JUDGES CHAPTER 1-2, “Introduction To The Book And Era Of The Judges”

By

Jim Bomkamp

Back           Bible Studies                Home Page

 

1.      INTRODUCTION

 

1.1.   BACKGROUND FOR THE BOOK OF JUDGES:

 

1.1.1.      TRANSITION FROM THE BOOK OF JOSHUA: 

 

Migrating from the study of the book of Joshua to the book of Judges provides us a perfect segue for studying the book.  When the children of Israel entered into the land of Canaan to conquer it, at the beginning of the book of Joshua, they were very zealous for the Lord and very conscious that they needed to be very careful to follow all of the Lord’s commandments.  Only once during the conquering of all of the stronghold cities of the land of Canaan did the Israelites disobey the Lord, and that occurred when Achan at the battle of Jericho stole some of the items that were under the ban.  This caused the Israelites to fail in their initial attempt to conquer the city of Ai.  After the Israelites repented and removed the things under the ban from their midst, then from that point on they were successful in every battle that they went into.  After 7 years the stronghold cities throughout the land of Canaan had been conquered, then the children of Israel looked to the Lord through the lot to give to each of the tribes the piece of territory that was to be their inheritance.  The tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the ˝ tribe of Manasseh of their own choice took their inheritance on the wilderness side of the Jordan River however.  Well, when each tribe had finally had its own allotment of land apportioned to it, each of the tribes were to then immediately go and rid their individual territory of all of the remaining enemies of the land that were in it.  However, the book of Joshua tells us that the tribes were apathetic and indifferent even about receiving their individual territory, and they procrastinated from going and conquering the enemies within their lands.  Wrongly, the tribes felt that now that the stronghold cities had been conquered that this was now a time for them to relax and kick back.  None of the tribes of Israel conquered all of the tribes within their territory and few tribes even made any kind of an effort at all to conquer them.  The tribes of Israel were content to allow the enemy to have a stronghold in their territories and thus they paid a huge price for allowing them to be live there.  The book of Judges picks up the history of Israel just after the period documented in the book of Joshua.

 

 

1.1.2.      THE NATION WAS TO BE A MONARCHY UNDER CHRIST:

The Lord did not tell Joshua to appoint a leader such as he or Moses to be his successor after he died.  The reason for this is that it was the Lord’s intention for Himself to reign as king over the children of Israel.  However, the result of doing this was that instead of everyone looking to and worshipping the Lord as king, the people wandered every which way and thus we find written in a few places in the book of Judges, such as Judges 17:6, “6 In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

1.1.3.      WHAT IS A JUDGE?

The term ‘judge’ is used numerous times within the book of Judges to refer to men and women who were used by God within the tribes of Israel, including Judges 2:16, which says, “16 Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them.”

Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon has the following entry for this Hebrew word ‘shaphat’ that is translated ‘judge’ in this book:

8199 שָׁפַט [ shaphat / shaw· fat /] v . A primitive root; TWOT 2443 ; GK 9149 ; 203 occurrences; AV translates as “judge (v)” 119 times, “judge (n)” 60 times, “plead” 11 times, “avenged” twice, “condemn” twice, “execute” twice, “judgment” twice, “defend” once, “deliver” once, and translated miscellaneously three times. 1 to judge, govern, vindicate, punish. 1a ( Qal ). 1a1 to act as law-giver or judge or governor (of God, man). 1a1a to rule, govern, judge. 1a2 to decide controversy (of God, man). 1a3 to execute judgment. 1a3a discriminating (of man). 1a3b vindicating. 1a3c condemning and punishing. 1a3d at theophanic advent for final judgment. 1b ( Niphal ). 1b1 to enter into controversy, plead, have controversy together. 1b2 to be judged. 1c ( Poel ) judge, opponent-at-law (participle).

The judges in Israel were really “deliverers” of the people who would be used to help them rally together to overthrow their oppressors.  They would however also judge between civil matters for the people and therefore were in that sense judges over them.  The judges were not recognized universally by all of the tribes of Israel, and there may have been more than one judge functioning concurrently in Israel at times.  The events in the book of Judges are not necessarily always chronological either.

1.1.4.      AUTHORSHIP: 

 

It is not known who wrote the book of Judges, however traditionally it has been thought that the prophet Samuel who was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets wrote the book.  For the most part, I think that you could say that the authorship issue is not significant to the content of the book.

 

1.1.5.      PERIOD OF HISTORY COVERED IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES: 

 

Approx. 1/3rd of the history of God’s chosen people covered in the Old Testament occurs within the book of Judges, or 300-350 years total beginning somewhere around 1400BC.

