Judges

A time of backsliding for God's people. Lots of violent stories, blood, gore, you name it. My impression is that this book was considered useful as a collection of object lessons about how bad a nation would become if they don't worship God correctly. Also contains a few items most Christian ministers would rather forget.

Judg 1:19 - The LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.
Uh, something appears to have gone wrong here. Yahweh, the omnipotent war god, was with these people in battle, and had no problem with mopping up in the hills. But when they (Judah and God, presumably) got down to the plain, they couldn't continue because those folks had IRON CHARIOTS???

Judg 3:15-23 - But when the Israelites cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The Israelites sent tribute by him to King Eglon of Moab. Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit [18-in.] in length; and he fastened it on his right thigh under his clothes. Then he presented the tribute to King Eglon of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. When Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent the people who carried the tribute on their way. But he himself turned back at the sculptured stones near Gilgal, and said, "I have a secret message for you, O King." So the King said, "Silence!" and all his attendants went out from his presence. Ehud came to him, while he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber, and said, "I have a message from God for you." So he rose from his seat. Then Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon's belly; the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the dirt came out. Then Ehud went out into the vestibule and closed the doors of the roof chamber on him, and locked them.
Old Ehud was one brave, heroic man! Tricking his way into a private audience with the king, pulling out his homemade weapon and "offing" him. Then he bravely hid his deed, so he could get away. All in the name of God!

Judg 4:11 - Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the other Kenites, that is, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had encamped as far away as Elon-bezaanannim, which is near Kedesh.
My notes say that the father-in-law of Moses (Ex 4:18) was Jethro. Or maybe it was Reuel (as stated in Ex 2:18)? Some accurate record keeping, eh?

Judg 4:17-22 - Now Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between King Jabin of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite. Jael came out to meet Sisera, and said to him, "Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me, have no fear." So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. Then he said to her, "Please give me a little water to drink; for I am thirsty." So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. He said to her, "Stand at the entrance of the tent, and if anybody comes and asks you, 'Is anybody here?' say, 'No.' " But Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, until it went into the ground - he was lying fast asleep from weariness - and he died. Then, as Barak came in pursuit of Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, "Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking." So he went into her tent; and there was Sisera lying dead, with the tent peg in his temple.
Here's a story I'm sure any Sunday School teacher would just LOVE to teach their little darlings! Jael invites an enemy general into her tent with assurances for his safety, feeds him warm milk, then splat! Truly a role model for our modern times.

Judg 5:23 - "Curse Meroz, says the angel of the LORD, curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they did not come to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty."
What's this? God needed help? The almighty Yahweh needed the help of some slackers from Meroz (whereever that is)?

Judg 6:31 - But Joash said to all who were arrayed against him, "Will you contend for Baal? Or will you defend his cause? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been pulled down."
OK, time for a little logic here. Joash's idiot son Gideon has gotten people angry by doing the work of God. Notice that God didn't do this work himself - Gideon did it. Now, Joash says that if Baal is a god, he can do his own work. So why did Yahweh need Joash or Gideon? In my opinion, this example of illogic stands at the heart of the problems of all religions. People are willing to fight, kill, burn and so on to defend their gods, when they really ought to see if their gods are strong enough to defend themselves. Obviously, the god who openly, unambiguously stands up and defends him (or her) self should be the winner. Any takers?

Judg 6:36-40 - Then Gideon said to God, "In order to see whether you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said, I am going to lay a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will deliver Israel by my hand, as you have said." And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. Then Gideon said to God, "Do not let your anger burn against me, let me speak one more time; let me, please, make trial with the fleece just once more; let it be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew." And God did so that night. It was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.
What is this - stupid God tricks?! Let's apply a little logic here. One could hardly blame Gideon for being skeptical as to whether God was speaking to him, but his method for checking God's credentials leave something to be desired. First, he picks a test that could have been accomplished by human tricksters, given a night and some easily obtained materials (a bowl of water, indeed!). He appeared to recognize that the test wasn't really significant, so he thinks to cleverly change the desired result. Why this would be more significant than the first test is anyone's guess. Secondly, if he was looking for supernatural confirmation of what he understood to be God talking to him, I wonder why it didn't occur to him that Satan could be tricking him. Surely, if the myth of Satan was around back then, it should have been a concern, but it isn't mentioned here. I think it's because the Hebrews hadn't yet picked it up, and wouldn't until much later, when they came in contact with the Persian cultural influences during captivity. Third, what is all this about God jumping through Gideon's hoops? Why do you think God played this game with the fleece, but he won't give normal people of today even this tiny sign to confirm he's around?

Judg 11:30,31 - And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, whenever I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD's, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering."
Is this cool, or what? This guy was tapped as the one to deliver Israel from captivity (another one, that is!), and he's more bloody-minded than Gideon was. He's into human sacrifice! No objection against this practice appears to come from God. In fact, Jephthah succeeded, and was named a champion of faith in the book of Hebrews!

