We’ve been in the company of some interesting people on our journey through the Bible so far. We started with Adam and Eve and their family tragedies. Then Noah entered the scene and we read about the great flood. Noah’s son Shem and his descendants brought us to Abraham and Sarah and they handed the narrative off to their son Isaac and his descendants. Jacob and his twelve sons, including Joseph, took us to Egypt. Then Moses led Israel out of Egypt and they became a nation. Joshua got them into the Promised Land and then God established his kingdom in Canaan. Israel became a people governed by God and his Law.

Now we come to the book of Judges and in this book people and their stories flash by quickly. Sadly, Judges is the record of Israel’s dark ages. The Bible doesn’t soften the narrative; it tells the story of approximately 480 years in Israel’s history without holding anything back.

Who Were the Judges?

The Judges weren’t courtroom justices like the ones we know now. These judges were individuals appointed by God to lead Israel and deal with her enemies for a particular time. The Holy Spirit came upon them and they were able to accomplish extraordinary feats for the Lord.

The Prophet Samuel probably assembled the history of Israel in the book of Judges. He was born at the end of this era and through him God ushered in the time of Israel’s kings. Because he was using the same sources we have already read, you probably noticed that the end of Joshua is repeated in Judges.

Israel’s Failure

We have read before how Israel conquered parts of Canaan and completely wiped out the inhabitants. In Judges chapter 1 we find that wasn’t always true. There were pockets of Canaanites living in all of the tribes. In a number of cases Israel simply put their enemies to forced labor.

As long as there were Canaanites among the Israelites there was a chance Israel would succumb to the worship of pagan gods. Idolatry was deeply rooted in the land of Canaan and the Canaanites had no reason to give it up as long as Israel let them live. The only defense Israel had against the temptations of idolatry was their obedience to God and his Law.

It’s interesting that God didn’t make the Israelites missionaries to the Canaanites. He told them to drive the Canaanites out and not take up their gods. And he told Israel to remain devoted to him.

The Lord’s Messenger

The Lord came down to talk with Israel. He had a two-part message. First he confronted their disobedience.

“The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, ‘I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?” Judges 2:1-2

Then the Lord gave them some bad news.

“And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’” Judges 2:3

God invited his people into a great work, but they needed to respond while he was willing to help them. Time passed and the opportunity went away. We have seen this before in the Old Testament.

• The people of Noah’s time had a hundred years to repent before they were lost in the Flood.
• Israel had an opportunity to go into the Promised Land, but they rejected it and ended up circling in the desert for forty years.
• The Canaanites had about four hundred years to give up their idolatry before God replaced them with the nation of Israel.
• Israel had seven years to clean the idolatry out of Canaan with God’s help, but they didn’t have the will to do it.

In the end, God gave the people what they chose for themselves and Israel had the Canaanites as traps and snares among them from then on.

Israel Falls into Idolatry

It’s amazing how quickly Israel forgot God. After Joshua and his companions passed away, within one generation Israel had turned from God to serving idols.

“After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped the various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and Ashteroths.” Judges 2:10-13

Curses Fulfilled

Moses had warned Israel what would happen if they ever turned against the Lord.

“The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.” Deuteronomy 28:20

God was so angry that he handed his people over to be punished by the very nations they should have driven out of the land. Israel had once been a great people who made the hearts of other nations melt with fear because God was with them. Now they were prey for raiders and enemies.

“In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.” Judges 2:14-15

The Test

God loved his people so much that when they suffered and cried out to him after he punished them he relented and sent help in the form of the judges he raised up. Judges 2:16-22 gives a preview of what happened in Israel in these years. They cycled through years of idolatry, punishment, repentance and falling into idolatry again, over and over.

“Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. 

 Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. 

But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their ancestors did.” 

God tested Israel’s obedience through their enemies.

The First Judges

Othniel was part of the generation who would have remembered Joshua. He was Caleb’s son-in-law. When Israel ventured into Baal worship, God sent the king of Aram up from the south to attack Judah and punish them for eight years. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel and he overpowered Aram’s army and defeated them. The land remained in peace for forty years after that. We have to believe it’s because Judah didn’t return to idolatry during those forty years.

The next descent into idolatry came in the northern tribes. God brought Moabites, Ammonites and Amalekites to attack and punish Israel for eighteen years. When the Israelites cried out to God he brought them a Benjamite warrior named Ehud who killed the Moabite king Eglon in a treacherous and gruesome way.

Ehud went to a hill in Ephraim, blew a trumpet and called together an Israelite army that took back control of the Jordan River, killed ten thousand vigorous Moabites soldiers and made Moab Israel’s subjects. The land had peace for eighty years.

The Journey of a Soul

There are so many lessons for us to learn from Israel’s story and their journey as a nation could be compared to the journey of one soul through life. Israel’s failures show us how devastating sin can be in our lives, but when God rescues them over and over, we see how much he loves his people.

What is your takeaway lesson from Israel’s story so far? Make a note of it and pray that the Lord helps you remember what you are learning.

For an overview of Judges check out this link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOYy8iCfIJ4