HERE COME THE JUDGES



Now we step past the founding of Israel, to its earliest time:

http://www.jesusplusnothing.com/studies/online/judges1.htm

The book of Judges, which is believed to have been written by the prophet Samuel around 1050 – 1000 BC, presents us with a sad and turbulent period in Israel’s history. Contrasted greatly with the victorious book of Joshua that precedes it, Judges shows the failure of Israel to conquer their enemies, claim their inheritance, and the huge effect that this had on their life and relationship with God. Throughout this entire book, we see a repeated cycle, one that we will call ‘The cycle of sin’. That shall be the focus of this Bible study.

The Cycle of Sin Defined

Judges 2:18-19 ‘Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them.  But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.’

In these two verses we find the pattern for the entire book – a pattern of sin, bondage and repentance that would last for nearly 350 years (around 1380 to 1050 BC). The following table[1]shows how this was repeated over and over…

Enemy	Years of Bondage	Judge	Deliverance and Rest	Scripture
Mesopotamia	8	Othniel	40	3:7-11
Moab	18	Ehud	80	3:12-31
Canaan	20	Deborah	40	4:1-5:31
Midian	7	Gideon	40	6:1-8:28
Ammon	18	Jephthah	6	10:6-12:7
Philistia	40	Samson	20	13:1-16:31

Now, if you look up the starting scripture for each of those passages, you will notice that the same phrase is used to begin each section, and it is this –

‘Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD…’

In other words there was a repeated cycle throughout the entire book – a cycle of sin, bondage, repentance, devotion, followed by sin and bondage again. Israel would follow the Lord when there was a leader who reminded them of the ways in which they should walk, but with his death they again wandered off following other gods and their own desires. God would then allow an enemy of Israel to conquer the people so that, through desperation (unfortunately) they would again look to Him.[2] Now it would be nice, would it not, if this was only a message of history – a message that no longer applies to God’s people today. But study church history over the last two thousand years and you see the cycle repeating itself.[3]

But the story of the church is only the story of the culmination of individual Christian lives, so we cannot end there. We need to be more specific. The cycle of sin is unfortunately evident in many Christian lives today. Maybe it is one enemy, or one particular area of weakness that consistently drags you down into bondage. Maybe compromise has allowed the temptation of the enemy to have far too great an influence in your life, leading to worldliness and the deception of sin. You think you have got on top of it until suddenly, the same failure rears it’s ugly head again and you’re back to square one! I think we can all relate to parts of this, so we should all be able to learn from this as well. Judges is a book that teaches us both how they became captive to the enemy, and also how they got out of that bondage. And in doing so, it then teaches us how to break the cycle of sin. Looking over your past as a Christian, have you seen this in your own life? Has your Christian walk been a cycle of victory and defeat? Do you see the cycle occurring in your life? If we are honest, the message of Judges is a wake up call for each of us. It is a warning of what can happen once we become comfortable and begin to compromise with the enemy. It is a signpost, and a danger signal of the perils that can lie ahead in our Christian lives.

Here, for those who like things visual, is a representation of the cycle of sin in judges (adapted from a diagram in the Ryrie Study Bible).

Ok, so now put your own name in where ‘Israel’ is mentioned and see if it is still true! Obviously God doesn’t raise up judges today to rescue us like He did for Israel so many years ago. In fact, if you do tend to spend a lot of time dealing with judges today then I’m sorry, but you may need more than this study… possibly a lawyer! But God does still use Christian friends, leaders and speakers[4] to draw us back to Himself. 

All right, I’m sure you get the message. Now before I drive you to despair and despondency, it might be timely to add that Judges isn’t just a negative book, and nor is this study just going to be a look at the temptations and reasons why we fall. I’ve called this entire study ‘Breaking the cycle of sin – The message of Judges.’ See, it’s positive! For while there is this consistent cycle that permeates through the entire book of Judges, we should not fail to see that there were long periods of time, while the judges ruled, that Israel did serve the Lord and did have victory over their enemies. From the table on the first page you will see this usually lasted around 40 years, once even 80 years! You will also notice that in most cases the period of time spent serving the Lord was longer than their time in bondage to their enemies. So the cycle can be stopped and I believe that the Holy Spirit has placed within the different judges, pictures and lessons to learn for our own Christian walk. Each judge seems to teach us a slightly different lesson in overcoming the enemy, as we shall hopefully soon see! We can also learn from the enemies themselves for they also have meaning for our Christian walk and the difficulties we face.

