We'll consider some introductory matters so we know what we're doing as we get to the study of this particular book. So Judges 2, beginning in verse 1.
Scripture Reading: Judges 2
Then the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. but you have not obeyed my voice.
Why have you done this? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall be thorns in your side, and their God shall be a snare to you.' So it was, when the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept. Then they called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there to the Lord. And when Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land.
So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, which he had done for Israel. Now, Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old. and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Heras in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gesh. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals.
And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them. And they bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So he delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them. And he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said and as the Lord had sworn to them.
And they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord.
They did not do so. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of 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 oppress them and harass them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them.
They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn ways. Then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded my voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord, to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not. Therefore, the Lord left those nations without driving them out immediately, nor did he deliver them into the hand of Joshua. Amen.
Well, we come to the second book. in what is called the former prophets. We're all familiar with the prophets, men like Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Daniel, and then the 12 minor prophets. Well, the Jews classified the books from Joshua to 2 Kings as the former prophets. So they do, in fact, relate history, but it's theological history.
They're prophets writing to educate the people of God to call them to fidelity to God and to remind them of the grace and the mercy of God. So we considered last time the book of Joshua. I just want to give us some introductory material. Whenever you start a new book in the Bible, it's good to know who wrote it, why they wrote it, when they wrote it, what the situation was concerning the writing of that particular book.
So that's what I mean by introduction.
Date, Setting, and Authorship
So tonight, we're going to look at the date, historical setting, and the author of the book. Secondly, the cycles of sin, oppression, and deliverance, and thirdly, an outline, and then fourthly, some major themes in this book. As I was reading the commentaries, one of the men said that this is a very dark book. If you're familiar with the book of Judges, you know there's a lot of sin, and a lot of wickedness, and a lot of evil, but there's a lot of light in it as well.
Sometimes we don't always appreciate the fact that the primary emphasis in the Book of Judges is that God saves, God is merciful, and God delivers his people. The twin themes of man's wickedness and God's graciousness are certainly highlighted here in the Book of Judges. So let's just do this, go through the date, the historical setting, and the author. Now remember, just to kind of rehearse what we've already seen in the books up to this point, in the book of Genesis, God made a promise to a man by the name of Abraham.
He called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. He called him from his home. from his father, from his family, from everything that he knew and everything that he loved and he held dear. Well, God made a promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and that his people would, in fact, inherit a particular piece of land. And so then we see this people that are connected to Abraham go into bondage or go into slavery.
And the book of Exodus rehearses that for us. And Exodus is about God redeeming those people out of slavery. He brings them out of the darkness and captivity in Egypt. and he brings them on the way, at least, to the promised land. In the book of Leviticus, the people are given various laws on how they are to conduct themselves when they get into the land.
They are to be a separate people, they are to be a holy people, they are to be a distinct people. When we get to the book of Numbers, we see that there was a reconnaissance mission. Military people ought to like this. Twelve spies were sent to visit the land, to spy it out, to see if it was a good land and bring back a report to Israel.
So these twelve spies go into the land, they return, and two spies say, let's go and take the land at once. Those men were Joshua and Caleb. Ten spies grumbled, whined, and complained and said, we can't take the land because there's giants in the land and we'll certainly lose. So God, in His anger, judged that particular generation.
The bulk of the people died there in the book of Numbers. Afterwards, the second generation finally ends up at the plains of Moab, and that's where the book of Deuteronomy takes place. There is the second generation, the children of those who had died in the wilderness, and God, through Moses, gives them a series of addresses on what they were to do when they entered into the promised land. And then of course Joshua, which we just finished looking at in detail, is tasked with going into the promised land.
So the children of Israel cross the river Jordan, they enter the land, they conquer the land, they possess the land. And then Joshua encourages them that faithfulness and obedience to the Lord is the way for them to retain the land. Now, overall, Joshua presents a very positive look at this particular conquest. Judges portrays the not-so-positive look of this particular conquest.
In Joshua, they go in and they break the back of Canaanite resistance. So they do conquer the land. But Judges, they need to settle the land and they need to get rid of the remaining Canaanites that are there. They need to obey God who told them, this is how you ought to go, or this is how you are supposed to go into the land to dispossess it.
You're to utterly destroy them, you're to take their stuff, and you're to send them on their way. Now the reason why God does this is not because he's vicious or mean or unkind to these poor Canaanites. The Canaanites were wicked. They were vile.
They had sinned against God. So God uses Israel as a means to bring judgment to bear upon Canaan. Sometimes people who don't like the Bible look at this and say, well, that doesn't seem quite fair. Here were these happy, innocent Canaanites living in the land.
They had dug wells. They had built cities. They had grown vineyards. And now God says for the people of Israel to go in and kill them and take everything they built?
Well, yeah, that's what God said, and it was an act of judgment because the Canaanites were wicked. Now, as we move through the Old Testament, we will see that Israel starts to behave like Canaanites. And when Israel behaves like Canaanites, then God sends them out of the land. God is just.
Whether you're a Canaanite or you're an Israelite, if you disobey God, if you violate His covenant, then ultimately He'll bring the hammer to fall upon you in judgment. That is a basic fact of Scripture. God is holy, man is not. If we do not repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and take the forgiveness that is offered freely through Him, we will most certainly perish in hell for all eternity.
That's the reality and that's what God is doing, at least in a foreshadowing sort of way with reference to the Canaanites here. And it's interesting, as we move through these various books of the Bible, Exodus begins with the death of Joseph. Remember, Genesis ends with Joseph's death, and then Exodus begins with that death. Joshua begins with the death of Moses.
