What do you think is one of the hardest lessons to learn in your adolescent years, that you learn pretty quickly as a parent? I think that it’s love doesn’t negate all consequences. As a child I know that when I got in trouble there were times when I would try to appeal to the love of my parents to stop there being consequences for my actions.
My children do it to me. They don’t necessarily come right out and say, “if you love me you wouldn’t do this,” though that has happened, but there is a sense of, “I thought you loved me, why are you spanking me? Why do you take away my toys, why do I have to sit in time out?” Being on the parent’s side, it can be hard to discipline a child because we do love them. There hasn’t been a day when I had to discipline my children where I woke up and said, “you know what I’d like to do today? Have my children fight each other, not clean their rooms, talk back to me, and then I get to dull out some discipline.” Nope, there’s never been that day. In fact, a few years ago my kids asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told them, “one day without any fighting.” But they had already gotten me something else, so I didn’t get that present.
The reality is, just because a parent disciplines their children, doesn’t necessarily stop that parent from loving them.
And it’s this idea that love can be coupled with discipline that brings us into our summer series where we will be looking at the book Judges. Now before we jump into the book proper I want us to understand the goals of our summer series’. Throughout the year different sermon series have different goals. Some are to help us with apologetics and defending our faith. Other series are focused on personal growth and the holy lives that God has called us to.
But the summer series is an opportunity for us to dive into one particular book, and to see how the author, and the Holy Spirit behind the author, has purpose in this writing within the Scriptures. The goal is not to extract every little detail of the book, but to see the overarching ideas that span chapters of information. We try to follow thoughts, not verses, so that we can see how the Holy Spirit moved the author to write in a collective way. No piece of Scripture is written as an island unto itself. No verse is meant to stand alone, but rather it’s a collection that points to a greater story, the greatest being the redemption that comes through Jesus. But within that greater narrative, there are the building blocks of his story nestled in the work God did through specific people at specific times.
In addition, by going through whole books of the Bible, it allows us to cover topics that we might tend to shy away from. Topical preaching has its place, but we can easily get stuck only covering a few topics and staying away from others, even if it’s not intentional. I’ve actually been told by people that they don’t come in the summer because they want to hear about the topics of today, and not a Bible Study. But if God put it down, we need to read through it because what God did back then, he still does today, it just might look a bit different.
Now, we won’t necessarily read every word, because sometimes thoughts are so big, it would take us longer just to read than to get the highlights. So that means, as we go through these books, you should be reading what we cover on your own time to see how everything works together.
That being said, let’s jump into the book of Judges chapter 1 where we’re going to read verse 1 and then jump over to chapter 2 verse 6. First let’s read Judges 1:1, “After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, ‘Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?’”
Now let’s read Judges 2:6-9, “6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. 9 And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.”
The opening of Judges is strange and unique from other writings of the Old Testament. The opening is both a continuation, and a highlight reel of the end of the book Joshua. Judges begins with some information about what happens after Joshua dies, but then later it gives us some information about what happened before Joshua died. Most of what we know from before Joshua dies, are reiterations of stories that were written back in Joshua’s book.
In the first chapter, we’re told of great battles that would be won, by Judah and the house of Joshua, which are the two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. Then We’re told in verses 11-15, about Caleb and a situation concerning his nephew; a story that was also told in the book of Joshua. We’re also told, starting in verse 27, that the tribes of Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali and Dan didn’t drive out their neighbors, but instead put them into forced labor. These stories are retellings of events that happened toward the end of Joshua, but are also seen in the light of Joshua’s death.
The point is that the tribes during and after Joshua did not continue to make headway against their Canaanite enemies, but instead tired to enter their God-given lands by subjugating the people instead of driving them out.
It’s within this context of, Israel not doing as the Lord commanded them under Moses and under Joshua to drive out the people from the land, that we are given a moment at the beginning of chapter 2, starting in verse 1. There we read this, “1 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim (balk-em). And he said, ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, “I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.” But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’ 4 As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 And they called the name of that place Bochim (balk-em). And they sacrificed there to the Lord.”
