Trying to understand Judges

Paul linked me to this very helpful online book the other day, when i lamented my lack of understand of the book of Judges. Most of what i'm about to write comes from that, and maybe a little bit from my own study!

1) Judges is about Jesus. Obviously. The whole point of the book is that we need a Judge that will neither be evil or die. And we've got one. We need God to choose our leader, our King, He needs to be God's man, God's anointed. And Jesus is. Judges screams for Jesus. Our hearts should cry to Him and for Him as we read. There was no King in the days of the Judges, we need a King, but not any old human king, God's King.

2) Linked to that, Judges seems to be a polemic against human leadership. Some of the Judges are a pretty shoddy bunch. Look Israel says (probably) Samuel, you're fools for wanting centralised, man made power, this is what it brings. Idol worship, civil war, needless slaughter. Maybe this is Samuel's tract against human Kingship. It shows us how much we need the Godman, how much we need Jesus to rule over us. No human king will ever do it well. Interestingly in Judges Israel is oppressed by foreign powers and rescued by God's judges, in the later history books Israel is oppressed by wicked kings from within and God 'rescues' them by the exile.

3) I see myself so much in Israel in this book. The cycle of sin-oppression-crying out-rescue-sin is pretty familiar. It shows me that my sin is gross. Cosmic treason. It shows me that God is gracious to provide a judge. And if He's gracious to provide Gideon (the mighty man who hid in the gleaning pit) and Deborah and Samson, how much more gracious and generous has He been to provide us with Jesus.

4) Judges gives deeper meaning to Ruth. I think. Israel wanted a King, it needed to be God's King, He had to come from Judah. And in Ruth 4 we see the Kingly line continued. We see that even in the darkest of times spiritually for a nation God's purpose is still at work. He is still planning to provide His King, the King. Israel's rejection of Him would not go unpunished, but they would not go unsaved. Through Boaz and Ruth comes Obed, then Jesse, then David...then Jesus. God is still perfectly at work in the darkest times.

Jephthahs daughter

A few weeks ago i mused on what Jephthah did with his daughter when he returned from war, as i prepared to teach it at Sunday School. Today i might have come across a clue as my daily readings took me to Judges 12:8-14.

Everyone is mentioned in relation to his many (many) children and grandchildren. I wonder if this is in contrast to Jephthah, who could have no grandchildren because he'd pledged his daughter to perpetual virginity. Jephthah had just stopped judging after the shibboleth war with the Ephraimites.

Not a huge step in Biblical history, but interesting to me nonetheless!

The Riddle of Jephthah

Judges has to be about the saddest book in the Bible for me. There are probably sadder portions of scripture, the end of 2 Kings, for example, and the end of 2 Timothy is very poignant, but for full on verse after verse chapter after chapter sadness, Judges has to be the nadir. In the time of the Judges, there was no King, and Israel did what was right in their own eyes. Which was a disaster. Will any of these Judges be the promised serpent crusher, or one like Moses, or just an honest judge that won't die?

In chapters 10-12 of Judges we come across Jephthah. At this time Israel was being oppressed from all sides, the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim were under attack from the Ammonites. Jephthah was run out of house and home by his step family, because he was the son of a prostitute, and spent his formative years wandering in the desert with a band of 'worthless fellows' attached to him. Eventually the Gilieadites turn to him in the war and ask him to lead their people, an offer which he accepts. 

Jephthah fights successfully against the Ammonites, with the Lord on his side, but not ebfore making a vow. He vowed that whatever came out of his house first to greet him would 'be the Lord's and i will offer it up as a burnt offering' (v31 ESV) or shall surely be the Lords and/or i will offer it up as a burnt offering' (v31 KJV). Tragically, it's his daughter who meets him first from his house.