 

1.1.6.      ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THE BOOK OF JUDGES:

 

The world that we live in today is very similar to that of the time of the Judges.  People are doing what is right in their own eyes, obedience to God is usually half-hearted at best, and chaos reigns.  What we can be encouraged about and learn from in the book of Judges is that there were men, yes and some women, who listened to the Lord, were obedient, and stepped out in boldness and were greatly used by God.  We don’t have to go with the flow of the rest of the world that is living in apathy, rebellion, and spiritual poverty.  God can do a mighty work through us if we will just let Him.

 

1.1.7.      CONTINUOUS CYCLES IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES

 

In the book of Judges, we see over and over again the regular cycle of the people of God falling away from the Lord into apostasy, then after a period of time becoming oppressed and attacked by their enemies, then they cry out to the Lord for help and repent of their sin, God raises up a deliverer for them who is used to rally them together and conquer their oppressors, the people follow the Lord during the subsequent lifetime of the deliverer, then when he/she dies once again the people fall away from the Lord into apostasy and the cycle starts over.

 

1.1.8.      2ND GENERATION PHENOMENA

 

In Gary Inrig's commentary, "Hearts Of Iron Feet Of Clay" he writes about what he calls, “2nd Generation Phenomena.”  In the book of Judges we see the children of Israel who had so fervently and completely served the Lord under Joshua, turn and begin to serve the Lord half-heartedly, compromise with the world, and begin to serve the gods of the other nations.  Inrig brings out how that what they were experiencing is something that is a tendency in every 2nd generation of God's people.  It is what often happens to kids raised in a Christian home, in the life of a church, in the life of a denomination, in the life of a seminary, etc., etc.  The 2nd generation tends to come along and even though they may intellectually know of God's ways from the teaching of their parents (the 1st generation), provided they were faithful to pass on the knowledge of God and His ways to them, they tend to not "know" the Lord in the sense that the Greek word "gnosko" defines (experiential knowledge).  They often tend to yawn at the things of God, they tend to not be concerned that others are perishing without God, and they tend to be on the whole ungrateful and unthankful for the things God has done for them.  They take the Lord for granted. 

Apathy is such a deadly disease wherever and whenever it is found, and especially when it appears among God’s people.  Dr. Laurence M. Gould, president emeritus of Carleton College once said, “I do not believe the greatest threat to our future is from bombs or guided missiles. I don’t think our civilization will end that way. I think it will die when we no longer care. Arnold Toynbee has pointed out that nineteen of twenty-one civilizations have died from within and not by conquest from without. There were no bands playing and flags waving when these civilizations decayed. It happened slowly, in the quiet and in the dark when no one was aware.”

George Bernard Shaw once said, “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them.”

When we as God’s people come to the Lord in a time of need, we want His attention right now.  We pray in a moment of need, maybe even of desperation, and we want God to drop everything and attend to us immediately.  However, how attentive are we to Him when He is wanting to communicate to us the things that are upon His heart?  Can you imagine if the Lord was as attentive to us when we seek Him as we are to Him when He is trying to get our attention?  We’re driving our car down the road and our brakes go out, for instance, and we cry out to God to keep us from getting in a horrible accident, and the Lord tells us that He will get around to listening to our prayer or spending time with us in a day or two…  Etc., etc.  But, no the Lord hears our prayers and attends to our needs whenever we come to Him, and He gives us all of His attention.  How undeserving we are of His care and love, for we so take the Lord for granted in our lives.

D.L. Moody once said that if he could only get his theology students to spend just 10 minutes in hell that he would never have to worry about getting any of them to go out and preach the gospel to those who are perishing without the Lord for they would always be sharing the gospel with the lost.

As we look in the scriptures at the men of God who served the Lord faithfully we find that many had children who wandered away from the Lord.  Inrig points out that this may not be any fault of the 1st generation and that the way out of that for the 2nd generation themselves is to begin to learn to give thanks to the Lord and worship the Lord for all of His goodness, and then to begin to repent of apathy and indifference towards the Lord and the lost. 

 

Though we as God’s people do and should claim in prayer the scriptural promise that if we train up our children in the way that they should go that they will not depart from it, none the less it is sadly the case that the children of God’s faithful servants often turn away and rebel from the Lord at least for a season. 

 

We Christian parents need to teach our kids about the Lord and pass on the things that the Lord has taught us, and we need to claim in prayer that our children will have a point in their lives where they realize their need to come in their hearts to the cross of Christ and commit their way wholeheartedly to the Lord to serve Him.  Kids cannot forever be sustained by the faith of their parents, nor the environment of a Christian home, they must on their own come to find the Lord and have Him freshly reveal Himself to them in His power and grace.