This encounter with the angle of the Lord is reminiscent of Moses encounter with the angel of the Lord in Exodus 3 (v.2) and Joshua’s encounter with the commander of the Lord’s armies in Joshua 5 (v.14). There’s a few things to notice here: First, we must understand that the word for angel is messenger. Just because something is called an angel doesn’t necessarily mean angelic being. Second, the way the angel speaks is in the first person, and not on behalf of God. The angel says “I brought you…I swore to give…I will never break…I will not drive them out.” Usually what we see of angelic beings and prophets in the Old Testament is the language of “Thus says the Lord.” The reason we normally see angelic beings and prophets say “Thus says” is because they are speaking the words that God has given them, but in the case of this angel, this messenger, he is speaking as if he were God. This has led a lot of theologians, including myself, to concluded that the angel of the Lord is actually the Word of God, who is the preincarnate Jesus. This is why the messenger of God can use first person “I” language without caveating it as “Thus says the Lord,” because it is in fact the Lord who is speaking.
This actually answers the question that some people bring up, “where is Jesus in the Old Testament, when in the New Testament he claims to have always been around as God.” The answer is, everywhere. If the angel of the Lord is Jesus before coming to earth as fully-God fully-man, then he is all over the Old Testament. He talked with Abraham, wrestled with Jacob, spoke to Moses, directed Joshua, and within the book of Judges he makes several appearances.
And so, what we see in this angel of the Lord is the second person of the Trinity speaking to Israel letting them know that as far as God is concerned, God will not break his covenant with the people, even though they themselves have already done so by not driving out the people in Joshua’s day. And as a result of Israel not driving out the people, those Canaanite groups will become a sore spot in the future.
This statement by the preincarnate Jesus, sets up the whole book of Judges. Judges then is the story of how not following God’s instructions fully, leaves us with future pains that can last generations to come, yet God will always fulfill his promise.
So as we move our way through Judges, we need to understand some of the surrounding historical setting that is going on.
We get some of this starting in chapter 2 verse 10, where we begin to read, “10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
“11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. 14 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15 Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.
“16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. 18 Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. 19 But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.”
These verses represent a proper introduction to the book of Judges that sits better with our modern understanding of an introduction. It brings up several key details that we need to explore before we can move further into the book.
First the time period. It’s a generation after the children of Joshua’s generation. If you were here when we went through the book of Joshua we talked about how the Israelites, whom Joshua led into the promise land of Canaan, were the kids of Joshua’s generation. Joshua’s generation was the generation who saw the miracles of Egypt, the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the work on Mt. Sinai and yet did not follow God’s instruction to take the land. Because of their disobedience they wandered the desert for forty years.
When that generation died off, all except for Joshua and Caleb, their children were the ones that were called by God to enter into his covenant. This is the book of Deuteronomy which is basically the Books of Exodus and Leviticus summarized. That generation entered into covenant relationship with God and, under Joshua, moved into the land of Canaan.
Now they weren’t perfect and we already saw how they didn’t do everything that God wanted, which was to drive out the people of that land, but when we come to the book of Judges, were not following that generation, but their children and grandchildren. The time period that we’re looking at is about between the mid 1300s BC and mid 1000s BC.
Some other things happening during this time period is that Pharaoh Tutankamun comes to power. The Chinese begin using their written language. Seafarers discover the Fiji islands, and the abacus is invented. This time period moves us from the late Bronze Age into the Iron Age. A lot of advancement and global migration in human history happens during this time.
One of the most interesting things to have occurred in the Canaan area is the fact that they are in limbo at the moment. Egypt’s power, who once ruled the area, has been greatly diminished and their control over the region had all but collapsed. Assyria and Babylon are not yet superpowers and so city kingdoms and ethnic groups rule the area. This is the state of affairs that Israel came into Canaan, yet instead of driving out the people, they began to subjugate the groups. But in doing so, they begin a cycle of conquerer and conquered.
This brings us to our second detail, the structure of the book. There’s two approaches that can be taken when reading Judges. First we can read it as a continuous narrative, one judge follows the next. But this actually doesn’t fit the text nor the time period. Instead, what Judges seems to be showing us isn’t an office of judge to be fulfilled by one person at a time, as a king would, but rather more like a position of a regional governor. Where multiple governors would be active at the same time. This could be the case, as one timeline puts it, Deborah, Shamgar, and Gideon are all active around the same time.