Jephthah is upset, and explains the situation to her daughter. She willingly accepts what's about to happen, but only asks that she might be allowed two months in the mountains to 'weep for her virginity' (v37 ESV). At the end of the two months her father 'did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never known a man'

When i first read this, it seemed like a tragic example of how terrible things had gotten in Israel. Here is a war hero sacrificing his daughter, returning to his old barbarian ways upon his return home. But now i'm not so sure. The Bible doesn't tell us he killed his daughter, but merely, did what he vowed. The and/or in the KJV makes all the difference. Jephthah would have said or because something might have come out his house first, that wasn't suitable for a burnt offering. A dog, or cat, or mouse...or his daughter. His daughter asks to go and weep for her virginity, not her life, she is remembered in verse 40 for four days in the year. Surely a festival wouldn't grow out of a sinful wrong action? Surely Jephthah wouldn't return from fighting the child killing Ammonites to kill his own child, surely no one with the Spirit of the Lord upon them (v29) could make such a foolhardy vow, even in those days? 

As i prepare to go through this for Sunday school this week, i'm struggling to come to any conclusions about the fate of Jephthah's daughter. Is Jephthah at this point a tragic war hero who's lost his daughter, and any change of succession, or is he a foolhardy, blood hungry man, (as he appears in chapter 12) with no fear of the Lord or love for his family?

Judges

I've been reading Judges in my quiet times recently. A book, like Joshua i'd not read before, and, in the same way as when i read Joshua, it's good to be reading new parts of the Bible, to be persuing sixty-six book Christianity. Judges is probably a good place to start for people who don't think the Old Testament is relevant, or that it has nothing to say to us today. I think Judges has plenty to say.

The time of the Judges was not a great time in Israel's history, in fact, pre exile it's probably as bad as it gets. The book starts with the death of Joshua and goes downhill from there. It moves in cycles...God's people rebel, God uses foriegn kings to subdue them, God's people cry out for help, God provides a savior figure. A Judge, people like Gideon and Samson to redeem God's people and lead them back to Him. Typically as soon as that Judge dies the people return to their sinful ways, coporatly and personally. This is a salutory tale for our times, as it show the utter chaos and anarchy in society when syncretism and superstition worship of the Living God.

What i read yesterday and today, chapters 17 and 18 reflect that i think. The story goes like this. In Chapter 16, Micah steals 1100 pieces of silver from his mother, his mother invokes a curse on the unknown thief and Micah returns the money. Not, you'll note out of a feeling of guilt for stealing from his mother, but simply because he did not want to be cursed. Micah's mother then consecrates all the money to the LORD, but also gives 200 pieces of silver to a silversmith to make a carved idol. Not great so far then. Micah takes this man made 'god' and sets up a shrine to it in his house, complete with ephod and priest, his son whom he ordained.

The story then starts to get even worse, as we see the extent to which God's people are turning their back on Him. Micah comes across a Levite and asks him to be a priest in his home. Now you might expect that a Levite would have more sense...more faith than to be bought by ten pieces of silver a year and a set of new clothes. But no, he goes along with it happily enough, and serves as a 'priest' in Micah's home. Verse 13 sums it up. Micah says that he now knows the Lord will prosper him because he has a priest. What a shambles.

It gets worse.

The people of Dan are yet to gain their inheritan ce, whether through lazyness or defeat we're not told here. They send out two men to search out the land, who come across the Laish, who live quietly and well. They decide to take this peaceful people's land off them and make it thier own. On the way though they come to Micah's house and take his priest and his household gods for luck and end up destroying the Laish and setting up Micah's gods on an altar there. Half way there Micah catches up with them and complains, somewhat pathetically that they have taken away his rented priest and man made gods. Oh the irony of that complaint. Unsurprisingly the people of Dan ignore him and send him on his way.

The next chapter has the subtitle 'a Levite and his concubine' which sounds no more promising. But consider what we see here. Supersittion of the LORD's name, the syncretism of household gods and Levites, the lack of lack of faith from a man supposedly set aside for God's service, the horrible greed and faithlessness of Dan the bondage of Micah to his idols, as well as the murder of thousands of inoocent people to occupy the land that was theirs.

Israel was in a bad way. Judges is nearly over, soon Samuel will be born, then Saul, and finally David, so there is sun on the horizon. But it's a cloudy sky. The time of Judges was a time just like today, and God provided a savior for them time after time who died. Thank God that we now have a Savior who has died once and never will again. It's impossible to read Judges without reflecting on the grace of God to His people, the foolishness of faithlessness and the neccesity of a ruler over His people who will never die. Thank God than in Jesus we find eternal grace and soveriegnty...