No King in Israel (4)

Verse 7 of Judges 3 will bring us to the next section of Judges, telling twelve stories of the judges God raised up to deliver Israel over the next fourteen chapters. But before we get to these tales, each with their own lessons, the writer or writers of Judges present us with a historical overview of the entire period, along with a preview of some of the enemies Israel will encounter in subsequent chapters as a result of its sins.

Running like a red thread through this era of spiritual decline is the mercy of God …

I. Introduction (continued)

c. God’s Answer: The Judges

Judges 2:16-19 — A Vicious Cycle

“Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved 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 afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.”

These four verses serve as a summary of the twelve judge stories that follow. Six of these accounts are quite brief, so the cycle of (1) turning away from the law of God, (2) falling prey to their enemies, (3) crying out to God, (4) receiving help in the form of a new judge, then turning away from God once again is not necessarily spelt out for us step by step in every instance. Nevertheless, this introduction highlights a pattern of behavior from which the children of Israel would not depart completely until the reigns of David and Solomon, and into which they would fall back under the later kings of Israel and Judah.

Note also the pattern of decline throughout this period of more than three centuries. Of each successive generation it is said that they were “more corrupt than their fathers”. So it was not simply a matter of repeating an error, but of the spiritual conditions in Israel getting continually worse.

What is evident in these twelve divine “interventions” on behalf of the nation is the incredible restraint God displays toward those richly deserving his wrath. No matter how many times Israel rebelled and abandoned the worship of the Lord for idolatrous alternatives, whenever they groaned under their entirely self-inflicted oppression, “the Lord was moved to pity”, raised up yet another judge, and delivered them once again. For those of us who wonder if it’s possible to sin in ways for which God will never forgive us even if we repent, wonder no more. There is great reassurance in that.

Judges 2:20-23 — Actions and Consequences

“So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, ‘Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not.’ So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.”

God allowed some members of the nations Joshua conquered to continue to live alongside his people throughout this period. He did so for more than one reason. You won’t find his reasons in a single place in Judges, but you can find them under the heading “Enemies in the Land” in our second instalment of this series.

Like Israel during the era of the judges, there is often more than one reason Christians fail to experience the full spiritual victory the Lord intends for us. It’s tempting to oversimplify our analysis of any particular sin we have committed, making superficial corrections to our behavior without addressing the underlying problems. We need to be careful we are not merely addressing symptoms without getting down to the root causes. When we do, we are simply repeating a very old error.

Judges 3:1-6 — Just as Predicted

“Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before. These are the nations: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.”

In their final speeches to Israel, both Moses and Joshua warned the people many years earlier that if they mixed with the nations of Canaan in marriage, this is precisely what would happen to them: they would end up worshiping the gods of the nations, and God would have to give them over to the predations of the very people who would lead them astray. This is often the case when we sin: that the consequences of sin are not visited on us miraculously, but follow naturally from the sinful behavior itself.

What’s remarkable, especially in Moses’ speech, is his promise that the Lord would never give up on his people despite their perpetual bent for apostasy. He ends this section of his speech by promising, “When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.” The Lord’s mercy is one of the strongest themes in Judges.