July 27th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

This is our last post in our series looking at the book of Judges. I hope this has been helpful and challenging for you! Just in case you haven’t realized, there are MANY posts similar to these archived from past studies we have done. I invite you to click over to the “Sweeter Than Honey” link on the right side below my picture – you will find Bible studies categorized by book, and many are also available in ebook form (all are free!) under the “Resources” link at the top of the page.

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We made it through Judges! Judges is a strange book for so many reasons. I find it strange because it’s an easy read – all exciting and intriguing stories – yet I get to the end and feel awful! This is no mistake – narratives like these are meant to elicit an emotional response. To what end?

In our first post on Judges, we mentioned that the last chapters of Joshua are crucial to understanding the mess that they are in during the book of Judges (see You Can’t Add God to your Pantheon). They have not rejected idolatry and it lands them in a heap of trouble – remember Gideon’s ephod? Jephthah‘s horrible misunderstanding of the demands of God? Micah‘s household idols made out of stolen silver dedicated to the Lord? All of these strange cases resulted from embracing idolatry and trying to somehow mesh it together with the worship of Yahweh. Not only did this destroy the nation spiritually, it caused an increasing decay of morality.

One of the things we were watching for as we worked through the book was the progression from one story to the next. We started back with Ehud, which included some disgusting detail, but it’s not too bad when held against the others in the book! Then we moved on to Jael, with the warm and cozy story of this woman nailing a man to the ground inside her tent. As we continued we covered Samson (parts one and two) and his lustful, fleshly perversions of the calling God had on his life, then to Micah and the tribe of Dan‘s immoral slaughter of the town of Laish, and finally ended with the sickening account of the Levite and his concubine (parts one and two), the attack against Jabesh Gilead, and kidnapping women during a festival to the Lord. Notice a progression? We’re moving from bad to worse, from God-appointed leaders delivering the people from enemies to people murdering and mutilating for their own selfish ends.

What about the other topic we were observing as we moved through: how the role and treatment of women is seen? This, too, goes from bad to worse. From Jael using her maternal instincts to brutally kill a man to a woman being gang raped, left for dead, and dismembered as a “message” to Israel. It ain’t pretty. As the overall culture of Israel decays and moves farther and farther from the fear of God, women suffer the effects most vividly. As mentioned back in the story of Jael, women become increasingly brutalized and brutal as a culture moves farther from God.

We were created in the image of God. We were meant to be rational and relational beings, created to rule over the earth as stewards, and given the capacity as men and women to glorify God and picture His relationship with mankind through marriage and proper sexual relationship. As mankind plunges into sin and refuses to fear the Lord, we turn into animal-like beings who are irrational, selfish, sexually perverted, and destructive and abusive to one another and everything around us.

Left to our own devices, want to know what we would be? Take Judges 17-21 to heart. This is a real story about real people who rejected God and instead lived a nightmare. We need God. We NEED a Savior, for we cannot and will not reach back to Him on our own.

This is the significance of the repetition toward the end of Judges: there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Remember our “Land, Nation, Leader” promise from Genesis 12? Judges points out how hauntingly empty we are without that promised Leader! We need the True King, we need a Savior!

The story and meaning of Christmas is often watered down and sentimentalized. Jesus was not just a cute baby who would someday show us how to be kind and good and loving. He was all of that, but He was so much more. He was the promised Redeemer. Without Him, without His death on our behalf, without His transforming grace, our righteousness is filthy rags. Without Him and His grace, we all would be somewhere in the pages of Judges. Maybe we wouldn’t look as bad as some in this book, but remember Jephthah – even his sincere attempt at worship was corrupt and disgusting. We desperately needed the Leader, and in His perfect timing, He came.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6

July 22nd, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

The last story was bad, but this one does get worse, unfortunately! This next account primarily involves a Levite and his concubine, and when we continue tomorrow we will also find the tribe of Benjamin in the story. Please read Judges 19-21 to get all the details.

The Levite’s exact relationship to the woman is a little fuzzy – the text refers to her both as his concubine, and also as his wife. Anyway, she has left him for some reason, and after a while he follows her and stays with her and her father; after a few days, he decides it’s time to leave her father’s house and get on their way.

When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.”

