*Introduction: This series is a review of the section of scripture that we learned about at my church this Sunday. I’ll begin by summarizing what was spoken of in the sermon, then I’ll provide my thoughts on the scriptures.
Sermon Summary:
The book of Judges picks up immediately after Joshua’s death. Joshua had just initiated the conquest urging the people to seek the LORD’s direction as they pursue God’s promised land.
They did what was right in their own eyes
They were told to do what was right in God’s eyes, but the book’s common theme and final verse point out that: “There was no king in the land in those days and each man did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)
The book’s point is that people constantly rely on their own wisdom and direction instead of God’s, and fail. They deal with the consequences of their actions, but God continually rescues them, sending “saviors” in the form of the judges. The pastor stated: “When God fights for his people, they win, but when they fight for themselves, at best, we have a mixed bag.”
They start off good
We see in verse 1 that the story starts out well:
- V1: The people seek the LORD’s will as to who should go up to fight the Canaanites and He answers.
- V2: The LORD was with them!
- After their first few battles, we have a story of Caleb, who leads some to conquer another place and he’s successful.
- A quote by Tim Keller was used to point out that Caleb, Othneal, and Achsah demonstrated good discipleship by radically taking risks and relying on God instead of their own power and abilities.
- We can use this as a good example to follow, not thinking of our own shortcomings or inabilities, but instead trusting in God’s power to be victorious.
Small weeds begin to crop up
The people in this section of scripture started right but quickly turned to their own ways. In the sermon, 4 hints of trouble were pointed out:
- V3: Judah hesitates to do God’s will and instead seeks out a human companion, his brother Simeon, to help him fight. On the human level, this makes sense, but it is simply not what God said to do.
- It’s important to note that Judah was still victorious, but his disobedience to God and trust in his own ability set a precedent for the others going forward.
- We see they are successful until they come across something that seems too hard: some iron chariots. This would have been EASY for God, but they thought they couldn’t beat them.
- V4: Judah cuts off the thumbs and big toes of an enemy to humiliate him. This incorporates local secular strategies in their fight against the inhabitants, something that God did not command them to do.
- V16: Instead of driving out the locals, some of the people live among them, ultimately settling for convenience.
- Here, the pastor says something particularly interesting. He says that the command of God was CLEAR, they were to “put to death all living in the land,” not live among them.
- He points out that some in the world today find this to be a “stumbling block,” they say that God was being unfair and cruel to command a genocide. However, he affirms that was actually being fair and just in commanding this, and that he hopes to put out a statement later this week to address this.
- I look forward to reading his remarks, but I don’t think we need to place the blame for this genocide on any command from God. I’ll address this more in the following section with my personal thoughts on these verses.
- V22-26: The people resort to the same tactics they used in the battle of Jericho, resorting to using their own wisdom instead of God’s.
Israel’s failures are our own
We all, even as Christians, do these things from time to time instead of letting God fight our battles:
- We depend on our own strength.
- We deploy secular tactics.
- We default to convenience.
- We decide using our own wisdom.
Small weeds create big problems
Soon, while the above points are merely little hints of trouble, the consequences cascade into a flood:
V27-33 Detail how the children of Israel did not drive out the inhabitants of the land, each point resulting in progressively worse and worse conclusions, ending in v34 with the Amorites turning the tide and chasing Dan out of their promised land.
This makes the point that everything done by our own strength is bound to fail eventually.
This first chapter of Judges seems to be written from the human perspective. The beginning of chapter two, however, gives us God’s perspective.
God responded to their failure
In the first verse, the angel of the LORD comes and reminds the people of what they were commanded to do. Reminding them that He brought them up out of Egypt and promised never to break his covenant with them, he reiterates that he commanded them not to make any deals with the people of the land, but to drive them out and destroy their places of worship. But they did not obey Him. Because of this, He says, He will not drive them out from before them as they settle and instead, they and their idols will become “thorns in [their] sides.”
The rest of the book of Judges is mainly about the consequences of the people rejecting God as a king, and instead going their own way, making themselves king. God, however, remains faithful to the end.
My Thoughts on Judges 1:1-2:5
I think the pastor did a great job. He summed up most of my thoughts with his sermon and added many valuable insights. Here are some of my additional thoughts.