Instead of thinking of the judges as rulers over all of Israel as a unified nation, we need to think of the judges as regional governors who could be active as other governors are. In fact the word judge in the Near East is linked closer to the idea of a regional governor than it is to a dynastic king. Which we’ll see later when Gideon is asked to become a king, showing that as a judge he wasn’t over all the nation of Israel, but rather over a region.
Also, as we make our way through the book of Judges, to help us know where we are, I’ll show us a map and highlight the areas we’re talking about. This will help a little to shows us that these judges weren’t over all of Israel but more regional in their scope.
The final detail we need to address is the deities that will be mentioned. The two that will be focal points in Judges and throughout the rest of the Old Testament are Baal and Asheroth. First, Baal, is a deity of rain and dew, a fertility god. His name means owner and his title was “Prince, Lord of the Earth.” He was known as a storm god, “He Who Rides on the Clouds.” In Israelite worship, the true rider of the clouds is not Baal, but Yahweh; this idea is alluded to through the Psalms and in places like Daniel 7.
There was also a common fertility belief that Baal was in conflict with another deity Mot, the god of death and sterility. This conflict was in seven year cycles. If Baal won, the land would experience prosperity; if he lost the land would experience drought.
Baal was also believed to have produced an offspring of a divine bull. Which could be an one explanation as to why we see a bull worshiped in the book of Exodus.
In addition to his fertility role, he was also believed to be the king of the gods; a position he took from the sea god Yamm. Though he might have been the king, there was still a greater god known as El. El being a general term for gods in the Near East, and is similar to how god in English is a universal term for any god.
The other god that will be mentioned is Asheroth. She is a consort, or a wife, of El the supreme god of Near Eastern belief. Her epithet was possibly, “She Who Walks on the Sea.” Her story is that she sired 70 other gods. She was also sometimes the consort of Baal who’s father was not El. Later on she was also paired with Yahweh as his consort. This type of paring the Hebrew God with other deities is one of the things that the prophets railed against and is one reason in Isaiah 43:10, God states, “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.” But at the time of Judges, there was a belief, even among the Israelites that Yahweh was just one of the many deities of the world. Deities served as tribal entities, as if playing a game of chess with humans against each other. This is why in places like Psalm 47 we’re told, “2 For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. 3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. 4 He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves (v. 2-4).” This Psalm speaks to this idea that God is supreme over all nations and thereby over all deities.
The final thing we need to know about Asheroth is that her name was used by the Hebrews to talk about her and the wooden object that she was associated with in her worship. So when the Scriptures mention Asheroth it might be talking about the deity or the wooden object. These wooden objects could be an actual tree, or just a wooden post.
Now this might be a lot of information, but the key to understanding the book of Judges is this: when we follow the complete instructions of God, the blessings of God surround us and his plans are fulfilled. When we don’t follow God’s instructions, thinking that are ways are better, we open ourselves up to evil things. In the book of Judges, the Israelites kept opening themselves up to evil things, such as subjecting the people and worshiping their gods. By not following the instructions of God to their fullest, it not only led to a cycle of war and death, but got progressively worse as time went on.
The great thing about this though, is that even when Israel broke their covenant time and time again, God still kept up his side of the bargain. What we’ll see is that Israel would turn their back on God, but God never turned his back on them. Sure he let them experience the consequences of their actions, but he was always there to save them when they turned back.
This is the great overarching story of Judges, a story that God continues to do today. No matter how far we are from God, if we turn to him, he will save us. Whether we’re putting our trust into Jesus as our Savior for the first time, or we’ve been following him for years and are stuck in a cycle of sin. God is always right there waiting for us to turn back to him, sweeping us in his arms and calling us his people.
This is why Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son, where he says of the Father who represents God, who sees his son, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him…‘my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate (Luke 15:19b & 24).”
My challenge for you this week is to go back to Judges chapters 1 and 2, read them and if you’re feeling brave, find these references in the book of Joshua. And as we move forward in the book of Judges let us praise God that he is a God who, as the Psalmist states, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you (Psalm 86:5).”
Let us be a people, who unlike the generation of the Judges, not just say we follow God, but who actually do what our God calls us to. Amen.
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