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

A month or so back I had trouble reaching the “The Bible.net” website to get my passage for the day, so I started copying it from last year’s post.  Which means that I see the “headline” I gave the post and that influences my thinking about the passage.  I have yet to decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

I love the story of Gideon because there is so much there.  As a result, we rarely pay attention to the beginning of his story.  Gideon’s story begins with the preaching of a prophet who is never named.  That prophet called the Israelites to put aside their idols and return to worship of the Lord.  The context of the story leads me to believe that it was this prophet who made Gideon open to the message from the angel.  Before I write my next thoughts I want to point out that the Hebrew word translated as “angel” means “messenger”.  So, I sometimes wonder if Gideon had felt called by that prophet and began talking about how if the Israelites would only turn back to God, God would perform mighty deeds for them.  Then, one time when he was going on one of his rants, a friend of his, presented here as a “messenger of God”, challenged him to act on what he claimed to believe.  Or maybe his friend was the one who was inspired by the prophet and went on rants, telling Gideon he should act.  Perhaps the “angel” was indeed a supernatural messenger as one would conclude with a casual reading of this passage.  I created that scenario because, while I believe that sometimes God sends supernatural messengers to deliver His messages, I know that sometimes God’s messengers are ordinary people (well, OK, not ordinary in that moment, but not supernatural, or necessarily someone who stands out as righteous).

That last paragraph concluded with an important point, but that’s not where I was going.  When Gideon felt God’s call, he started out local.  He did not start out by raising an army to drive the foreign oppressors out of the land.  He started out by calling his family, friends, and neighbors to stop worshiping Baal and return to worshiping God.  Gideon started in his backyard with the people who knew him best and called Israel to give up its idolatry and return to worshiping God.  It was only after they did so, that God called Gideon to drive out those oppressing the people.  Today people are crying out because of the terrible things going on.  The answer is not to mount a political movement to change our government, although that may come later.  Step one is to mount a spiritual movement by tearing down the altars at which we worship “gods” other than God.  For most of us those altars are in our hearts, not physical manifestations, but there are physical manifestations as well.

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

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

It is not clear to me from the passage if the tribe of Benjamin was invited to to conclave intended to address what had happened at Gibeah, and chose not to attend.  Or, if they had not been invited and only heard about the army of the rest of Israel gathering because of this incident.  My inclination is that it was the former, but that part of their decision to not attend was fear that they would be attacked by the rest while unable to defend themselves.  In any case, the tribe of Benjamin took the stance that the rest of Israel had no right to enforce their laws on the people of Gibeah, and were willing to fight to enforce this.  Once again I find myself getting lost in the weeds.

The important thing is that rather than recognizing that what happened at Gibeah was merely the logical conclusion of the idolatry going on in much of the rest of Israel and repenting of their sins, the Israelites merely chose to address this incident where people had gone too far.  I am not saying that the attack on Gibeah should not have happened.  What I am saying is that the people of Israel should have first confessed their own sins and sought out God’s will for how they could make their own sins right.  Then, once they had addressed their own sins, they could have brought retribution on Gibeah for its sins.  Or, perhaps, God would have shown them another, better, way to bring the men of Gibeah to justice.

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

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

We have three stories in today’s passage, which the writer uses to illustrate the problems which occur when a nation has no central government to enforce the laws.  I would argue that it instead illustrates what happens when a society ceases to honor God.  First, we have the story of Micah, who stole money from his own mother and only returned it out of fear of her curse. She then took some of the money and had an idol made; for which Micah then set up a shrine and worshiped it in place of God.  Some time later, members of the tribe of Dan stole the idol which Micah worshiped (and all of his accoutrements for worshiping it),  setting it up as their tribal god in the lands which they conquered.  I will note that both Micah and the Danites appear to have viewed the idol as a representation of God.

Finally, we have the story of the Levite traveling with his concubine.  He chose to stay in Gibeah rather than a city of the Jebusites because Gibeah was an Israelite town.  I am not going to spend time examining what happened in this story.  The key thing about all three of these stories is that we have a steady worsening of the social fabric of Israel because people did not honor God’s Law.  What Micah did was no one’s business but his.  Which led to what the Danites did being no one’s business but theirs.  Which led to Gibeah.  What happened in Gibeah was no worse than what Micah had done, but it represented a breaking point for Israel.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, the lesson learned does not appear to have been complete, and possibly not even correct.

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

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

The thing which always strikes me about Samson is his absolutely terrible judgement when it came to women.  I could spend some time considering why Samson was enamored of Philistine women, but I want to look closer at the fact that God used it to further His ends.  I am not sure what led Samson to propose his riddle to the Philistine young men who were chosen as his companions for his wedding, but we often forget just how expensive a set of clothing was before the Industrial Revolution.  Some time ago someone calculated the labor that would go in to making just a shirt in Medieval times and concluded that it would cost about $3,000.  So, 30 sets of clothing would have been rather expensive.  Even one set of clothing from each of Samson’s companions would have cost each of them a large sum of money.  Nevertheless, they accepted Samson’s bet, probably thinking that this Israelite hick could not be bright enough to have a riddle which they could not solve.

As is often the case, I kind of got lost in the weeds on that last paragraph.  We can really learn lessons from both sides of the stories about Samson.  First, Samson sought acceptance among those who looked down on him because of his background.  The Philistines looked down on him because he was an Israelite.  Note: this was not the equivalent of modern Antisemitism.  It is much more like the contempt which the elites in modern society have for the working class (and those who remain faithful to Christ). The Philistines thought they could take advantage of Samson because he was an unsophisticated rube.  When they failed, they used their social position to do so.  Samson suffered for his desire to be accepted, but the Philistines suffered more.