Judg 11:39 - At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man...
A couple of things here. This is the end of the story of Jephthah, where he returned home from war, and his only child is the person who walks out to greet him, innocently volunteering to be the human sacrifice promised in the prior passage. Here, Jephthah carries through with the vow. Compare this idiocy with the story from the Mozart opera "Idomineo: King of Crete." It has Idomineo, returning from the war of Troy, endangered by a storm at sea. He begs for safety from Neptune, promising to sacrifice the first living thing he sees when he returns home. The next morning, on the beach, the first person Idomineo sees is his only son. It's the exact same plot. This sort of thing happens all through the ancient world. Myths and legends are borrowed back and forth between all the different cultures. Most of them started out as stories with morals. That's all most of them are - stories of things that may have happened, with embellishments to make the stories more memorable.

Judg 14:5-19 - Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When he came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared at him. The spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. Then, he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson. After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

His father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there as the young men were accustomed to do. When the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. Samson said to them, "Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments. But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments." So they said to him, "Ask your riddle; let us hear it." He said to them, "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet." But for three days they could not explain the riddle.

On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, "Coax your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?" So Samson's wife wept before him, saying, "You hate me; you do not really love me. You have asked a riddle of my people, but you have not explained it to me." He said to her, "Look, I have not told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you?" She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted; and because she nagged him, on the seventh day he told her. Then she explained the riddle to her people. The men of the town said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle." Then the spirit of the LORD rushed on him and he went down to Ashkelon. He killed thirty men of the town, took their spoil, and gave the festal garments to those who had explained the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father's house.
This story is so wrong in so many ways! First, this biblical hero makes a bet - a sure thing for him, because he knows he's the only one who knows the answer. Sort of like Bilbo Baggins asking, "What have I got in my pocket?" So Samson is trying to trick these innocent strangers out of a lot of clothing. However, the ones being tricked would not have been impoverished, I think, by giving one or two items each. I don't think they would have threatened Samson's wife with death over something like that.

So in any event, the trick backfired on Samson. In a huff, he calls his wife a cow, accuses his hosts of "plowing with her," then he storms off, and with God's help, kills 30 total strangers, robs them, and uses the booty to pay his end of the bargain! And Christians ask their children to look up to this sort of person?

Judg 16:1-3 - Once Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute and went in to her. The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here." So they circled around and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They kept quiet all night, thinking, "Let us wait until the light of the morning; then we will kill him." But Samson lay only until midnight. Then at midnight he rose up, took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts, pulled them up, bar and all, put them on his shoulders, and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.
Samson the prankster! While visiting a prostitute (an odd thing for a nazirite - a person dedicated to God from birth - to do, yes?), he is surrounded by enemies. Or they gathered at the town gate. Take your pick. Or they encircled the town gate? Whatever. They waited for him, but fell asleep. Cleverly, Samson gets up early from his prostitute's bed, and silently tiptoes among his sleeping enemies (either around the prostitute or the gate) and pulls up the gate, dragging it to the top of a nearby hill, apparently without waking any of his waiting enemies. Fun was had by all, I suppose. That's all we know of this story - the next verses are about Delilah.

Judg 16:17 - So he told her his whole secret, and said to her, "A razor has never come upon my head; for I have been a nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head were shaved, then my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and like anyone else."
My but God works in stupid ways! Samson's strength is from God, and it depends on never cutting (or even trimming, I'll bet) his hair. By the way, does this whole story of Samson remind you of the story of Achilles - the invincible warrior, closely connected to a Greek goddess, who had one small but fatal weakness?

Judg 17:6 - In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.
Here's an interesting assertion - that a nation will fall apart if they don't have a king to rule over them. In those days, this was a readily accepted truism. Today, this is not the case, except for the inerrantists, who must accept this as God's Word (or so they say!)

Judg 19 - A long story of barbarity, cruelty to women. Please read it for yourself; just don't let your kids see it!

Judg 21:8-12 - Then they said, "Is there anyone from the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the LORD to Mizpah?" It turned out that no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp, to the assembly. For when the roll was called among the people, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. So the congregation sent twelve thousand soldiers there and commanded them, "Go, put the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including the women and the little ones. This is what you shall do; every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction." And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man and brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.
It looks here like Israel has gone ballistic because a tribe missed a meeting. Imagine how the soldiers went about verifying each female for virginity! An interesting point here is that this story goes along with the theme of the earlier verse, Judg 17:6. This wouldn't have happened, the writer is saying, if there had been a king! I expect it might not have happened, also, if it hadn't become standard operating procedure for handling enemies, back in Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua!