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.

    Yesterday we read about the incident of the Levite and his concubine, including where he sent pieces of her body with a message to each of the Twelve tribes. Eleven of the tribes gathered at Mizpah, even those from east of the Jordan River, but the tribe of Benjamin did not join them. Rather than join with the rest of Israel to hold the men of Gibeah accountable for their misbehavior, the tribe of Benjamin chose to defend their kinsmen. On the other side, the rest of Israel allowed their anger over this situation to overwhelm all other thought processes. When the tribe of Benjamin refused to turn over the men responsible for the crime, the rest of Israel vowed to not arrange a marriage between their daughters and the men of Benjamin. In addition, they swore that anyone who did not join in their attack on Benjamin to bring the men of Gibeah to justice must die. As with most civil wars, the death toll was horrible. However, numbers won out and the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out. Once their anger had cooled the men of Israel regretted and sought to make amends.
    In the heat of the moment, both sides made serious mistakes. The men of Benjamin chose not to hold the men of Gibeah accountable because they were their relatives (and perhaps because they had failed to hold them accountable before it blew up and involved the entire nation). The men of the rest of the tribes allowed their anger to override sound judgment and a measured response. All of this came about because “all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” We need to allow ourselves to be held accountable by others.

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.

    The stories in today’s passage can be summed up by what was written in chapter 17 verse 6 “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” We have the story of Micah, who stole money from his own mother and only gave it back because he heard her curse whoever had stolen it. She then made an idol out of some of the silver and gave it to Micah, who set it up as his god. Micah recruited a Levite to be his priest. Micah apparently believed that making the Levite his priest to this idol would make worshiping the idol the same as worshiping God. The thing is this is what seemed right in Micah’s eyes and there was no one to tell him he was wrong.

    Once Micah’s Levite was well established as his priest, the tribe of Dan passed through the area seeking to conquer an area as their own land (there is some question in my mind if this was the entire tribe of Dan, or just a subset…not that it matters for the point of the story). They decided to take Micah’s idol and his priest as their own. Micah gathered some of his neighbors and pursued them. However, the war band from the tribe of Dan was too powerful for him to confront. There are two aspects of this that reflect on the point of this passage. Micah’s neighbors saw nothing wrong with what he had been doing in worshiping his idol and supported him in his attempt to get it back. The second aspect is that the tribe of Dan saw nothing wrong with stealing his idol and worship implements for their own use and nothing wrong with threatening him for making a fuss about the fact that they had done so. Not only was there no one to tell the members of the tribe of Dan that they were wrong but they were willing to commit violence against those who tried to do so.

    Next we have the story of the Levite and his concubine, which is only connected to the first two stories by the theme of each man doing what he thought was right in his own eyes. First we have the setup which explains why the Levite stayed in a town with which he was unfamiliar. Next, we learn that the man chose to push on past a town of Gentiles because he thought it would be safer to stay in a town of Israelites. Then we learn that the townsfolk have developed a pattern of abusing travelers passing through the town.

SIDENOTE: The old man from Ephraim who was working in the town insists that the travelers, under no circumstances, stay in the town square. The old man’s words to the Levite bear a remarkable resemblance to what Lat said to the angels when they came to Sodom. I believe that the writer intended this resemblance.

Finally, even though the traveler has been invited into the home of someone living among them, some of the men of the town insisted that their host turn him out for them to abuse (again the resemblance to the story of Lot and the angels).
    Now, related to the theme of this passage, we note that, unlike the story of Lat and the angels, this was not all of the men of the town, merely “a crowd of troublemakers.” However, as I noted earlier, this was clearly not the first time these troublemakers had done something like this, yet none of the other men of the town had done anything to make them stop, not even appealing to upright men from other towns to help them. one gets the feeling that they had an attitude of “Well, who am I to tell them that what they are doing is wrong?” Today’s passage ends with the Levite sending word out to all of the tribes of Israel which was essentially, “OK, THIS is going too far. We need to do something.” This story is a start in showing what eventually happens when “Every man does what is right in his own eyes.” But tomorrow’s passage shows us that it gets even worse when people finally start to try to turn things around.

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.

    Samson was a powerful man and a mighty warrior, who was apparently fairly wise, since he served as judge over the people of Israel for 20 years. Yet, despite all of this, all of the stories we have concerning him are related to his poor judgment when it came to women. Time and again he allowed his sexual desires to override his better sense. Early in his life, he chose to pursue a Philistine woman for a wife. The cultural differences caused that to end badly for everyone. I am not going to go through the story and point out these differences, but if you read through it you will see how each side took actions which led the other side to escalate the situation beyond what they expected (although in Samson’s case, that might be a result of being young and headstrong). Then there is the incident with the prostitute. Finally, there is Samson’s interactions with Delilah. Delilah pressures him to tell her the secret of his great strength and he tells her several lies about it. Each time, she tests those lies, then confronts him with the fact that they were lies. Despite her clear attempts to subdue and enslave him, Samson continues to see her and finally tells her the truth about how to eliminate his strength. I want to be clear here, Samson’s behavior with Delilah is far from unique among men (or even to men, women do similar things with the men they choose to be with as well). Smason’s mistakes with women, especially in the case of Delilah, were that he sought sexual relations with women whose loyalty was always to others more than to him. That is the whole point of marriage, and why it is so important to keep our sexual activity inside of marriage. When we get married our loyalty and trust should transfer to our spouse. Samson’s wife betrayed him because she did not trust him enough to tell him of the threats made to herself and her family. At least part of the reason Samson’s wife had that lack of trust was because her loyalties still lay with her people rather than with her husband.

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.

    The story of Jephthah is a great contrast to the story of Abimelech. Jephthah was driven away by his half-brothers because his mother was a prostitute (I do not know if this was because their mother was jealous of Jephthah’s mother, or just because of a social attitude towards prostitutes). We have nothing in the Abimelech story which suggests that his brothers ostracized him as was done to Jephthah. However, the method by which they obtained followers, and the method by which they rose to power, differed. Abimelech sought power, then went out, hired mercenaries, and used them to enforce his rule. Jephthah, on the other hand, accepted his exile and a group of men chose to become his followers. Then, when trouble arose, the people of Gilead sought him out and requested that he lead them in their resistance against aggression. The writer thinks poorly of the men who formed the basis of both Abimelech’s and Jephthah’s military force. The difference being that Abimelech went out and chose his men, while Jephthah’s men chose him. To put it another way, men followed Jephthah because they liked the way he led them, men only followed Abimelech because he paid them. Finally, since Jephthah did not seek power over others he did not need to eliminate those who could potentially compete with him for that power.

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.

    After Gideon’s victory over the Midianites the Israelites attempted to make him king, with one of his sons as his designated heir. Gideon refused the honor, but lived out his life ruling Israel in a manner not very different from a king. He had many wives and many sons. One of his sons by a concubine was related to people of influence in the city of Shechem. After Gideon’s death, this son, Abimelech, used his connections to get the people of Shechem to back him as ruler in place of his father. He used their financial backing to hire a group of mercenaries whom he had kill Gideon’s 70 other sons. At which point, the people of Shechem made Abimelech their king. However, one of Gideon’s sons had escaped Abimelech’s purge. When he learned that the people of Shechem had made Abimelech king he warned them that something which started this badly could only end badly. And that is indeed what happened. Abimelech used the support of Shechem to extend his rule over all of Israel (or, at least a large portion of it). But the way he started his rule (by killing his own brothers) soon proved to be the way he ruled and the people of Shechem rebelled against him. The rebellion ended with the destruction of Shechem and the death of Abimelech. This story warns us that we should be careful about who we choose to follow. If they treat others badly to gain power, they will treat us badly once they have power.

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.

    When Gideon called out the warriors of the tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali around 32,000 men responded to his call. However, this was too many for God’s plan. So God had him send most of them home. God’s plan called for Gideon to confront the Midianite army with only 300 warriors. When God calls us to a task He wants us, and everyone else, to know that our success is a result of God’s power. Our ability to accomplish God’s will is a product of our willingness to do God’s will. As I write this it sounds like God is a petulant child who wants credit for everything, but that is not the case. Take the example we have here of Gideon fighting against the Midianites. If Israel had been able to defeat the Midianites, God would not have needed to intervene and call forth Gideon. Yet, if Gideon had defeated the Midianites with an army of 32,000 warriors they would have thought it was their military prowess which carried the day. In Zechariah 4:6 God says, “It is not by force, nor by strength, but by My Spirit.” Another example of the idea I am getting at is the Crucifixion. Jesus’ victory came about by dying on the cross. His resurrection was merely evidence of His victory.

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.

    Deborah is the only woman listed as one of the judges. However, I do not believe that means that she was the only woman judge during this time. As I read the Book of Judges, there were more judges than just those it mentions. Today as I was reading I thought about the fact that Barak must have been a military leader of some note. How else would he have been able to raise an army of 10,000 men? We are given no information about how he gained that reputation. IF Barak had been willing to take on Sisera without Deborah there to advise him, we might not even know her name. Some might think it is unfair that Barak does not get more credit for the defeat of Sisera. However, Sisera was a good general and if he had survived the day he would have rebuilt his army, and, having learned from his mistake, overcome the Israelite army on another occasion . If not for Jael, Sisera would have gotten away from Barak.

    I always love reading the story of Gideon because there are so many lessons for those who have been called to serve God (which is all of us). For the purpose of today’s blog entry I am going to pretend that the angel mentioned in this passage is purely an allegory because it is easier to see how Gideon’s thoughts apply to us that way, not because I believe that to be the case. It seems likely that Gideon had heard the prophet who said that the Children of Israel had not listened to God. Nevertheless he also believed that God was with them, as God had promised He would be to Gideon’s ancestors. If these two things were true, what did he, Gideon, need to do in order to not be one of those who had not listened to God? The answer was to destroy the place where his own family worshiped idols, desecrating it as a place for such worship while consecrating it to the worship of God. Gideon’s first act when he received his call from God was to destroy the idols which he himself, and his family, worshiped. Dedicating himself to worship God alone.

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 Book of Judges starts with a recap of the conquest of the land of Canaan. It includes a story about after the Israelites had more or less completed the conquest of the land God sent them a message confronting them over their failure to drive all of the people out of the land and destroy all of their altars. The context suggests that they entered into more alliances with the people of the land than just the one mentioned in the Book of Joshua with the Gideonites. The introduction to the book concludes with the description about how, after the death of Joshua and the members of the generation he led, the people of Israel sinned against God and God turned them over to their enemies. It goes on to say that when the people cried out to God in their suffering He raised up a judge to rescue them. Then when that judge died they returned to their sins. This passage describes a pattern which we see time and again throughout history: people who know God’s will fail to follow that will and fall into hardship. They turn to God and cry out for His salvation. He sends them a leader who rescues them and teaches them to do as He wills. The leader dies and the next generation, or the one after that, turns away from God. The process repeats.