Judges

How Has This Terrible Thing Happened?

The account of the Levite and his concubine is possibly the most horrible account in all of scripture. And it is confined entirely within the nation of Israel. No outside party has a role in the story. It is a story that shocks and conscience and boggles the mind. I remember years ago watching the Ashton Kutcher film “Butterfly Effect” and being so angry and frustrated with the character for constantly making the worst possible decisions one after the other. This is how I feel watching the events of Judges 19-21 unfolding.

The Reader’s Digest version is that a man’s wife (concubine) becomes angry¹ with him for undisclosed reasons and goes to her father’s house. The Levite comes to get her and on the way home he stop with an old man from Gilead in Benjamin. Men comes to sexually assault the Levite, so the throws his wife into the street where she suffers the fate he was trying to avoid, ultimately resulting in her death. The Levite then cuts her up sending her body to all the tribes. They lead an attack on the Benjaminites, both sides suffered heavy losses. Benjamin was almost wiped out (except for 600 men), so Israel felt bad for them and massacred a town of Israelites who didn’t participate in the battles so they could kidnap their daughters as wives for the tribe they just tried to destroy. But there weren’t enough women in the town they razed, so kidnapped some more women from a festival.

What? In? The? World?

There is so very, very much that could be discussed and disseminated in these three chapters that the prospect of choosing one seems almost overwhelming. But I think we can look at the thread that runs through Judges and come away with something more personal and cautionary than academic. And it comes down to the question that was twice asked in today’s passage.

How has this happened?
Judges 20:3; 21:3, Paraphrased

Literally tens of thousands of families were destroyed because of the actions of some Benjaminite degenerates and the response of a cold-hearted and selfish husband. We are told throughout Judges that “there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes”. We need to understand that in order for a king to rule, people need to follow him. There was no earthly king and the people seemed unable or unwilling to allow Yahweh to be king. And so they tried to follow their own moral compass. That is called subjectivity. And if we allow our moral compass to be subjective rather than grounded in some permanent truth we have no objective reason to condemn Pol Pot, Mao, Lenin/Stalin, Hitler, or Hamas — we merely do not AGREE with their moral ethic.

This, friends, is what sin does. It corrupts us. It destroys us. It does it slowly, insidiously. It warps our perceptions until we can no longer see clearly. The effects of sin are so incredibly powerful that we often cannot even tell it has us in its clutches. This is why we are so desperately in need of God’s grace to open our eyes and reveal our hearts.

This Levite (a PRIEST) fell so far from the God he was meant to serve that he threw his wife out into the street to be gang-raped then dismembered her body and mailed it around. Friends, please hear me on this: this seems horrific beyond words, and there but for the grace of God go I. Stay in close communion with God. Stay in His Word. Stay in prayer — don’t ever hang up that phone. The pull of sin is too strong to fight it alone.

At that time Israel had no king. Yes they did. And so do we. King Jesus. We just need to treat Him that way.

Judges 19-21 | 096/365

Your Bible might say she was unfaithful, this is possible, but I prefer the angry reading for multiple reasons ↩︎

Using Selfishness For Good

When I look at a guy like Samson, I’m blown away by how terrible this he was. Refused to listen to his parents. Killed 30 men to pay a debt. Visited a prostitute. Tore up the town gate. Married outside the faith. Threw away his vow to God because he had no patience, no discernment, and no self-control.

Samson was a disaster.

Even when he finally called out to God, he wanted to get revenge against his captors for gouging out his eyes, not for enslaving his people. And yet God granted his request and restored his strength so he could complete his kamikaze mission.

Why? Why did God restore his strength… or even give it to him to begin with?

Remember when Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery? Some years later that decision led his prominent position in Egypt. And he famously said, “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.”

There are a great many people with incredible talents. These all come from God, he is the one who knit each of us together in our mother’s wombs. These gifts are part of common grace from God. And in this case, God knew what decisions Samson would make and how he would use (and abuse) the gifts He bestowed on Samson. And God raised up Samson at a time and in a place where his misuse of those gifts would accomplish God’s goals of judgement against the Philistines.

