliation: "A brother offended [is harder to be won] than a strong city; And [such] contentions are like the bars of a castle" (Pr 18:19). The contentions of the wife are a long-form drip-erosion: "A foolish son is the calamity of his father; And the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping" (Pr 19:13). The same dropping-image is repeated, and a contentious wife is named alike with it: "A continual dropping in a very rainy day And a contentious woman are alike" (Pr 27:15). The sage's preference is to flee the house entirely. "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, Than with a contentious woman in a wide house" (Pr 21:9). "It is better to dwell in a desert land, Than with a contentious and fretful woman" (Pr 21:19). The wide house and the desert are equally tolerable to the corner of the housetop, so long as that corner is free of contention.
Wisdom Forbids Strife
The wisdom voice does not stop at diagnosis; it issues prohibitions. "Don't strive with man without cause, If he has done you no harm" (Pr 3:30). "The beginning of strife is [as] when one lets out water: Therefore leave off contention, before there is quarrelling" (Pr 17:14). "It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife; But every fool will be quarrelling" (Pr 20:3). The court is to be a last resort, not a first reflex: "Don't hastily bring [it] to court, Or else what will you do in its end, When your fellow man has put you to shame" (Pr 25:8). Even the bystander's reflex to enter another's quarrel is forbidden: "He who passes by, [and] is furious with strife not belonging to him, Is [like] one who takes a dog by the ears" (Pr 26:17).
Sirach extends the same prohibition with a hot-blooded fire-image. "Do not strive with a great man. Why should you fall into his hand?" (Sir 8:1). "Do not fight with a man of tongue; And you will not put wood on a fire" (Sir 8:3). "A shedding of blood is the strife of the proud, And their abuse is grievous to hear" (Sir 27:15). The full strife-fire passage at Sirach 28 makes the canon's most sustained statement of the topic: "Keep far from strife, and sins will keep far from you, For a passionate man kindles strife; And a sinful man troubles friends, And casts enmity in the midst of the peaceful. According to its fuel so does a fire burn, And according to the stubbornness of a strife so does it increase; And according to the power of a man so is his wrath, And according to his wealth so does he increase his wrath. Strife begun in haste kindles a fire, And a hasty quarrel leads to bloodshed. If you blow upon a spark it kindles, and if you spit upon it, it is quenched; And both come forth from your mouth" (Sir 28:8-12). Sirach's controlling image is the kindled fire whose magnitude scales with the fuel; the quenching is in the same mouth that kindles.
Strife Forbidden in the Apostolic Letters
The apostolic letters carry the wisdom prohibition into the new-covenant assembly and read strife there as a mark of carnality. Paul writes to Philippi: "[doing] nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting one another better than himself" (Php 2:3). The pastoral letters charge Timothy to police strife in the churches: "Of these things put them in remembrance, charging [them] in the sight of God, that they are not to strive about words, to no profit, to the subverting of those who hear" (2Ti 2:14). And the pastor's own conduct is named: "And the Lord's slave must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing" (2Ti 2:24).
James gives the prohibition its sharpest two-clause form: "But if you⁺ have bitter jealousy and faction in your⁺ heart, don't glory and don't lie against the truth. This wisdom is not [a wisdom] that comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile action" (Jas 3:14-16). The bitter-jealousy / faction pair is the heart-source; confusion and every vile action is the down-stream product; and the wisdom that authorizes the pair is named as earthly, sensual, and devilish.
Schism in the Body
Paul's letter to the Corinthians reads strife as schism — the in-assembly tearing of a single body into rival parties. The opening urge is for the same speech and the same mind: "Now I urge you⁺, brothers, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you⁺ speak the same thing, and [that] there be no divisions among you⁺; but [that] you⁺ are completely joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been signified to me concerning you⁺, my brothers, by those [who are of the household] of Chloe, that there are contentions among you⁺. Now this I mean, that each of you⁺ says, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you⁺? Or were you⁺ baptized into the name of Paul?" (1Co 1:10-13). The four-name lineup — Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Christ — is the partisan form of contention; the rhetorical "Is Christ divided?" is the apostle's reductio. The diagnosis is repeated as a carnality-charge two chapters later: "for you⁺ are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you⁺ jealousy and strife, are you⁺ not carnal, and do you⁺ not walk after the manner of men?" (1Co 3:3). The same divisions reach the gathered assembly itself: "For first of all, when you⁺ come together in the church, I hear that divisions exist among you⁺; and I partly believe it" (1Co 11:18). And Paul's body-image makes the prohibition structural: "that there should be no schism in the body; but [that] the members should have the same care one for another" (1Co 12:25).
Division Weakens
The dominical saying holds the principle in its sharpest form: "But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house [divided] against a house falls" (Lu 11:17). The kingdom-against-itself and the house-against-a-house run on the same logic — division turns the strength of a body inward against itself, and what the body cannot defeat from outside it dismantles from within. The same logic stands behind Paul's Corinthian appeal — "that all of you⁺ speak the same thing, and [that] there be no divisions among you⁺" (1Co 1:10) — and behind his diagnosis that the carnality of jealousy and strife is itself a weakening mark of a church (1Co 3:3). The body of believers, like the divided kingdom, falls when its parts contend.