Judges 2:10-3 The little saviors
Last week, we had an overview of the book of Judges, and discussed a few things that we should keep in mind when we interpret this book. The first is the concept of moral relativism. This is the plague that we still see in our culture today, that rejects absolute truth, and encourages people to live by their own distorted sense of reality. This is the key heart issue of the Israelites, and there are sad consequences because of it. Secondly, we need to remember that this book is a historical account. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive, and it tells us how things were, not necessarily how they should be. Finally, Judges reveals to us the dark realties of sin, but it also points us to the ultimate Judge and Savior, Jesus Christ. When you start to read this book, you’ll notice quickly the theme that leadership is really, really important. We observed a few types of leaders that the first two chapters. We saw Joshua, the rare leader - full of faith. Judah, the group that leads - full of strength in numbers. And we also saw Jesus, the ultimate leader - who gives God’s message clearly and authoritatively. Today we will look at the next “J” leaders, as we are introduced to the stars of this book, the Judges.
Judges - common leaders, uncommon results
These leaders were political, military leaders, that would save Israel from their enemies, and they were known for both their great and not-so-great works. Under God’s ultimate leadership though, they were able to do amazing things. The Lord “raised them up” (2:16) for His purposes, but as we’ll see throughout this book, not all of them were necessarily faithful to God with their lives. There are a lot of lessons that we can learn from the lives of these leaders, and if we learn the lessons well, we can thrive in the spiritual authority that Christ has given us.
Judges were common, everyday leaders that had the supernatural authority from God. The truth is that all authority, whether good or bad is established by God for His purposes (Romans 13). Every leader that is in authority has been placed by God supernaturally, including you, your boss, your president, and the judges in this book. This does not mean that all leaders are necessarily godly, but they are put there by God. Leaders have their own choices to make on their godliness, and so do the people under them. After Joshua, the Israelites were in need, and God appointed these judges to lead His people. Let’s take a look at the setting in which the judges come to rise.
Judges 2:10-15
10 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. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 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. 15 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.
Takeaways:
Generational neglect: (v10) Teaching children about God is vital to the health of a society. Generations suffer if we don’t teach children about the Lord. Israel experienced the results of not teaching your children God’s ways. The Israelites didn’t know God, or what He had done for Israel - so quickly, too! We must make an active effort in telling our children about Jesus and His message, if we don’t, the devil will sweep in and tell them his own history and his own ‘gospel’ of lies.
Moral relativism and consequences: There’s that line, “they did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (v11), this is the consistent overarching issue with the Israelites, they kept doing as they saw fit, not how God saw fit. As a result of this, God “gave them into the hands” (v14) of their enemies - the ones that they wanted to be with, and be like. God let them have what they wanted with the worship of Baal and Asheroth, and also what that worship brought, death. They consistently cry out to these fake gods of fertility, and instead get death. What a tragedy. We will see this repeated and played out again and again in Israel - they divert from God’s ways, do evil, and need saving. If we continue to live in sin, God will hand us over to what we love. No matter what, there will be consequences!
God is the real hero: Notice who’s hand it was what was with them (v15). The judges weren’t the heroes in these stories that we’ll see throughout this book, God is. The Lord “raises” them up to demonstrate his power, not theirs.
Judges 2:16-19
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. 17 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. 18 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. 19 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.
-Notice that God was still faithful even when they were not. It wasn’t because of their good behavior that God saved them, it was because they were chosen. The same is true for us as Christians. God has always been administering grace.
-Good leaders can make a huge difference, but they can not solve the sins of the heart. While these judges might have saved Israel in a temporal sense, they really needed the saving of their sin in their hearts, which would later come through Christ. The judges deliverance may have put a band aid on their hearts and kept them away from idolatry for a bit, but their hearts needed the healing that only God himself could deliver. While we might have good leaders in our day that can ‘save us’ or destroy us, we follow the ultimate leadership of Christ who can truly save us in this life and for eternity.
So God raises up judges to save Israel, but the cycle of sin and redemption keeps taking place. The evil nations that occupied God’s land were left by God to test the obedience of the people, and train up the next generation of fighters as we see summarized in Judges 2:20-3:6. Take a minute to read through it, and then answer the reflection questions below.