What Samson intended for selfish gain, God intended for good.

Judges 16-18 | 095/365

Did God Endorse Child Sacrifice

Can I just say from the outset that many of the Judges are found lacking in terms of character. Just today we’ve read about Ibzan & Abdon who clearly had multiple wives — and that’s the only thing they were known by or remembered for. Samson is a hot mess, but we’ll talk more about him tomorrow.

Today we have the story of Jepthath who was 1) a great warrior, 2) the son of a prostitute, and 3) jilted by his brothers. So he makes a vow to God that he will offer a burnt sacrifice of whatever comes out of his house to greet him. WHAT!? Now, it’s worth mentioning that the house being referred to here is not like our modern housing, there would have been space for both the family and animals inside. But while it’s not impossible for a sheep to wander out to meet him, it’s also entirely possible it could be his ONLY child or wife… I mean… bro. What are you thinking?? And who came out to meet him? His only daughter.

Worth noting is that we read in the last chapter that Israel worshipped the neighbouring gods. Baal, Milkom, and Chemosh. All of which practiced child/human sacrifice. And so it’s fully plausible that Jepthath was influenced by those other beliefs. Again, the judges were often deeply flawed people.

And so Jepthath follows through on this horrible vow at his daughter’s insistence, but note that at no time does God ever ask for, approve of, endorse, or even speak to this action. God had nothing to do with this. It was merely a flawed man making a stupid vow and following the zeitgeist of the culture that surrounded him. What a terrible tragedy.

We need to be careful not to imbibe the cultural practices around us that seek to corrupt us and prevent us from knowing what is good and bad, right and wrong, holy and horrid. Let us look to God and seek our morality, values, and worldview from Him.

Judges 11:29-15:20 | 094/365

That IS The Punishment, Dude

Today’s devotional is a quick one. The cycle of Judges is that Israel does evil, God punishes Israel, Israel cries out, God raises up a Judge, the Judge delivers Israel, Israel does evil. In this particular example we are looking at the Ammonites. But what I found frankly kind of hilarious is when they call out to God to save them from the oppression that are under, He replies, “Why don’t you ask your new BFF god to save you?”.

[fire emoji]

And they reply, “punish us tomorrow, but save us today!” Not realizing the amazing irony that what they were experiencing WAS the punishment God was visiting on them for their perpetual disobedience!

Here’s the thing: we look at bad circumstances as God abandoning us. But God will never abandon us. He will let us have the desire of our hearts so that we can see how it actually HURTS us rather than helping us. But that is done in order to bring repentance. Whatever circumstance you are in, make sure you are open to the Holy Spirit and allowing God to do His good work in you. Gold is refined in fire, not a warm blanket.

Judges 9:22-11:28 | 093/365

The Least & The Greatest

Another day chock-full of all manner of things to dig into, it’s hard to choose where to focus.

I think I want to take a minute and contrast our man Gideon with the previous judge, Deborah. Now, we don’t know either of these people of antiquity overly well, but what I find interesting is how far their stories diverge.

Gideon is not the leader we would expect, being a small man from a small tribe, and Deborah was an unlikely leader just because she was a woman. But God called both of them to lead.

Deborah did not want to go fight, but Barak pleaded with her to join him and so she did, and Israel was successful. Whereas Gideon needed all kinds of proof. Burn this up. And make this wet. And keep this dry. And show me a bizarrely specific interpretation of a WEIRD dream. Gideon needed so much hand-holding by God. But some of us need more prodding than other. This is no shade on Gideon, but then…

Deborah helps Barak to lead a successful campaign and co-writes a victory song with him that both starts AND ends with the Lord. Yahweh. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Gideon leads multiple successful campaigns, accepts fame, donations, takes a multitude of wives, makes a golden Ephod that the people of Israel WORSHIP, and which also becomes a trap for him. One of his sons ends up killing all the others… there were 70.

