Questions for Thought
- As we begin reading about the judges in Israel, we see a period when the people are faithful for a while in obeying God and then they fall away. Why would people who had seen the work of God first hand refuse to obey Him?
- Why do people today who have written accounts of God’s working among His people, still refuse to obey Him?
As we saw last time in the book of Joshua, the Israelites obeyed God during the life time of Joshua and of those elders who outlived him. But keeping in mind the many times they complained and fell short of doing the will of God from the time they left Egypt up to this point, it comes as no surprise that they continued in several cycles of obeying for a while and then disobeying. Judges 21:25 pretty much sums up the whole book when it says, “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
God had told Israel they were to wipe out the inhabitants of the land He had given them. Recorded in Judges 1 are several cases where Israel failed to completely destroy the people but instead allowed some of them to live and dwell among them. In Judges 2 an angel of the Lord reminded the people how God had told them to make no treaties with the people of the land but to drive them out and now since they had not obeyed His voice, God was going to let them be as thorns in their side and their gods would be a snare to Israel (verse 3). When Israel heard the angel’s message, they wept.
Beginning in Judges 2:10, we find when all of Joshua’s generation had died, there arose another generation that knew not the Lord nor anything about the great works He had done in Israel. This generation did evil in God’s sight and they served the gods of the nations they had failed to eradicate. In verses 11-13 we can read how they forsook God and served Baal and Ashtaroth. God was angry in verse 14 and He delivered them into the hands of their enemies. God was totally against them and the people were distressed over it.
God then raised up judges to bring His people out of sin and back to Him. According to Judges 2:17-23, these judges delivered the people out of the hands of the enemies, but even then the people would not obey God but still worshipped the gods of the sinful nations. God was with the judges and as long as the judge lived, God delivered the people, but then when the judge died, the people went back to their sinful ways. In God’s anger, He said in Judges 2:21-22 He would not drive out any more of the inhabitants but would leave them there to test Israel to see if they would walk in God’s ways or not. According to Judges 3:1-4 God left five lords of the Philistines, and all of the Canaanites, Sidonians, and Hivites who lived in Mount Lebanon in the land to test Israel’s faithfulness. Of course, Israel did just what God knew they would do and in Judges 3:5-6 we see the Israelites marrying into the nations God had told them to destroy. Instead of serving God, they served the gods of those nations.
Now the stage is set for the appointing of judges. In Judges 3 the people were crying to God and in verse 9 we read of the first judge God appointed. This man, Othniel was the younger brother of Caleb who if you remember was one of only two of the original spies who said Israel could take the Promised Land. Othniel was a judge for 40 years and during his lifetime, the land had rest. Once he died, the people did evil again and God strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against them.
Israel served Eglon for 18 years and then they cried to God again and He gave them Ehud, a left-handed man to be their next judge. Ehud made himself a dagger and hid it on his right side. He went to see King Eglon who was a very fat man. Ehud told King Eglon he had a present for him, so the king sent everyone out. Ehud then told the king he had a message from God. He used his left hand to reach to his right side and took the dagger and thrust it into King Eglon’s belly where it was covered by the fat. Then Ehud left through a porch door and locked it behind him. King Eglon’s servants found the door locked and they thought the king was just wanting privacy. They waited until they were ashamed and finally they unlocked the door and went in and found the king dead. In the meantime, Ehud was with Israel telling them to follow him because God had delivered the enemies into their hand. Israel again had rest this time for 80 years.
The next judge after Ehud was Shamgar. We are not told much about him except he killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad and he delivered Israel. The ox goad is generally thought of as a pointed stick that was used to encourage cattle to go where the herdsman wanted them to go. For one man to kill 600 men with a stick, he would definitely need divine intervention.
The next judge is rather famous because this judge was a woman and a prophetess, Deborah. At this time Jabin, the king of Canaan who had a captain named Sisera, was oppressing the Israelites and they again called to God for deliverance. Deborah called for Barak to go and do battle but he said he would only go if Deborah went with him. Deborah said she would go but Barak would not get any honor as God would give Sisera into the hand of a woman. At this point a reader would most likely think God was going to give Sisera into Deborah’s hand, but that was not to be the case. On the day of battle, as Barak pursued after the warriors of King Jabin, Sisera fled to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber because he thought it was a safe place since Heber and Jabin were at peace. Jael went out to meet Sisera and told him to come on into the house and fear not. He went in and she covered him up and when he asked for a little water, she gave him some milk. Sisera fell asleep and Jael took a nail and nailed him through the temples to the ground. As Barak pursued Sisera, Jael went out and met him and told him to go with her to find the one for whom he was looking. When he got in the tent, there was Sisera dead on the ground. So in Judges 5, Deborah and Barak sang a song of praise to the Lord but in verses 24-27, it was Jael who got the praise.
After Deborah, Israel again sinned and God delivered them into the hands of Midian for seven years. The Midianites destroyed their crops and Israel cried to the Lord. This time God sent them a prophet who reminded them how God had delivered them in the past and of how they had refused to obey God. God then sent an angel to appoint Gideon as the next judge, but Gideon needed some signs from the Lord before he accepted the job. Gideon asked the angel why all of this trouble was upon them and where were the miracles the fathers had talked about. He asked how he could deliver Israel as he was from a poor family and he was the least one in his father’s house. He said he needed a sign and he told the angel to wait there until he could bring a present to him. The angel waited and Gideon prepared some food for him. When Gideon took the food to the angel, the angel told him to put the food on the rock. He did so and the angel touched the flood with the end of his staff and a fire arose out of the rock and consumed the food. Gideon was afraid. The angel left and the Lord told Gideon not to be scared for he was not going to die.
The Lord told Gideon to throw down the altar of Baal. This altar belonged to Gideon’s dad. God also said for Gideon to cut down the grove beside the altar. Bible scholars refer to this grove as a wooden image for a goddess. Finally, Gideon was to burn his father’s bullock as a sacrifice using the wood of the grove for the fire. Gideon was afraid to do the job in the daytime so he waited until night and carried out the orders of the Lord. When day came and the men of the city saw what had happened they investigated and found out it was Gideon who had done the deeds. The people insisted Gideon’s dad allow Gideon to be killed because of what he had done. Gideon’s dad, Joash, said to let Baal plead for himself.
In the meantime, Gideon was busy asking God for a sign that God was really going to save Israel by Gideon’s hand. Gideon first told God he would put out a wool fleece on the floor and if the dew was on the fleece only and the earth beside it was dry, he would know God was going to save Israel by his hand. When he got up the next morning and found the fleece full of dew and the ground around it dry, Gideon, decided he needed one more sign. So he asked God not to be angry with him but to allow him this one more proof of God’s plan. This time, he wanted the fleece to be dry and the ground to be wet. The next morning it was just as he had said. So Gideon, who was also called Jerubbaal by his father because of his destruction against Baal, agreed to deliver Israel.
Jerubbaal gathered his men in preparation for the battle, but God said he had too many men. In the next blog we will look at how God had Gideon pick out those who would fight the battle and then continue to look at the next judges.
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