 

The sad thing that we learn from the book of Judges is that what followed the 2nd generation was a generation that had not even heard of the Lord nor of the things that He had done for Israel.  The first generation knew the Lord and served Him, the second generation knew about the Lord and what He had done but didn’t know the Lord, the third generation hadn’t even heard about the Lord or His ways.  Sadly, this is the story of the history of God’s people which has been repeated over and over throughout history.

 

The saying is true, “Those who forget history are destined to repeat it.”  It is our intention that this study of the book of Joshua will help us as God’s people to avoid the pitfall of the 2nd Generation Phenomena that has plagued God’s people throughout history.    

 

2.      VS 1:1-3  - “1 Now it came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, saying, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” 2 The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.” 3 Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted me, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I in turn will go with you into the territory allotted you.” So Simeon went with him.” -  The children of Israel seek the Lord to know which tribe should go up first to fight against the Canaanites

 

2.1.   At first glance, it may appear that the children of Israel in these verses are being zealous and vigilant before the Lord as they should be to go and to take possession of their tribes’ allotted territories, however what these first two chapters reveal to us instead is how they only serve the Lord half-heartedly and are not diligent to obey every word of God, as they had done under Joshua.  The result is that none of the tribes conquer all of the enemies remaining in their allotted territory, and we read of failure after failure to eradicate their enemies.

 

2.2.   The children of Israel did not need to seek the Lord using the Urim and Thummim to determine which tribe was to go up and conquer their territory first, they were all told to go they just needed to seek the Lord for His strategy.

 

2.3.   It may seem that cooperation between the tribes of Judah and Simeon here was a good thing however we see also that it was a sign of weakness and looking to man for strength and help instead of the Lord.

 

2.4.   In fairness however, Simeon’s territory existed within Judah’s, and Simeon and Judah shared the same mother, therefore there was more than a casual connection between the two tribes.          

 

3.      VS 1:4-7  - “4 Judah went up, and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands, and they defeated ten thousand men at Bezek. 5 They found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to gather up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.” So they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.” -  Judah went up in battle and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands and they defeated 10,000 men at Bezek

 

3.1.   Again as we look at these verses we are tempted to think that this was an incredible victory for the tribe of Judah and that they were where God wanted them to be and walking by faith, plus, this king got what was coming to him by having his thumbs and big toes cut off. 

 

3.2.                     However, looking closer we see things completely out of place from what the Lord commanded the children of Israel concerning conquering the peoples who lived within the land of Canaan.  Those peoples who lived within the land of Canaan were to be annihilated, however what we see here is that Judah chose instead to mutilate king Adoni-bezek in the fashion that the peoples of the land of Canaan did to those they conquered.

 

 

4.      VS 1:8-10  - “8 Then the sons of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. 9 Afterward the sons of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites living in the hill country and in the Negev and in the lowland. 10 So Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba); and they struck Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.” -  Judah captures Jerusalem and then begins to fight against the Canaanites

 

4.1.   All was not doom and gloom for the tribe of Judah as we see that they did have several victories, however in comparison to the entire land that they were given as an inheritance there was still much more that they should have done in eradicating their enemies from their land.

 

4.2.   The tribe of Judah would now have to live with the enemies they had allowed to have a foothold in their land, and in time it would be their undoing.

 

5.      VS 1:11-15  - “11 Then from there he went against the inhabitants of Debir (now the name of Debir formerly was Kiriath-sepher). 12 And Caleb said, “The one who attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will even give him my daughter Achsah for a wife.” 13 Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, captured it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for a wife. 14 Then it came about when she came to him, that she persuaded him to ask her father for a field. Then she alighted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” 15 She said to him, “Give me a blessing, since you have given me the land of the Negev, give me also springs of water.” So Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.” -  The story is recounted of the victory of Othniel the nephew of Caleb which he fought in order to be given Caleb’s daughter Achsah for a wife

 

5.1.   Joshua told this same story in Joshua chapter 15.

 

5.2.   We already saw from the book of Joshua that Caleb was the only one of all of the tribes of Israel who actually conquered all of the enemies that lay within his land, and also that his faith was contagious and affected his daughter and family. 

 

5.3.   When the rest of the tribes of Israel were indifferent to even having their own lands apportioned to them and conquering their inhabitants, Caleb conquered the inhabitants of his allotted territory, and Caleb’s daughter Achsah asked for springs of water for her land.

 

6.      VS 11:16-20  - “16 The descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up from the city of palms with the sons of Judah, to the wilderness of Judah which is in the south of Arad; and they went and lived with the people. 17 Then Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Hormah. 18 And Judah took Gaza with its territory and Ashkelon with its territory and Ekron with its territory. 19 Now the Lord was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.  20 Then they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had promised; and he drove out from there the three sons of Anak.” -  The Kenite’s, the family of Moses’ father-in-law, were given a land in Judah, Simeon and Judah conquered the Canaanites in Zephath and the city of Hormah, Simeon’s possession, and Judah took Gaza and Ekron

 

6.1.   We look at these victories and we could think that things were going well with Judah and that they were trusting the Lord as they should, and we could excuse their not being able to conquer the inhabitants in the valley because after all they had iron chariots.  However, the Lord had promised them that He would drive out those peoples and that they would have victory every place the soles of the feet touched.

 

6.2.   The lack of victory experienced by every tribe of Israel is an indication that they were not really trusting the Lord in faith for their victories and looking to Him and His strength and help as they should.

 

7.      VS 11:21-62  - “21 But the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. 22 Likewise the house of Joseph went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 The house of Joseph spied out Bethel (now the name of the city was formerly Luz). 24 The spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, “Please show us the entrance to the city and we will treat you kindly.” 25 So he showed them the entrance to the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go free. 26 The man went into the land of the Hittites and built a city and named it Luz which is its name to this day.

 

27 But Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; so the Canaanites persisted in living in that land. 28 It came about when Israel became strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely.

 

29 Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who were living in Gezer; so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.

 

30 Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol; so the Canaanites lived among them and became subject to forced labor.

 

31 Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab, or of Achzib, or of Helbah, or of Aphik, or of Rehob. 32 So the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not drive them out.

 

33 Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; and the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath became forced labor for them.

 

34 Then the Amorites forced the sons of Dan into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the valley; 35 yet the Amorites persisted in living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon and in Shaalbim; but when the power of the house of Joseph grew strong, they became forced labor. 36 The border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward.” -  The lands not conquered by the tribes of Israel are listed

 

7.1.   Note in verse 21 that Benjamin is listed as not having driven out the Jebusites from Jerusalem.  We had seen earlier that Judah had attacked the Jebusites in Jerusalem and captured it.  The confusion lies in the fact that the city of Jerusalem was on the border of both tribes. 

 

7.2.   Later in the history of Israel King David finally captured the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it the city of David.

 

7.3.   Not only could Dan not conquer the inhabitants of its land, those peoples held Dan captive in the hill country of its land.

 

8.     VS 2:1-5  - “1 Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you, 2 and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done? 3 “Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.’ ” 4 When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 So they named that place Bochim; and there they sacrificed to the Lord.”  -  The angel of the Lord comes to the children of Israel and rebukes them for making covenants with the inhabitants of their land and for not tearing down their altars

 

8.1.                     In the Old Testament, whenever an angel is described as is this one as being “the angel of the Lord,” then it is believed that this is an appearance of the Lord Himself in human (or angelic) form to the people.  It is the Lord Jesus Christ here in His pre-incarnate existence appearing to the children of Israel.

 

8.2.                     It is written here that the angel came from ‘Gilgal,’ and we remember from the book of Joshua that Gilgal was that most special of all places in the land of Canaan.  It was there that the children of Israel first went and re-consecrated themselves to the Lord, ate of their first Passover in the land (first one since leaving Egpyt for that matter), the men were circumcised, and where the Captain of the Lord’s Host appeared to Joshua.  It was also the place where the tabernacle was initially kept and the place where the children of Israel would return after the campaigns as they would reconsecrate themselves to the Lord. 

 

8.2.1.  Though the children of Israel had moved their headquarters to Shiloh during the apportioning of the land of Canaan in the book of Joshua, an act that we considered as possibly being one of convenience for the children of Israel and not necessarily at the Lord’s prompting, the Lord Himself evidently had remained there at Gilgal.

 

8.3.                     The name of the place where the angel appeared to the children of Israel, “Bochim,” means “weepers,” for the children of Israel wept at the rebuke given by the angel.

 

8.4.                     The angel of the Lord reminds the children of Israel that though they were unfaithful that He remained faithful and that He would never break His covenant with them.

 

8.5.                     This rebuke by the Lord of the children of Israel was taken very hard by them because the Lord was telling them now that He would not drive out their enemies in the land from them.  Because of their setting aside His word and commandments to them, and their half-hearted obedience to the Lord, they were now going to have to live with those enemies within their lands. 

 

8.6.                     These enemies within their lands would now be a thorn in their sides and a snare to the children of Israel. 

 

8.7.                     The Lord has ways of dealing with us as His children.  If we will not be obedient to the Lord’s commandments after hearing them, then He will use our own sins and the trials of our circumstances to bring us to repentance.  The word of God tells us that the Lord chastises every son that comes to Him because He loves us just as our parents who also punished us out of love as we were growing up.  The twelfth chapter of Hebrews is dedicated to this very subject and there we see that we are reminded to not despise the chastisement of the Lord because it comes from the love of God for us.

 

8.7.1.  All of us as God’s people experience fiery trials as part of God’s testing and purifying us, as we see happened to righteous Job, that man who was looked up to as an elder among the people but who also for a time suffered as greatly as any man ever has.  He lost his family, his wealth, and even his health as part of God’s purifying his heart and motives.  Of course, we read that in the end the Lord blessed Job even more greatly than he had been blessed originally.

 

8.8.                     The people wept because of this rebuke by the Lord, however it appears that they wept not because of how wrong they had been in their hearts towards the Lord, nor because they were repenting (at least not in the long term sense), but rather only because they would suffer the consequences of their sins.

 

9.     VS 2:6-10  - “6 When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went each to his inheritance to possess the land. 7 The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which He had done for Israel. 8 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten. 9 And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 10 All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.” – We are told that the people served the Lord all of the days of Joshua, however after Joshua died and was buried that the next generation of the children of Israel did not know the Lord nor of the things that He had done for Israel

 

9.1.                     We discussed earlier the 2nd Generation Phenomena of God’s people and how that those of that generation may have the head knowledge concerning the Lord however they may not experientially know the Lord.  However, we saw that inevitably what follows the 2nd Generation caught up in half-hearted commitment to the Lord is a 3rd Generation who has not even heard of the Lord’s ways.

 

10.            VS 2:11-15  - “11 Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, 12 and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger. 13 So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. 14 The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 15 Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken and as the Lord had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed.” -  We read here of how the children of Israel fell away from the Lord into apostasy and served the gods of the nations in the land of Canaan

 

10.1.                We see in these verses the first entrance that the children of Israel took in the book of Judges into that “continuous cycle.”  Here, they fell away from the Lord completely.

 

10.2.                Haven fallen into apostasy and turned away from the Lord, we see here that as always occurred during the book of Judges, the Lord sent the children of Israel oppressors who ‘plundered’ them.  The Lord so arranged circumstances for the children of Israel that everywhere they went the Lord’s hand was against them.  Trials on top of trials, that is what the children of Israel experienced.

 

11.            VS 2:16-23  - “16 Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers. 18 When the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. 19 But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways. 20 So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not listened to My voice, 21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, 22 in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did, or not.” 23 So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.” -  In these verses, we see described by the author of the book of Judges an overview of the period of the Judges

 

11.1.                Here we see the first mention in the book of Judges of a person called to be a ‘judge’ of the people. 

 

11.2.                When the people of Israel would repent and cry out to the Lord to rescue them, He would deliver up a ‘judge.’  This person would function as a “deliverer” for the people arousing and commanding an army to overthrow their oppressors.  The people would then serve the Lord for the lifetime of the ‘judge,’ however when the ‘judge’ died they would again fall away from the Lord, and the whole cycle would start over again.

 

11.3.                The Lord refused to drive out all of Israel’s enemies for each of her tribes’ territories because through allowing them to remain in the land the Lord could ‘test’ the hearts of the children of Israel whether or not they would walk in obedience and serve the Lord or not.

 

12.            CONCLUSION:

 

12.1.                Each of us today live in this wicked world that is in rebellion against the Lord.  Even many of those who claim to be God’s people and know and serve Him, are living compromised lives for Him and serve the Lord half-heartedly.  The question we each have to answer for our own lives is whether or not we will go along with the flow or whether we will be like one of the judges and go against the trend and surrender our lives to the Lord and allow Him to use our lives and do the work through us that He is desiring to do.

 

12.2.                All of us as Christians must be careful to pass on to our children and others the things that the Lord has taught us because someday the next generation is going to be the ones doing the leading and they have to have heard of God’s ways and of the great things that He has done.

 

12.2.1.                     In the church, we must always realize the importance of investing in the next generation, the youth who one day will take over when we are gone.  If we miss the youth, then the church is going to die.

 

12.3.                Those of us who are 2nd Generation Christians need to learn to not take the Lord for granted but to always have a thankful heart and give thanks to the Lord in all things.  We must also realize our need to come to the cross and die to ourselves and receive its healing power in our lives.

 

 

Back                 Bible Studies                          Home Page