So, two lessons: Don’t allow your desire for social acceptance cause you to compromise your beliefs (Samson revealed that cutting his hair would end his vow to someone he knew did not respect it).  Do not take advantage of a social outcast’s desire for acceptance in order to ridicule them.  Both will end badly.

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

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

I was going to focus on comparing Jephthah to Abimelek, but I realized that I do that most years, if not every year. So, today I am going to spend a little time on the birth and conception of Samson.  The first thing we see is a precursor of the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus.  In a way, the story of Samson gives us evidence of how unique Jesus is.  Samson was dedicated to God from the moment of his conception, as was Jesus.  Samson’s parents raised him according to the vows of the Nazirite laid out in the Law of Moses.  I like to compare and contrast Samson to Samuel.  Both were dedicated to God by their mothers from the moment of conception. Both led Israel to victory over their enemies.  Both illustrate the powerful influence a mother can have over her sons.

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

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

I really want to comment on the parable about the king of trees which Jotham told when the people of Schechem crowned Abimelek king, but I don’t see quite see how it connects to Abimelek.  I guess the connection comes from the fact that Gideon, the father of both Jotham and Abimelek, had refused to be king when the Israelites asked him to take that role.  Which brings me to what I see as the point of Jotham’s parable.  I see two possible points to this parable, and possibly both were intended.  First, those who have demonstrated their ability are more valuable to society doing what they are already doing than in ruling over others.  Second, generally, those who are willing to take the job of ruler, let alone those who seek it, should not be allowed to have it.  The reason for this is that, if they have the talent to be a good ruler they will recognize that using that talent for something else will be more valuable to society than using it to rule over others.  Once more this passage reinforces my thought that Israel in the years before King Saul was a nation which functioned according to libertarian ideals.

Ultimately, here, and throughout the Book of Judges, we are shown that a libertarian government only works when the people it governs are godly.

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

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

We normally read this passage as representing Gideon’s first, and essentially only, battle against the Midianites.  However, when I read this passage where it talks about Gideon spying on the Midianite camp I realized that he had clearly already developed a reputation among the Midianites.  This lends even more significance to God’s instruction to Gideon that his army was too large.  Gideon clearly had won numerous smaller battles against the Midianites, such that he had a reputation among the Midianites.  We need to recognize that Gideon did not just defeat the Midianites in a few days, or even just a few months.  His campaign against them likely went on for several years before God gave him his great victory.  We need to remember that bringing about positive change does not happen overnight.

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

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

As I mentioned yesterday, early Israel was governed much the way in which libertarians imagine that government should work.  Today’s passage illustrates this.  For all intents and purposes, Deborah was the ruler over Israel at this time, but she did not command any troops.  She ruled by virtue of the fact that the people of Israel trusted her decisions and came to her to settle disputes among them.  She was someone blessed by God with the ability to make good decisions.  The passage does not tell us how she knew to do so, but in God’s name she ordered Barak to take men from Zebulun and Napthali and confront Sisera, who was commanding the army oppressing the Israelites at the time.  Barak was unwilling to do so unless she went with him.  Deborah’s response suggests that if Barak had not insisted on her going with him, he would have been on this list as one of the judges, instead of merely as a war commander.  This tells us two things.  First, that Deborah was probably not unique in being a woman who led the Israelites.  In the cases of the other women, there was either no major battle fought while they led the nation, or the war commander they called upon to act did so without asking them to go to war with them.  Second, if Barak had been willing to take Deborah’s instruction and go to war without her, he would likely have become the leader of Israel after the defeat of Sisera.

We often miss an important aspect of the story of Gideon.  The passage almost glosses over it, but before it introduces us to Gideon it tells us that a prophet arose among the Israelites.  The prophet called upon the people to repent of their sin and return to worshiping God.  Gideon did not act in a vacuum.  There was already a revival occurring in Israel when God spoke to Gideon.  If you look at the history of great changes in history, almost always there had been a revival before the point typically identified as the beginning of the change.  Perhaps the prophet mentioned here was to Gideon as Deborah was to Barak, except that Gideon was willing to lead without leaning on him as a crutch (it is worth noting that this prophet, who was almost certainly a man, appears to have had the role which Deborah would have had if Barak had been willing to go to war without her).

I use 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 passage tells us that the tribes of Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Napthali, and Dan failed to drive the Canaanites out of their territory.  It then tells us why they had been unable to do so, because they had not destroyed the altars of the Canaanites in the land which they did conquer.  These two things provide the setup for the rest of this Book.  Despite being unfaithful in destroying the altars of the people they conquered, the generation which Joshua had led into the land served God.  However, when they passed away their children began worshiping these other gods.  As a result God allowed them to fall into the hands of various oppressors.  When things got bad, the Israelites remembered God and cried out to Him.  He sent them a judge who led them back to following God’s law and freed them from their oppressors.

We often think of this early Israel as being a theocracy, but the description makes it sound more like the libertarian ideal.  Even when judges rose up and ruled over Israel, their only authority came from the willingness of the people to follow them.  Each person was free to do as he chose.  When the majority served God, things went well for Israel.  When the majority fell into the worship of other gods Israel fell under the sway of an oppressor.  Which should warn us that libertarianism only works when people seek to serve the Lord.  I will note that this is true of any form of government: if the people serve the Lord, things will go well for them, if they rebel against God, things will go badly.

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

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.