1:7 - I find it interesting that a king who has just had his thumbs and big toes cut off finds God to be just. Is that not incredible? He basically says, "No seriously, I deserve this - I did this to 70 kings - this is fair." The king has some sort of simple faith in God, accepts his punishment and lives his life out in Israel. As always - God is just.
1:13ff - Achsah is help up for us as a picture of what a godly woman of Israel should look like. She is married to a hero of Israel, who as we see in chapter three turns out to be one of the best rulers in the history of Israel (He keeps the people on track with God for 40 years!). When she is given to Othniel in marriage, she immediately starts speaking up on his behalf on the behalf of her future descendants. She believes this land is the Promised Land and wants as much of it as possible. This is spiritual property that she holds dear. Contrast her to the other daughters of Israel who we see in the first three chapters. They are married off to pagan sons of god-hating cultures and forsake their land.
1:19 - This verse kinda bugs me. If the Lord is with Judah, why are they unable to drive out the people with iron chariots in the plains? I'm not sure, but it could be because of something we see go down in the beginning of chapter one. Judah and Simeon make a little side deal about helping each other conquer territory. This wasn't something God told them to do. Maybe their conquest is stopped short because they failed to fully trust God...they felt like they needed to get some extra help (Kinda like Moses striking the rock twice).
1,21,28, 32, 33, etc. - It all begins right here...this sets the stage for the rest of judges and really for the rest of the old testament. The people of God who are in a covenant relationship with Him, refuse to follow through on what He told them to do. They do not drive the pagan people out of the Promised Land and we will see that they pay a heavy price for their disobedience. We are still in the midst of a war. Ephesians 6:12 tells us that our war is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and powers of the evil spiritual realm. If we are not serious about driving the vile stuff out of our lives, we are going to fail over and over, just like the Israelites. What needs to be driven out of your life?
2:11 - After Joshua dies, the people of Israel leave God behind and all hell breaks loose.
2:17 - Even when God raises up men who are devoted to God and want to lead their people away from rebellion, the people reject them and refuse to listen. They are too entrenched in their culture. We see this all the time in the present day church. On occasion we see men and women who are willing to stand up and speak the hard truth of scripture about the way Christians should be living their lives and most often they are ignored or rejected and people remain content with living the lives their culture tells them to live.
3:4 - Maybe this is the answer to my question about 1:19. Maybe this is why God allows the people with the chariots to remain - He sensed that the Israelite people were on the brink of breaking their covenant and He wanted people around so that He could test them? It's possible. What do you think?
3:11 - Sadly, the people begin to trust too much in men. When Joshua dies, they turn away from God. When Othniel dies, they turn away from God. They don't allow God to be enough for them...they become reliant on the faith of others.
Ehud (One of my favorite bible characters!): a few interesting aspects of the first biblical assassin...
1.) (v.15) He is left-handed. Many times in the ancient world, left-handed people were seen as cursed or rejects. Ehud could be yet another example of God using the least likely to do His will. On the other hand, it is believed that the Israelites also had special military units who were trained in left-handed combat because it offered them distinct advantages in hand to hand fighting.
2.) (v. 16) He has the perfect weapon. It is about one foot long. Short enough to hide on his thigh and long enough to kill. It is double edged so that it will do the maximum damage in the shortest amount of time. The guards only check one of his legs, assuming he is right-handed...but unfortunately for King Eglon - Ehud is left-hand and has a specially designed killing tool strapped to his leg!
3.) (v.17) I know this story is violent, but we also see that this is spiritual warfare taking place. The imagery used in describing the story follows that of a sacrifice. It says that Ehud came to pay tributes - this is language for sacrifice (And we know he wasn't paying tribute to Eglon). Immediately after that is tells us about how fat the king is. King Eglon is the fattened cow that Ehud is going to sacrifice to God. Ehus is not just killing for killings sake - he is killing to end the physical and spiritual oppression that Eglon has put on God's people...Ehud is offering him up to God.
4.) (v.19) Why does Eglon send everybody away? Well, he thinks that Ehud has just come from some pagan idols near Gilgal...and when Ehud says he has a message for the king, the king thinks that the message is going to be a special prophecy for his ears only. He greedily sends the attendants away and gets a sword in the gullet.
* In a time where we don;t go around killing our enemies (remember our battle is not of flesh and blood), what do we do with a story like this? Well, Ehud can teach us a few things. Use the gifts that God has given you to best serve His kingdom. Make sure your sword is sharp (Keep your mind and heart prepared by studying God's word). And look at every area of your life as a time of worship where you can offer yourself fully to God.
3:31 - Whoa! At the top is a picture of an ox goad (You can see that it is possible to do some serious damage with one...it's kinda like a bow staff with a metal point on the end)...
4 comments:
One thing the authors never seem to talk about is sharing the goodness of God. The mission seems to kill everyone, until when? If everyone else is dead, who do they share God with? At what point would the killing have ended? I suppose it would have ended once they had killed all non-jews from the land God had promised. Then they would have had to protect their borders, because you know others would try to conquer them. Looks so similar to the world today. I am so glad Jesus came to take that away from us! Sorry I took the depressing view, kinda of mirrors the mood I've been in lately.
But on the bright side, the old testament is a perfect book of history to show us what mistakes not to repeat. I may be strecthing here a little, but I think making slaves of people when your recent history (what two generations) was just freed from slavery, did not settle well with God. I did not read where God said to make them slaves. So along with everything else Brandon said I think this would be another reason why God allowed the Israelites to have to contend with their enemies.
I also really like that everytime they returned to God there was victory and peace, the beautiful message of the Gospel we have today.
Hey, don't forget about Jonah! We haven't gotten there yet. It seems to me that when there are redeemable options, God chooses those...but when there are people that are too far gone in their wickedness - He brings judgment. The hard part about the OT is that judgment came through the Israelites. It's hard for us to swallow.
I totally agree with you Tim...the Israelites allowed themselves to get caught up in the game all the other cultures were playing - "who can get the most slaves". I think that went against what God wanted for them and the other people.
Interesting point/question Mr. T; When would the killing stop in the conquest of canaan? I like where your heads at.
One thing i noticed for the first time, and now that i see it here I feel like its this way throughout scripture; that is when Israel sinned they did it outright and blatantly... and when someone called them out on it, their hearts seemed to really take that 180 back to God (if only for a short time). 2:4 says "when the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the people of Israel, they lifted up their voices and wept." The weeping here, seems to be an honest response to their sin even if they turned right back to their sin afterwards. I look at my own life and rarely remember a time where i have sinned, been convicted (either by the spirit or by another person), and then wept because of it. It seems like one reason that God choose Israel was because of their great potential to love him with their whole hearts. Like when King David worships God by dancing and being "undignified" that was a whole-hearted worship. Israel didn't seem to do things in a luke warm kind of way, they were either right on the money, or way off track. does anyone else see this?
Like their potential for whole-hearted worship was great, but when they weren't worshiping God, they were whole-heartedly worshiping something else.
to comment on brandon's note from 3:4 and 1:19, i think your right. It makes sense to draw that conclusion; God wouldn't drive out the iron chariots because they tried to use each others help instead of relying totally on God.
good stuff
Jonny - I think your point about the Israelites' intense repentance is pretty interesting...I've never thought of it like that - nice reverse mentoring.
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