Judges 2:20-3:6
2:20 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, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 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.” 23 The Lord had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
3:1 These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan 2 (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): 3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. 4 They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses. 5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
Reflection questions: These are popular apologetics questions, and they need proper answers:
Why does evil exist in the world?
Why doesn’t God rid the world of evil right now?
-We can answer these questions accurately when we look at this passage closely. Evil exists in the world because of our willingness to disobey the God that loves us. (2:22) We all inherit sin, but also actively participate in it. Evil exist because we exist. We perpetuate its existence because we keep disobeying our Lord.
-God also uses the existence of evil in the world to “test” (2:22, 3:1,4) his people’s faithfulness, and to “train” (3:2) up the next generation of fighters. What the devil means for harm, God means for good. Even the consequences of sin have the refining, sanctifying effect on our lives. (Romans 8:28)
So the judges came along, and gave extended periods of peace to the people of Israel in supernatural ways. If we look closely, we’ll see the ways that these imperfect leaders still resemble the perfect leader, Jesus. The first of which was Othniel.
Othniel (3:7-11)
Othniel is the first recorded judge that God appointed. In this short account we learn that he was a nephew of Caleb. Caleb was a rare leader along with Joshua, and both men took a stand of faith against the 10 other spies from Israel that didn’t trust God. As a result of his faith, Caleb received a special inheritance of land for his descendants and an extended life to enjoy the Promised Land and his family. Othniel’s story shows the generational effects of faithfulness to God. While Othniel wasn’t his son, it is hard to doubt the positive spiritual effect that close proximity to Caleb had on Othniel.
The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, which is only recorded a handful of times in the Old Testament. Right after the Holy Spirit anointing, he goes to war. Remember, leaders go first and they fight, and Othniel put that principle into action. Similar to Jesus’ start of his ministry in Luke 4:18, where Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1, the Holy Spirit initiates his work in Othniel. As a result of his leadership, the Israelites were at peace for 40 years. But when he died, again the Israelites fell into sin again, and their enemies overtook them. Which led to the next judge and deliverer.
Ehud (3:12-30)
The story of Ehud is detailed and graphic, showing the harsh reality of warfare. While this overly descriptive story of war is necessarily prescriptive for the Christian life, there are a few principles and parallels we can pull out of this story. Jesus spoke of being cunning as serpent, and innocent as a dove. In warfare, types of deception are necessary to defeating the enemy, and Jesus instructed us to be wise and calculated in the spiritual wars going on around us. The example of Rahab deceiving the men that wanted to kill God’s spies is an example of fighting wisely in my opinion. Ehud displayed shrewd military skills to protect God’s people and advance their conquest of the Promised Land. Satan doesn’t play by the rules, and sometimes we shouldn’t either. If God’s glory is our goal, and our faith is in Him, He will honor our shrewdness.
Ehud took out the evil leader, led the Israelites into battle(v27), and they had peace for 80 years. Because of his double-edged sword, courage, and leadership, the people of Israel had peace for a long time. Because of the double-edged sword of Jesus, and his killing of the beast, justice will come to the world once and for all time, and there will be real peace for all of God’s chosen people (Rev 19).
Shamgar (3:31)
Here, we get a quick story of the third judge of Israel, Shamgar. He saved Israel too by killing 600 Philistines with an oxgoad (a stick with a sharp point to guide or correct animals), which is no doubt a miraculous feat. Later, we’ll see the judge, Samson, kill 1000 men with another obscure object. This highlights the supernatural power of God that was with them. In addition to the supernatural power of Shamgar, the object of an oxgoad has significance because it is mentioned in the New Testament, even by Jesus himself! Jesus spoke of goads as an analogy when confronting Paul on the Damascus road (Acts 26:14) as a way of correcting his heart and behavior.
As you can see already through these accounts of the first three judges, Jesus is clearly the Judge that these men are resembling in one way or another. We can see the importance that our faithfulness can have on generations that go after us, and we can see the importance of shrewdness in the spiritual war that we are currently engaged in. Let’s let these men motivate us to lead and serve God with passion and ferocity.
What traits of these judges stick out to you? And which ones do you want to resemble in your life?