His master replied, “No. We won’t go into an alien city, whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.” He added, “Come, let’s try to reach Gibeah or Ramah and spend the night in one of those places.” So they went on, and the sun set as they neared Gibeah in Benjamin. There they stopped to spend the night. They went and sat in the city square, but no one took them into his home for the night.
(19:11-12)

Implication? He wants to stay among Israelites, presumably to be safer. They arrive in Gibeah, and no one will take them in. During these times, strangers to a town would wait in the city square for someone to offer hospitality and let them stay for the night. Finally, an old man comes in from the fields and invites them into his home for shelter. The next events are so appalling I will just quote the text.

While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.”

The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don’t do such a disgraceful thing.”

But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel. Everyone who saw it said, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Think about it! Consider it! Tell us what to do!”
(Judges 19:22-30)

What does this awful story remind you of? Hopefully, it’s ringing a bell – it’s written very much in parallel with Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. And in both cases, the men who should have been the leaders and protectors in the situation offer the women of the house in exchange for themselves!

It’s also disturbing to note that the Levite apparently slept all night, or at least stayed in bed, until getting up to continue on his journey. You see absolutely no concern for the welfare of this woman. After unspeakable evil committed against her, she apparently drags herself back to the house and dies with her hands on the threshold. He must have stepped over her to get out of the door and then just says, “Get up. Let’s go.”

I hate to leave our look at this horrifying account at this point, but we will finish our discussion tomorrow to keep this from being too long.  In the meantime, consider this – when we wander from God’s Truth, when we lose sight of His standards, when we do only what is right in our own eyes… the consequences are hard to fully understand.

Our society is on the same track.

*Picture from http://www.travelmania.com

July 20th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Samson is the last detailed look we have at the specific judges, or deliverers, that rule over Israel during this time period. If you remember back to the first posts on Judges, I said that this book falls into a fairly neat outline:

Ch. 1-3 – Scary preview of this book: they have disobeyed, and it will not go well.
Ch. 3-16 – Downward spiral of spiritual and moral climate during the rule of the judges
Ch. 17-21 – Two frightening stories that illustrate the problem

Today we will begin to look at the first of those last two stories – it involves a man named Micah, a Levite from Bethlehem, and the tribe of Dan. Please read chapters 17-18 on your own, as we will be leaving a lot of details out.

This story begins with Micah, who tells his mother that he is the one who stole her silver. What might you expect a good mother to do? Deal with the issue of stealing, perhaps? Nope.

Then his mother said, “The LORD bless you, my son!”
When he returned the eleven hundred shekels of silver to his mother, she said, “I solemnly consecrate my silver to the LORD for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol. I will give it back to you.” (17:2b-3)

There are so many things wrong with this story already. She blesses him for stealing. Then she says she will consecrate her silver to the Lord… “to make a carved image and a cast idol.” What!? You’re consecrating this to the Lord to make an IDOL? It’s doesn’t take a PhD in Old Testament theology to know that she’s way off base.

So now Micah has his idols from his mother’s silver. He puts them and an ephod (again, I don’t really know the significance of that and if it ties into Gideon’s ephod…) and some other things in his own personal shrine, and sets his son up as a his own private priest. How nice. Notice that they were from the tribe of Ephraim, not Levi, and his son was an illegal priest over idolatrous images in Micah’s own shrine of idolatrous worship. Now, catch the next verse: In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. (17:6)

Next, we find that a young Levite leaves to look for another place to stay. (This also is disobedient, as the Lord had prescribed certain cities where the Levites were to live throughout the tribes of Israel.) He comes to Micah’s house, and when Micah finds out that he is a Levite, he asks him to stay on, and he would pay him to be his priest.

Isn’t this better, to have a disobedient Levite as your priest over your shrine of idols, rather than your son who is from the wrong tribe? Apparently, Micah thinks it is, for verse 13 says, And Micah said, “Now I know that the LORD will be good to me, since this Levite has become my priest.”

In 18:1, we see a repetition of 17:6, In those days Israel had no king.

Next, we find the tribe of Dan looking for a place to live.

And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking a place of their own where they might settle, because they had not yet come into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. (18:1)

Now, before you feel badly for the Danites and think that they are just looking for a place to live, remember back to chapter 1 of Judges.

We discussed in Judges: Take me to your Leader that the tribes failed to obey and trust the Lord to claim their land as their own. The Danites were no exception. They, too, had been allotted a specific tract of land from the Lord, and they had failed to take it as their own.

Judges 1:34 says that the Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. The tribe of Dan had failed to obey God’s command to posses the land, and now they were wandering around looking for someone else’s land that they could take.