As a teen (I only accepted Christ at the age of 15, so I never did Sunday School) I heard about Gideon and Samson, but I never heard about Deborah. Gideon had many battles and accomplished great feats. Samson did the same… or did they? The fact is that these were two broken people used by God to accomplish HIS purposes. They actually contributed very little to their own success, but they were more than willing to bask in it.

Yet Deborah goes largely overlooked. Almost like an afterthought… did you know there was a FEMALE judge? Oooh! How unorthodox and wacky! Yet her quiet confidence and upward-facing attitude are what we claim to value most in both our leaders and ourselves.

I guess what I’m driving at is that we ought to remember that the people in the Bible were not special people that God chose. They BECAME special people because God chose them. So let’s not hoist up the ones God used to most brightly reveal His glory (if I am honest, I have very little interest in being like Gideon, or Samson… or Pharaoh). Instead let’s look for those, like Deborah, or Ruth, or Boaz, or Moses who tried to stay humble and honour the Lord with upright actions and a dedication to obedience.

Judges 7:1-9:21 | 092/365

Whose Will Be Done?

This is one of those passage where there is almost an overwhelming number of options for things to talk about. Why does Shemgar only get a single verse? Was he a contemporary with Deborah? A female judge? How does that square with the idea of leadership roles being reserved only for men? Jael broke… ALL the hospitality rules of the Ancient Near East. The angel of the Lord chose the smallest man from the weakest tribe to lead a military campaign? The altar of Ba’al worship was used as kindling for the offering on God’s altar. And the people of Israel were going to KILL Gideon for destroying the altar to the false god Ba’al! And that’s just the SURFACE stuff.

But the thing that struck me during today’s reading was actually this passage:

… Then the land had peace forty years. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord …
Judges 5:31b-6:1a

What do we not see here, nor anywhere in the transition from Deborah to Gideon? Repentance! Now, I know full well that the traditional interpretation is that the people turned back to the Lord, but I just do not see that in the text. I see regret, a desire for help. They know that the God of Moses delivered them before, and they call out to the one true God to rescue them again. But true repentance eludes them.

However, God knows His plans for Israel. In the same way that he uses flawed men like Noah, Abraham, Samson, and David, he uses the nation of Israel to accomplish His goals. Jesus is coming, but not until the fullness of time. Things needed to happen in world history to facilitate the wildfire-spread of the Gospel before Jesus could come. And in the meantime, God would step in from time to time to save the people from themselves. That’s right. Not their oppressors, but themselves!

God told them how to have peace and prosperity, but they decided to go their own way and now that are forced to deal with the consequences of walking out from under God’s umbrella of protection. But they don’t ever seem to realize that they did this to themselves. Gideon says as much! “If the Lord is with us then why has all this happened to us?”

Are we doing this today? Am I? Are you? Have we put ourselves into an unenviable situation and then asked why GOD abandoned US? If you are having a pity party about your circumstances, maybe it’s time to put on your grown-up pants, humble yourself before the Lord, and ask Him to bring the correction you need into your life.

He loves you and He wants what’s best for you. If you won’t say to Him, “Your will be done”, then He’ll step back and say it to you.

Judges 3:31-6:40 | 091/365

Did God Drag His Feet?

Yes.

Remember when we talked about Joshua saying God had fulfilled His promise, even though the totality of the land was not yet in possession of Israel? It was because God did His part, but the people had to do their part. That is confirmed here in Judges where God outright says as much.

Something is only worth what it costs you. I understand that this isn’t true in every possible circumstance, but the vast majority of time it is. That’s where the phrase ‘easy come, easy go’ comes from. If the totality of the land was given to Israel in one fell swoop they would have no opportunity (or need) to continue in trust of the Lord. Instead He gives some. And He sees how we handle it.

God gives us little bits. And if we do well with the little bits, He will give us medium bits. And If we do well with the medium bits, He will give us large bits. And so on.

However, if — like Israel — we let the little bits go to our head and give us a more inflated sense of ourselves than is justified (really, any inflation is bad) then we should not be surprised that God is going to pull back on the blessings and the trust.

Zechariah 4:10 encourages us to NOT overlook the day of small things. From small things, big things one day come.

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