What does the Bible say about
post-traumatic stress?

Post-traumatic stress can occur after experiencing or witnessing a distressing event, such as a natural disaster that wipes out your home, sexual assault, or a terrorist attack. This type of stress is often associated with war veterans who have been exposed to horrific and traumatizing scenes. It goes well-beyond normal stress because the person suffers from persistent and intrusive thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, and intense emotional distress for months and years. Very often, people suffering with post-traumatic stress avoid situations or places that remind them of the traumatic event. They also experience difficulties in relationships, concentration, and sleep.

As with many things the Bible doesn’t use the modern term “post-traumatic stress,” but it does describe traumatic events in great detail, as well as the ensuing physical, mental, and emotional effects. The Bible is full of war, violence, brutality, and sexual abuse. One of the most primary events is the rebellion of Israel and their ensuing Exile. In the horrific retelling of this period, we encounter mentally crippling events: psychological manipulation, destruction of homes, rape, brutal murder, ravaging of cities, separation of families, cannibalism, which ultimately ended in foreign troops stripping the Temple of God of its articles and burning it to the ground.

These were preceded by years of utter rebellion to God, in which Judah engaged in idolatry that involved sexual immorality within the Temple, sexual idols placed within the Temple, and sacrificing children in the fire. This all lead to the downfall and overthrow of Israel. The prophet Jeremiah lived through this period. In the book of Lamentations, he records the pain both he and the people of God endured. Additionally, several of the Psalms were written and collected by the people of God during the Captivity. In particular, Psalms 137 and 79 provide us with important details.

Here are the criteria for diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder, along with where we can see it in the lives of God’s people.

The threat of death, serious injury, or sexual violence. “Our skin is hot as an oven, feverish from hunger. Women have been violated in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah. Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders are shown no respect. Young men toil at the millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood” (Lam.5:10-15).

Recurring and intrusive distressing memories associated with the event. “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light… I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me” (Lam.3:1-2, 19-20).

Flashbacks where the person feels as if the event were reoccurring. (Lam.4:10; Ps.79:1-4) “O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble. They have left the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild. They have poured out blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead” (Ps.79:1-4).” How the gold has lost its luster, the fine gold become dull! The sacred gems are scattered at every street corner…But now they are blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field. With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed” (Lam.4:1,8-10).

Intense or prolonged psychological distress or triggers. “Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed. My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees. What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of my city”(Lam.3:48-51).

Persistent and negative beliefs about yourself. “Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine…” (Lam.4:9).

Blaming themselves for the trauma. “Let us lift up our hearts and our hands
to God in heaven, and say: ‘We have sinned and rebelled and you have not forgiven” (Lam.3:41-42). “The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned” (5:16)!

Diminished interest in significant activities. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land” (Ps.137:1-4)?

Hypervigilance. “At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, ‘Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath’” (Matt.12:1-2).

Marked alterations in arousal and reactivity associated with the traumatic event(s): irritable behavior, angry outburst, exaggerated startle response. “Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you, on the kingdoms that do not call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob and devastated his homeland” (Ps.79:6-7). “Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (137:8-9).

During the destruction of Jerusalem, families were broken apart, mothers and daughters were raped, husbands and sons were brutally murdered, and families were broken apart as the Babylonians deported thousands of persons to their own country. Children would have been direct eyewitnesses to these horrors, and deportation of their families. It is possible that Esther lost her parents during the Babylonian Exile (Esth. 2:5-7).