They are passing by and hear the Levite’s voice. They go in and find out that he has been hired as Micah’s priest, and they ask him to inquire of God about whether or not their journey will be successful. Notice that the text never says that he did this! He assures them that their journey “has the Lord’s approval.” (18:6) (The disobedient priest over an idolatrous shrine assures the rebellious tribe looking to steal land that is not theirs that God approves of them? I think not.)

So, the spies from the Danites go check out the land and decide that they want to take it. Six hundred armed men from the tribe join them, and on their way they pass by Micah’s house again.

Then the five men who had spied out the land of Laish said to their brothers, “Do you know that one of these houses has an ephod, other household gods, a carved image and a cast idol? Now you know what to do.” (18:14)

Yes, this house has a whole bunch of idols! What should the obvious answer have been to “you know what to do!”?

Leviticus 17:2-7 makes the answer to that question crystal clear:

If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.

So, if the Danites are obedient Israelites who are seeking to follow the Lord, we expect them to find out if this is true, and then stone Micah and the Levite to death. Idolatry was that serious. Tomorrow we’ll see what they decide to do…

*Picture from http://www.biblepicturegallery.com

July 13th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Ah, Samson. Just the name conjures up images of Stretch Armstrong toys from my childhood – blond with rippling muscles… and no brain. I like to think of Samson as the “dumb jock” deliverer! However, I don’t think this was the scenario God wanted him to play out – he was born with great potential.

If you read Judges 13, you’ll find that Samson has quite a good start in life – a miraculous birth foretold to a barren woman. Set apart to God from conception. He’s in good company here – Isaac, Jacob and Esau, John the Baptist… God instructs Samson’s mother and father that he is to be brought up as a Nazirite (another parallel with John the Baptist).

So, what’s a Nazirite? Numbers 6 contains the regulations for a person who wants to take a special vow of separation to the Lord by becoming a Nazirite. The instructions given to Samson’s parents parallel these stipulations in Numbers:

1. No grapes, wine, or other fermented drink. Why? The Nazarite was to be in control at all times.

2. No haircuts. Why? The Nazirite was to be unashamed of his open dedication to the Lord.

3. No close association with death. Why? Death has no place in God’s presence. [In my opinion, a strong argument against Halloween. But, that's another topic entirely.]

Wow, things are looking up! God has set a man apart from conception to be the leader and deliverer of Israel. He is going to be a man wholly and unashamedly devoted to the Lord! Add super-human strength, and bingo – he’s the whole package!

Sadly, this is not how we see the story playing out. Please read chapters 13-16 on your own, as we won’t go through all of the events together – there are just a couple of things I’d like to highlight.

First of all, how does he do on sticking to his lifelong dedication as a Nazarite? He obviously doesn’t cut his hair (well, until Delilah gives him a makeover), and we don’t see him drinking wine… however, was he in control at all times, focused in his service of the Lord? Yeah, not so much – hold on to that thought and we’ll come back to it.  How about that death thing? That weird part of the story with him scooping honey out of the lion carcass… not on the “Nazarite diet.” One more obvious account where he flagrantly violates this: slaying 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.

This man also has a shockingly small amount of self-control, if any – he is completely ruled by his appetites. Chapter 14:2-7 pictures this well. The way he talks about the woman he wants to marry (who, by the way, is a Philistine) is really odd:

“I saw a woman in Timnah… get her for me…” (14:2)
“Get her for me, for she looks good to me” (14:3)
“So he went down and talked to the woman; and she looked good to Samson.” (14:7)

This gets even more interesting in chapter 16. Samson goes to Gaza and spends the night with a prostitute. (Enough said, right?) The people hear that he’s there and are lying in wait for him. Samson, however, gets up in the middle of the night and tears out the city gate and carries it on his shoulders to the mountain opposite Hebron. This might not strike you from reading the text, so let’s talk about that a bit.

First of all, the city gate. 16:3 says he “took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all.” If you have never seen pictures of what the city gates at this time period looked like, this might not seem impressive. Get that image of a little garden gate out of your head.

Remember, the walls around a city were your primary mode of defense in these days. The weakest point of the wall was obviously the gate. So they made these gates HUGE, and I’m sure they were reinforced in any possible way they knew how! So, he rips this ginormous gate out, puts it on his shoulders, and takes it… to the mountain opposite Hebron. Hebron was 40 miles east, and 3,300 feet up from Gaza!

This post is “to be continued” tomorrow!!  :)  In the meantime… what always comes to mind when you think of Samson?  Do you think it is in line with what we see in this text?