Judges 17-21, these chapters are framed by one verse that is repeated.
“In those days there was no king in Israel but every man did that which was right in his own eyes”
How soon do people forget God?
How soon do people forget the teachings, the laws, the ways?
How easy it is to do what is ‘right’ in your own eyes!
And of what consequences lay in that way of folly.
This grouping of chapters is a sequence of events over a historical period. It is an overview of the state of what was going on in Israel after Moses and Joshua.
The people had compromised with these other nations. They had allowed ‘diversity’ in, with the idolatry and other ways. This lack of honour toward God brings a harvest all by itself.
Why should God even help a people that corrupt themselves so thoroughly?
Even today, Christians do the same thing. And we wonder why God doesn’t ‘do’ something to change things? Why should he? He has already given us everything to know what to do his way.
Judges 17
The story of Micah, whose mother spent money on the effects of idolatry, created a house of gods. A young man, a Levite, happens past and Micah invites him to be his personal priest. He offered to pay him for that job. I think Paul calls these guys ‘hirelings’ in the gospel.
Judges 18
At the time when Dan were expanding their inheritance in these areas (Joshua 19:40-48), they come across Micah.
Here they are, expanding into the things God has for them, but they see the things in Micah’s house and ‘appropriate’ them, and then offer to take the priest too. For him, it’s a promotion! To go from serving one-to-one, to being a priest to the whole tribe – he probably thought this was the best thing ever.
But now here is Dan, setting up their cities, conquering the lands but building idols and setting up graven images. Sowing the seeds for their own destruction.
The word I know suits this is ‘apostasy’. In the dictionary it means,
‘a total desertion of or departure from one’s religion, principles, party, cause etc.’
Judges 19
We have another story of tragedy.
A Levite man has problems with the woman in his life, he ends up at her father’s house to sort it out. The father-in-law compels him to stay night after night after night, drinking and having a good time, delaying his departure.
Then the Levite and his party leave, not wanting to stop anywhere that might be the place of ‘strangers’, they continue to a town that is under the care of one of the tribes of Israel. Benjamin covers this territory where they are welcomed to stay in the home of a man.
But some men, the bible calls ‘Sons of Belial’ – or wickedness (in the New Testament it is Satan), come and demand to have their way with the Levite man. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah again isn’t it?
The home owner ends up offering him the man’s woman to try to keep the peace in the situation. And these horrible men abuse her all night and leave her for dead in the morning.
What happens next is so shocking – especially for us in the West. I mean, we recoil from stories like this, it’s just horror. But in these ancient cultures, everything holds significance. And I find we have to step outside our own cultural norms to understand this ancient way.
He divides up the body into 12 pieces and sends it to the head of every tribe of Israel. It is a message. A very strong, compelling message – a call to war.
Judges 20
Israel gathered, with 400,000 that ‘drew the sword’.
The safe place the man had stayed at was part of the tribe of Benjamin. So the demand was made to them to hand over the sons of Belial to be dealt with. The demand was refused. And war breaks out.
The group went to God and asked for his Counsel. He said send Judah in. The group were weeping at going to war against part of their own family, a tribe of their own.
For two days they were seemingly defeated in battle. The numbers of the dead was rising.
Israel asked God again and again he said go up against them, tomorrow we’ll end it.
It was the 3rd day and the scripture said ‘The Lord smote Benjamin before Israel’.
The deaths on both sides are horrific. And the men of Benjamin were basically wiped out.
Judges 21
For the rest of the tribes the dilemma was, how can we allow a whole tribe to be removed from us because of this? So many deaths, there will be no wives, no new generations.
This chapter is their solution to solve this problem.
But again, it ends with the same verse.
Israel had slipped into the very things Moses had said to them, the things his song had prophesised to them.
Is the church any better than Israel?
Who are the Joshua’s? The Caleb’s? The Moses’s? The Deborah’s?
But the thing we know is the seed is still coming. It is being preserved. The Messiah is coming at the appointed time.
But what a journey for him to get there. God’s patience and long-suffering are so mind-blowing. ‘For God so loved the world….’ Is not just a line, it’s a fact.
