I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 20-21.

After the incident with the Levite and his concubine recounted in yesterday’s passage the people of Israel, except for those of the tribe of Benjamin, gathered in anger.  Yesterday’s passage implies that the tribe of Benjamin received the same summons as the other tribes.  Today’s passage suggests that they did not realize the other tribes were gathering until they received word of the gathering.  In either case, rather than acting to bring the guilty men of Gibeah to justice, the tribe of Benjamin chose to defend them.  Reading the account today about the forces of Benjamin I realized why the men of Gibeah felt empowered to act as they did (and why they were allowed to get away with it for so long).  The account tells us that 700 of Benjamin’s elite warriors lived in Gibeah.  So, at least some of the troublemakers in Gibeah were probably drawn from among those 700 elite warriors.  There were probably enough elite warriors among the troublemakers that any one or two of the other elite warriors who attempted to hold them to account would have been overwhelmed.  There was no established government with the ability to organize enough of the rest of the elite warriors to hold these troublemakers to account until they went so far that the rest of the people of the nation rose up to put a stop to it.  In such a situation, every person does what seems right in their own eyes…and what seems right is what is in their own interest.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 17-19.

OK, I don’t know where I am going with this today.  I noticed for the first time that the men from the tribe of Dan in this passage are from the same town/area as Samson was.  I am not sure that that is significant, but Samson was the last judge of Israel before this.  The people of Israel turned to Samson for judgement because of his fighting prowess, not because of his wisdom.  In this story, we see warriors from the tribe of Dan steal the idols from a fellow Israelite feeling justified because he was not a member of their tribe.  Today’s passage ends with troublemakers from Gibeah feeling safe to terrorize a Levite travelling through because he was not part of their tribe.  The behavior of the man who sheltered the Levite indicates that this was not the first time they behaved this way.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 14-16.

If you were raised on Bible stories as I was you know that Samson was incredibly strong.  However, the account of the riddle he told at his wedding suggests that he was also smart.  What Samson lacked was wisdom, at least when it came to women.  We know from yesterday’s passage that Samson’s parents were older when he was born.  They had begun to think they would never have children.  As a result, they appear to have never learned how to tell him “No”.  He chose poorly when he chose to take a Philistine woman as his wife.  He reacted badly when she told his secret to her countrymen.  Then later in life he chose poorly when he chose to take up with Delilah, even after she attempted to worm out of him the secret of his strength and use it against him.  Like many people, Samson allowed his sexual desires to rule his life to his sorrow.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 11-13.

Yesterday we looked at the story of Abimelech becoming ruler over part of Israel  Today we have the story of Jephthah becoming ruler over another part of Israel.  Both men were estranged from their brothers.  In Abimelech’s case, he appears to have chosen to go out from among his brothers and seek the support of his mother’s people against them.  In Jephthah’s case, his brothers drove him out and he had no one to turn to for help.  Both men acquired followers who were little more than thugs.  However, I think the difference in the way they acquired those followers is telling.  Abimelech took the money which the people of Shechem gave him and hired some thugs to do his bidding.  Jephthah. on the other hand, attracted followers as he made his way in the world.  We have no reason to believe that Jephthah’s followers were any less thugs than Abimelech’s, but Jephthah’s followers followed him because of his leadership qualities while Abimelech’s followed him because he gave them money.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 9-10.

There is a saying, “Blood is thinker than water” which people often use to explain, or justify, giving preferential treatment to relatives.  At some point after the death of Gideon the leaders of Shechem decided that backing the son of Gideon whose mother was from Shechem would lead to advantages for themselves.  Unfortunately, they did not think things through.  They supported Gideon’s son Abimelech to become king over them and others because he was related to them, even after he killed all but one of his brothers.  So, they thought he would favor them because they were related, yet he had just killed his brothers who were more closely related to him than they were.  I could go about this in many different ways, but the people of Shechem chose Abimelech as their leader on the basis of two things: he was Gideon’s son, and he was their relative.  Up until this point, Abimelech had shown no leadership traits.  He had not solved any problems for the people of Shechem.  He had no followers until the people of Shechem gave him money to hire some.  The end result was that Abimelech was a bad ruler and the people of Shechem soon rebelled against him, leading to the death of many of them.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 7-8.

The story of Gideon making an ephod from the gold earrings taken from the defeated Midianites has always bothered me.  Gideon made it right after defeating the Midianites.  He had unified the Israelites against the Midianites by calling for a rejection of idolatry.  Yet, here he is making an object which he should have been aware would become an object of worship.  And, sure enough, the writer tells us that the Israelites began to worship the ephod Gideon made.  Not only that the writer tells us that it became a trap for Gideon and his family.  We do not know if they worshiped the ephod, or merely took advantage of the desire of other Israelites to worship it.  In either case, it set the stage for what happened after Gideon died, both the turning back to worshiping Baal and the account in tomorrow’s passage.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 4-6.

The story of Gideon in today’s passage contains a lot of things for us to learn from.  As a result, I generally write about that rather than about Deborah.  However, despite not containing as many inspirational points as the story of Gideon, the story of Deborah told here contains some very important things.  I love how the story of Deborah shows us that women can, and do, play just as critical of a role in God’s plans as men do.  In this story we have Jael.  Jael was called on to fill a critical role in this story because Barak was unwilling to lead the Israelite army against Sisera without Deborah there to hold his hand.  In fact, it seems likely that we may never have heard of either Jael or Deborah if Barak had been willing to assume a true leadership role when Deborah gave him God’s instructions.  That does not mean that Deborah would not have played an important role in that case.  What it means is that there are probably many other women who played a role similar to Deborah’s of whom we have never heard because the man she spoke to stepped up and fulfilled the leadership role for which God intended him.  I am sure there are also many men who filled a similar role to Deborah’s.  However, we are not as tempted to dismiss the role men play in important events.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Judges 1-3.

The Israelites were unable to drive all of the other peoples out of the land during Joshua’s lifetime, which was consistent with what God had promised through Moses.  God had promised that He would drive the peoples out of the land gradually as the Israelites grew to control the land.  Unfortunately, as soon as the generation of leaders who served with Joshua had died the Israelites started to assimilate with those who remained.  We often read this and imagine it took a few generations for things to go bad, but it must have been almost immediately.  The passage tells us that God allowed King Cushan-rishathaim to oppress the Israelites because of their sin.  Then, when they cried out to Him, He raised up Caleb’s nephew to rescue them.  Caleb’s nephew led them to follow the Lord for forty years.  After which they descended once more into idolatry and evil.  And once again God allowed them to fall under an oppressive foreign ruler.  It does not take long for people to turn away from God and to experience the suffering which follows.