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

So, the account of the Levite, his concubine, and war of Israel against Benjamin is the last account in the Book of Judges.  It immediately follows the account of Micah, his idol, and the Danites.  Both of these accounts contain some variation on the phrase, “In those days Israel had no king, everyone did as they saw fit.”  This clearly suggests that they were included where they were as justification for Israel selecting a king.  If you do not read the passage carefully, the placing of the account of the Israel-Benjamin war at the end of the Book of Judges might lead you to conclude that it happened after the other accounts in the book.  However, we are told in the account that it took place while Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson, was ministering before the ark of the covenant.  Along with that I want to mention that the story of Micah and his idol occurred before the Danites conquered their own territory.  Which leads me to conclude that that story also occurred early in the Israelite occupation of Canaan.  Yet both stories are presented as arguments for Israel to crown a king.

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.

Several times in today’s passage the writer tells us that “Israel had no king”.  A couple of times he adds “everyone did as they saw fit.”  He blames the transgressions which he describes in today’s passage on the lack of a king, the lack of a central government in Israel.  I have gone back and forth three or four times about how I want to approach this.  The account starts with Micah returning money he had stolen from his mother because she had cursed the thief.  His mother was so grateful to God for the return of her money that she had an idol created for Micah to worship.  Micah then installed one of his sons as priest to this idol, but when the opportunity arose he hired a Levite to take over that role.  Later, when some members of the tribe of Dan were coming through the area to conquer territory for themselves, they stole Micah’s idol and hired the Levite away from him in an underhanded manner.  When Micah pursued them to recover his lost goods, they threatened him.  The Danites then set up the idol with the Levite as its priest in the town which they conquered.  Throughout all of this, everyone involved thought that what they were doing was pleasing to God.  Then we come to the story about the Levite and his concubine.  The writer clearly connects the story of Micah, his idol, and the Danites with what happened to the Levite and his concubine.

I want to look a little closer at what happened here.  In the first story, we have a Levite travelling to “make his fortune”.  When Micah offers him the position of priest to his household gods, the Levite does not point out that Micah’s idols are a violation of God’s commands about images.  He accepts the opportunity to make a place for himself and allows Micah to feel righteous while worshiping an idol.  Then, when the Danites arrive, the Levite takes the opportunity to improve his position and indirectly blesses the Danites theft of Micah’s goods, theft from a fellow Israelites.  Then we come to the other Levite.  He was travelling and chose to stay in an Israelite town because he thought such would be safer than staying among foreigners.  Further, what happened in Gibeah bears a remarkable resemblance to what happened when God’s messengers visited Lot in Sodom.  Certainly, the resemblance to what happened in Sodom partly explains the reaction of the rest of Israel to this incident which we see in tomorrow’s passage.  However, I want to point out the way in which what the Danites did to Micah is a sort of precursor to what happened in Gibeah.  The Danites betrayed the hospitality which Micah, their fellow Israelite, had given them by using the knowledge they had gained as his guest to rob him later.  The men of Gibeah failed to honor the hospitality they owed their fellow Israelite.

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.

We have four stories about Samson and tend to think of them as happening one shortly after the other.   However, the passage tells us that Samson led Israel for 20 years.  Which puts the incident with Delilah quite a few years after the incidents surrounding his wedding.  That leads me to a different understanding of Samson’s life.  Essentially, there were twenty years between Samson’s victory over the Philistines with the donkey’s jawbone and his betrayal by Delilah.  This led me to look again at the story of the woman Samson married.  It looks to me like Samson truly loved her and perhaps she loved him, but she was afraid of those to whom Samson had told the riddle.  They threatened to kill her family if she could not give them the answer to his riddle and she believed them, for good reason.  Let’s think about what this reveals about the Philistines.  They credibly threatened an entire family in order to win a bet, an expensive bet, but a bet nonetheless.  Then, after Samson vandalized their fields they burned them to death.  The family they killed were their fellow Philistines.  Actually, now that I write that it suggests to me that Samson had already demonstrated his prowess before his marriage, and the Philistines chose to avenge his vandalism against his wife’s family because they were afraid to go after him directly.

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.

Whenever I read today’s passage I cannot help but compare and contrast Jepthah with Amelek, Gideon’s son.  Both of them left their father’s house and gathered followers whom the writer records as “scoundrels”.  What is interesting is that despite both being followed by scoundrels their following indicates opposite things about what kind of leader they would make.  Amelek sought out scoundrels and hired them.  Jepthah was outcast and the scoundrels sought him out.  Amelek’s followers followed him because he paid them while Jepthah’s followers followed him because he was a good leader.  Further, the different ways in which each became leader of more than their small band called for different types of leaders.  Amelek sought out the role by approaching the people of Shechem.  On the other hand, the people of Gilead sought out Jepthah to lead them at a time when they were under threat.  I want to note that this difference does not mean that Amelek would have been a good leader in different circumstances.  Rather, it means that Jepthah, who was a good leader, would never have become a leader in different circumstances.

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.

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.