JUDGES - Week 1
Right, we’ve had a good two weeks of biblical scholarship – let’s get back down to business with the story!
This week, we’ve transitioned out of Joshua and into our next book of Judges.
A remarkable book, it’s easy for Judges to get lost when it’s sandwiched between a story like Joshua and 1 Samuel. It covers the period between Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land and the establishment of the monarchy in Israel.
Yet, it is to Judges we turn and into it’s riches we delve for a few weeks!
Whilst much of the conversation around historicity still applies to Judges, lets set the context within the narrative. What is Judges all about?
The book is structured around a cycle:
Israel sins (idolatry, rebellion).
God sends foreign oppression as judgment.
Israel cries out for help.
God raises a judge to deliver them.
Peace is restored, but the cycle eventually repeats.
I was surprised to realise that, theoretically, this story takes place over 300-400 years.
That’s either long enough that they really should have learned lessons along the way to avoid the repetition of that cycle, or just long enough that when a lesson might have been learned, a new generation rises up who make the same mistakes.
There are some key insights to be taken away from this cycle of sin.
Human Nature
Whilst some might use stories like those found in Judges to make an argument for the nature of sinfulness and how we are condemned to repeat the sins of our ancestors, Judges shows what happens when people forget about God. It’s as easy now as it has ever been to forget about God when times are good and things are easy. The book of Judges serves as a cautionary tale of what can happen we de-prioritise God and only return to God in times of crisis.
God's Patience
Despite Israel’s repeated failures, God continues to show mercy. We might understand the human-ness of not learning from past mistakes, but Judges portrays a God who is faithful to Their covenant time and time again, even when that feels like it doesn’t make sense. The long time span of this book means that some of the periods of time which to us take only a page or less can be years and years of people turning from God. We shouldn’t read our haste into these situations; God’s patience is abundant and repeated.
The Need for Lasting Leadership
The Book of Judges strongly suggests that Israel’s repeated cycles of sin, rebellion, and chaos point to the need for a godly leadership system. The monarchy, as it eventually develops, is seen as a solution to the tribal disunity and moral failure described in Judges. We can see this throughout Judges as one verse is repeated;
“In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, and 21:25).
This is trying to point to the lack of a king as one of the roots of the problems. A king could, or would, unify the people and provide consistent leadership. Dare I even say ‘strong and stable’….?!
The Danger of Compromise
Israel’s problems often begin when they tolerate sin or adopt the practices of the surrounding nations instead of following God’s commands. This is not unique to this part of the biblical narrative. One of the key themes across both Old and New Testament is a call to be holy, and to live differently to others.
We spoke about this last Sunday as we looked at the Levitical priests.
We looked at this in relation to Ephesians and the practice of Artemis worship.
We know this for ourselves in the world, as the 21st century Church constantly tries to assess how it fits into wider culture; where we have things to teach the world and where we have things to learn from others.
There is certainly a fear of compromising our beliefs, and this has evidently been the case for a long time.
The book of Judges, then, has many timeless principles that we can relate to and learn from. This story, covering hundreds of years and set thousands of years ago, is both relevant and informative for us today!
Who’d have thought…