Did God Command A Genocide?
When it comes to all of the “genocide” throughout the conquest of Canaan, a lot of people think that, as the pastor put it, God commanded them to kill every man, woman, and child that were living in the land. But it’s never clear that God told them to do this.
When you google this, probably the most common thing that pops up about Gods command to posses the land is Deuteronomy 7:1-2.
It says:
“1When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee,… (then a bunch are listed)…; 2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them.
Deuteronomy 7:1-2
Moses Commanded Utter Destruction
When people see this, often their first reaction is to say this command is cruel and hypocritical of God. They may say that if he’s a God of mercy, how can he prescribe this genocide?
But an important thing to note is that this is NOT God speaking. Deuteronomy 5:1 says that Moses called all Israel and said these words unto them. This is Moses talking, not God. The same Moses who argued with God over his ability to speak to the people. The same Moses who ground up the golden calf in water and made the people drink it. The same Moses who God was upset with for smiting the rock when God had only said to speak to it. Moses is a man. Moses is fallible.
God only commands that the inhabitants be driven out
The earliest instance (that I’ve been able to find, anyway) of God actually commanding the people to possess the land with his own words, is found in Numbers 33:51-53. Here, God commands the people to drive out the inhabitants, destroy their images and idols, dispossess the inhabitants, and possess it themselves. No mention of killing everyone.
Either way, there’s no clear command to do genocide
But even if you look just at the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 7, there is no command to kill every man, woman, and child. He says in verse 2 to “smite them, and utterly destroy them,” and while some may take this to mean kill everyone, that is not necessarily the case. This could easily be a case of hyperbole, which we use even in today’s context; For example, the Dallas Cowboys utterly destroyed the Cleveland Browns a few nights ago… But no one died!
“God’s sovereignty, that’s why!”
A common response to this topic is to point to God’s sovereignty. God has the right to do whatever he wants. If God decides that a life is worthy of death, then it is!
Just because God can do it, doesn’t mean that he does.
Well, I certainly don’t dispute God’s sovereign right to do what ever he pleases. This is more of a question of what God pleases to do. All I would ask those who would give this response is to consider the following questions:
- Can you prove that every man, woman, and child (even the youngest) living in Canaan were worthy of death in this story?
- Is the destruction of innocence in line with righteousness, mercy, justice, or anything else in God’s perfect character?
- How does it serve to reach non-believers for Christ, by basically telling them that God can do whatever he wants, even when it is perceived as unjust?
Please note: When I ask these questions, I don’t intend in any way to question God. “God is sovereign, that’s why!” If this is your response to the issue, I’m questioning you.
Another Personal Application
What stood out to me in the text is that this seems to depict what could happen on a more personal level if a Christian decides to give even a small place to sin in their lives.
The Metaphor of a Conquering Christian
Think of these verses as a metaphor where the children of Israel, being recently taken out of Egypt, represent a Christian being reformed into the image of Christ. Just like Israel is a new nation, here, Christians are said to be new creations in Christ ().
As the Israelites conquer the land, a Christian conquers various aspects of their life as they conform to their new identity.
This account provides a picture of what happens when you give even the smallest place for sin to dwell instead of driving it out entirely. Like an invasive weed, it grows and infects until it becomes an unmanageable “thorn in [our] sides.”
Paul also had a thorn in the flesh
God’s statement that these inhabitants and their idols would become “thorns in [their] sides” reminds me of a statement by Paul in the New Testament.
There’s much debate over what, exactly, Paul meant in 2 Corinthians 12:7. Either way, the language used seems too similar to what we find in this passage to ignore. Did Paul give place to something in his life that eventually became like a thorn in his flesh? And how does that tie into God’s response that His “grace is sufficient?”
Thorns can point to God’s grace
I think if the thorn in Paul’s flesh was the result of his own doing, it adds much more significance to God’s sufficient grace in the matter. God’s grace was sufficient for Paul in that through Paul’s weakness, God is shown to be strong. Specifically, Paul says in 2 Corinthians that the thorn in his flesh was given to him to keep him humble so that he and others would recognize his need for Christ. Similarly, the details of the Old Testament, especially what we’ll see in Judges, serve to display the weakness of God’s people, so that the strength of Christ would be shown through it in the end.