And this:

https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-judges/

Timeline

Author and Date

Nowhere in Scripture is an author of this book named. The events in Judges took place in the period between Joshua’s death and the rise of Samuel and Saul. Most of the book was likely written by David’s time (1010–970 B.C.).

Theme

The theme of Judges is the downward spiral of Israel’s national and spiritual life into chaos and rebellion against God, showing the need for a godly king (17:6; 21:25).

Purpose and Pattern

The book of Judges was written to show the consequences of religious unfaithfulness and to point the way to a king who, if righteous, would lead the people to God. In the book of Joshua, the people of Israel seemed to want to follow the Lord and obey his commands. The book of Judges reveals, however, that the people had been rebelling even in Joshua’s time. This disobedience continued and grew more serious throughout the period of the judges. As summarized in Judges 2:16–23, time and again Israel turned its back on God and embraced the gods and ways of the Canaanites. Israel’s history unfolds in a repetitive way, with each cycle taking Israel further away from God. By the end of the book, Israel had violated its covenant with God in almost every way imaginable.

Key Themes

1. Israel’s existence in the land, which had been promised by God, was threatened by its continuing rebellion. Israel had not conquered the land completely (ch. 1), because of its unfaithfulness (2:1–3, 20–22). Therefore, the day would come when the nation would be taken captive, away from the land (18:30).
2. The oppressions, chaos, and generally negative picture in the book are due to Israel’s repeated sin. Time and again the Israelites broke the covenant, turning to the Canaanite gods and “doing evil” (2:3, 11–13, 17, 19; 3:6, 7, 12; 4:1; 6:1, 10; 8:24–27, 33; 10:6; 13:1; 17:6; 21:25), and they repeatedly suffered the consequences.
3. Despite Israel’s repeated falling away, God in his faithfulness continually delivered them. This was not due to Israel’s merits or its repentance. Instead it was because of God’s compassion and pity (2:16, 18) and his faithfulness to his promises to Abraham (Deut. 6:10–11; compare Gen. 12:7; 15:7, 18–21; 26:2–3; 35:12).
4. The judges were not able to stop the peoples’ unfaithfulness. If anything, they made it worse. Major judges such as Gideon (8:24–27), Jephthah (11:30–31, 34–40), and Samson (chs. 14–16) were guilty of significant sin. The shining exception was Deborah (chs. 4–5).
5. Israel needed a godly king to lead it in doing right in the Lord’s eyes rather than a leader who “did what was right in his own eyes” (compare 17:6; 21:25). God had promised from the beginning that there would be kings (Gen. 17:6, 16; 35:11; 49:10), and had explained what a godly king would look like (Deut. 17:14–20). The book of Judges shows the depths to which the people of Israel descended in the absence of a godly king.

Outline

1. The Roots of Israel’s Unfaithfulness (1:1–3:6)
2. The Downward Spiral of Israel’s Unfaithfulness (3:7–16:31)
3. The Depths of Israel’s Unfaithfulness (17:1–21:25)

The Setting of Judges

c. 1375 B.C.

The book of Joshua told the story of Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. But the conquest was not complete. The book of Judges tells of the various leaders raised up to deliver Israel from the enemies remaining in the land.

Jg 1:1 Now after the death of Joshua, the children of Israel made request to the Lord, saying, Who is to go up first to make war for us against the Canaanites?

 2 And the Lord said, Judah is to go up: see, I have given the land into his hands.

 3 Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my heritage, so that we may make war against the Canaanites; and I will then go with you into your heritage. So Simeon went with him.

 4 And Judah went up; and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands; and they overcame ten thousand of them in Bezek.

 5 And they came across Adoni-zedek, and made war on him; and they overcame the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

 6 But Adoni-zedek went in flight; and they went after him and overtook him, and had his thumbs and his great toes cut off.

 7 And Adoni-zedek said, Seventy kings, whose thumbs and great toes had been cut off, got broken meat under my table: as I have done, so has God done to me in full. And they took him to Jerusalem, and he came to his end there.

 8 Then the children of Judah made an attack on Jerusalem, and took it, burning down the town after they had put its people to the sword without mercy.

 9 After that the children of Judah went down to make war on the Canaanites living in the hill-country and in the south and in the lowlands.

 10 And Caleb went against the Canaanites of Hebron: (now in earlier times Hebron was named Kiriath-arba:) and he put Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai to the sword.

 11 And from there he went up against the people of Debir. (Now the name of Debir in earlier times was Kiriath-sepher.)

 12 And Caleb said, I will give Achsah, my daughter, as wife to the man who overcomes Kiriath-sepher and takes it.

 13 And Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah for his wife.

 14 Now when she came to him, he put into her mind the idea of requesting a field from her father: and she got down from her ass; and Caleb said to her, What is it?

 15 And she said to him, Give me a blessing; because you have put me in a dry south-land, now give me springs of water. So Caleb gave her the higher spring and the lower spring.

 16 Now Hobab the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, had come up out of the town of palm-trees, with the children of Judah, into the waste land of Arad; and he went and was living among the Amalekites;

 17 And Judah went with Simeon, his brother, and overcame the Canaanites living in Zephath, and put it under the curse; and he gave the town the name of Hormah.

 18 Then Judah took Gaza and its limit, and Ashkelon and its limit, and Ekron and its limit.

 19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he took the hill-country for his heritage; but he was unable to make the people of the valley go out, for they had war-carriages of iron.

 20 And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he took the land of the three sons of Anak, driving them out from there.

 21 And the children of Judah did not make the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem go out; the Jebusites are still living with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem.

 22 And the family of Joseph went up against Beth-el, and the Lord was with them.

 23 So they sent men to make a search round Beth-el. (Now the name of the town in earlier times was Luz.)

 24 And the watchers saw a man coming out of the town, and said to him, If you will make clear to us the way into the town, we will be kind to you.

 25 So he made clear to them the way into the town, and they put it to the sword; but they let the man and all his family get away safe.

 26 And he went into the land of the Hittites, building a town there and naming it Luz: which is its name to this day.

 27 And Manasseh did not take away the land of the people of Beth-shean and its daughter-towns, or of Taanach and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Dor and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Ibleam and its daughter-towns, or of the people of Megiddo and its daughter-towns, driving them out; but the Canaanites would go on living in that land.

 28 And whenever Israel became strong, they put the Canaanites to forced work, without driving them out completely.

 29 And Ephraim did not make the Canaanites who were living in Gezer go out; but the Canaanites went on living in Gezer among them.

 30 Zebulun did not make the people of Kitron or the people of Nahalol go out; but the Canaanites went on living among them and were put to forced work.

 31 And Asher did not take the land of the people of Acco, or Zidon, or Ahlab, or Achzib, or Helbah, or Aphik, or Rehob, driving them out;

 32 But the Asherites went on living among the Canaanites, the people of the land, without driving them out.

 33 Naphtali did not take the land of the people of Beth-shemesh or of Beth-anath, driving them out; but he was living among the Canaanites in the land; however, the people of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath were put to forced work.

 34 And the children of Dan were forced into the hill-country by the Amorites, who would not let them come down into the valley;

 35 For the Amorites would go on living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; but the children of Joseph became stronger than they, and put them to forced work.

 36 And the limit of the Edomites went from the slope of Akrabbim from Sela and up.

 (BBE)

They failed to follow God's instructions and suffered the consequences.  But God always reserved his remnant, his people.

I want to spend time in this book discussing other "small" people before we JUMP.  

See this: "Judges" covers a time after Joshua has won the war, but not entirely destroyed the enemy, when the enemy goes on even as the people of God struggle to conquer both the external attacks and their own internal spiritual failings to follow the Word, all the while awaiting the arrival of the king, though they will demand a king before the true king arrives and receive the false king who will rule until God removes him and places the real king.  During this tween time, God's people will struggle and win victories but then fall back into sin and then repent and then...You read the cycle above and see how people do it in their own lives.  Cycle in and out of sin.

This time was God's preview of the Church Age, as dispensationalists like to refer to OUR time.  A time when Jesus, our Joshua,  has won the victory, but not destroyed the enemy.  This time, love your enemy.  Because we were all unsaved in the beginning, all his enemy.  This time there's no need to destroy the enemy. We seek to let Jesus destroy the power of Satan IN the enemy.

But let's stop here.  Pause to discuss that destruction of the physical enemy, that war we like to perceive as happening then.