The Book of Judges is just weird. There is lots of violence, deceit, and idolatry. And that’s just from the main characters and heroes in the story! But, we cannot deny that the story that Judges tells is a part of our Story, the Story we’ve been looking at for the last few weeks.
We last left Israel, God’s chosen people, his “holy nation” and “royal priesthood,” as they departed Mt. Sinai. The people who had seen God’s mighty hand working to free them from Pharaoh in Egypt begins to forget who their God is and what God can do. The story between Judges and Mt. Sinai is not an uneventful one. Israel indeed reaches the Promised Land, only to refuse to enter because the inhabitants were big. For their lack of trust, Israel ends up wandering in the desert for 40 years. All of the individuals who experienced God’s mighty salvation in the Exodus are now dead, even Moses. They will not get to enter the Promised Land.
One of the commands that God gave to Israel, as they were about to enter into the Promised Land, was to completely destroy the inhabitants of the land. They were not to leave any of them or else those native people might become a snare to Israel, enticing them to worship gods who were not the God who had brought them up out of Egypt. We don’t get one chapter into the book before we are told that this is not what Israel does. We hear a line like this several times, “Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of….” Israel utterly fails to drive out the inhabitants of the land but made use of them as slave labor.
What God knew would happen, happens. Israel begins to serve the gods of the land instead of the God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. Then, God speaks through the “angel of the Lord:
I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land that I had promised to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you. 2 For your part, do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my command. See what you have done! 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’ – Judges 2:1-3
And that’s what happens. The people in and around the land that Israel posses begin to oppress Israel. It seems that if Israel is left to make an existence for herself by her own strength and power, Israel will utterly destroy herself. This is what happens when we view ourselves, in our own mind, as creators and masters of our own universe. We destroy ourselves.
It’s what happened to Adam and Eve as they began to question the Story and Stage that God has set for them. When we deny that God is King, maker and creator of everything, we take matter into our own hand, bringing about our own destruction. Indeed by the end of the Book of Judges, it is clear that this is what Israel does repeatedly. And so we hear this phrase on the lips of the narrator, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6).
Israel wasn’t supposed to have a human king. God, the one who created them, who saved them from slavery and oppression in Egypt, the one who promised them life and land, was supposed to be king. As we read through Israel’s testimony about the Judges, we discover that indeed there was no king. There was no earthy king, and they had rejected God as king as well.
So God, because of Israel’s disobedience and unfaithfulness, begins to draw God’s protective hand from Israel. God does not entirely abandon the people of Israel. Every time Israel gets in trouble and cries out to him, God rises up a deliverer and saves Israel. It is only by the gracious and repeated intervention by God that Israel is able to survive. These men and women of Judges are only empowered to be deliverers for Israel because God comes to them in a special way.
It wouldn’t be right, I suppose, to view the Book of Judges as a collection of hero stories for Israel. The Book of Judges is not the Marvel Comic Book for Israel, distributing stories of epic heroes like Captain America, the Ironman, or Spiderman. No, Judges represents for Israel a call to all who read it of the dangers of there being no true King. It is a wake up call to Israel saying, “Look, this is what happens when we fail to follow the laws and guidelines that God has given to us. This is what happens when we fail to serve God in an appropriate manner. This is what happens when everyone does what is right in their own eyes.”
At the same time, however, it is a tale that continues to depict the God of Israel as the God of steadfast love and faithfulness. Repeatedly in Judges, Israel goes astray. And repeatedly God rises up a deliver and brings about salvation for Israel. Why does God do this? God does this because God is faithful. While there are still consequences for Israel’s choice (unpleasant ones at that), God will not completely turn them over to be destroyed. God’s purposes for Israel and for the world are larger and greater than Israel’s unfaithfulness. The Story that God has written for creation, the Story that God has written for Israel, will go on. The Story will end well despite the unfaithfulness of its Characters.
And so it is with you and I. The Book of Judges calls us to live faithfully amidst a land and people with varied and exciting gods, the gods of consumerism, money, pride, power, and violence. These gods are all around us and in every way are a temptation to us as we try to follow the God who has brought us up out of slavery to sin and death. But it is also a call to remember the steadfast faithfulness of God. This steadfast faithfulness reminds us that God will provide where these other gods cannot, and it reminds us that even when we are not faithful that God will provide deliverance for us. The Story that God has written for us will go on. The Story will end well despite our unfaithfulness.
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