Judges begins with the death of Joshua. Had we read chapter 1, verse 1, we would have seen that. 1 Kings begins with the death of David. David says, and yet for all that, even though these good men die, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, we see good men die. He says, and yet for all that, God's kingdom does not collapse, even when the grave takes God's most useful servants.
The kingdom of God continues though the servants of God die. Your help is in the name of the Lord, not in the name of your favorite Christian hero." That's an encouraging statement here. Even though Joshua is dead, that doesn't necessarily mean that the people of Israel are doomed. Now, unfortunately, they sin and rebel against God. what means they're going to be doomed, but it has nothing to do with the death of Joshua, though at least indirectly a good leader oftentimes does help people.
Date and Author of Judges
Anyways, the book was probably written between 1398 BC and 1043 BC, so the death of Joshua and the beginning of the monarchy. The monarchy is when the first king began, that was Saul. Technically, Eli and Samuel were also judges as well, even though they're not in this book of Judges. Now, in terms of the author, we don't have something like we have in Paul's letters.
In Paul's letters, usually in the first verse or two, he says, I, Paul, a bondservant of the Lord, by the commandment of God, write to you. We don't have that in Judges. We don't ultimately know who wrote Judges. Now, we believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
That means that God, who is sovereign and all-powerful, can take a man and so use that man that the very words that the man writes are the very words of God himself. That's the doctrine of inspiration. Paul speaks of that in 2 Timothy. All scripture is given. by inspiration of God.
Now when it speaks of inspiration there, it doesn't mean like you and I are inspired when we see a nice sunset. No, it means God breathes through these men the particular words he wants them to put on paper. And so God does this through human authors, but the scriptures themselves have the very stamp of God's divinity all over them. But in terms of the particular author, quote John Gill here, he says, it is not certain who was the penman of this book.
Some ascribe it to King Hezekiah, others to Ezra. But the Jewish writers are generally of opinion that it was written by Samuel, which is most likely who was the last of the judges. Now, that's as good a guess as any. Probably that is the case.
But we'll probably just refer to the author of Judges as the author of Judges.
The Office of Judge in Israel
The reason for the title, why is the book called Judges? It's called Judges because that is the title given to the main characters in the book itself. Now when you and I hear the word judge, we think of a man in a black gown with a hammer banging on a table. We might think of divorce court or people's court.
We might think of the local magistrate. That's not what the judges were in Israel. They were not tasked primarily with adjudicating internal strife in Israel. They were tasked primarily with delivering Israel from external foes and enemies.
Again, John Gill says, which office, judges, was different from that of kings, and seems only to have been occasional. Remember, at this time in Israel's history, they're a theocracy. Theocracy means God rules, right? Monarchy or aristocracy is when the rich rule, democracy is when the people rule, a theocracy is when God rules.
So God is ruling the nation of Israel and he does appoint human leaders, he uses human instruments, but it is ultimately God that everybody's answerable to. And so Gill says that this office was different from that of King's and seems only to have been occasional and chiefly lay in delivering the people out of the hands of their enemies when oppressed, distressed, or carried captive by them. That's their primary task. So when you hear the book of Judges, don't think of the guy in the black robe giving you a fine of $100 because you ran a red light.
Of course, I'm sure it's going to be a lot more than $100 if you run a red light, so don't run red lights. That's not what the judges were. They were public figures to be sure, but their primary emphasis was to deliver Israel from the oppressing enemies. They received their authority and power directly from God.
They were appointed for deliverance from external threat. And they were, interestingly enough, called deliverers or saviors. That's why I say that the Book of Judges isn't a dark book. It's ultimately a book full of light that indicates this reality that God Most High saves his people.
He delivers them. He protects them. He gives them everything they stand in need of. This corresponds, of course, to what we find so clearly prevalent in New Covenant Christianity.
We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. We have been redeemed from the bondage of sin. We have been reconciled to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been saved freely by His grace.
We have been called out of darkness into marvelous light. Our God certainly delivers us. Remember that the name of Joshua is Yahweh, or God, is salvation. It's the same name given to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yahweh, or Jehovah, is salvation. Remember what the task was that Jesus had entrusted to him. At the birth narrative in Matthew chapter 1, you shall call his name Jesus. Why?
Because it's one of the top ten names that are common among men today? No, you shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who will save his people from their sins.
Judges as Types of Christ
I submit that every time we see an Othniel in this book, Every time we see a Deborah or a Barrett, every time we see Ehud, or every time we see Shamgar or Jephthah, it is a down payment, it is a foreshadowing, it is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ and the great deliverance that He brings by defeating our foe, by defeating our oppressor, and by bringing us out of darkness into His marvelous light. This book screams gospel. This book tells us about God's grace and His mercy. He finds His people in sin, in misery, and in wretchedness, and what does He do?
He raises up a man to go in and to save them. Does that sound familiar? New Testament Christians ought to love this book, we ought to go through this book, and we ought to be very mindful of this particular book. They are the saviors of Israel.
Notice in 2, 16-19. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Again in chapter 3 at verse 9. It says, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel.
In verse 15, we see the same emphasis. The Lord raised up a deliverer for them. Now, all these deliverers were imperfect men, to be sure. All these deliverers had their issues and had their problems.
I mean, when you look at the judges in Israel, the first lesson isn't imitate their character. This isn't a book of moralism. This isn't just go out and be a better Jephthah. Just go out and be a better Ehud.
What this is, is showing us the redemptive power of God using means that are less than stellar. They point forward to the one who ultimately is stellar. that is without spot, that is without stain, that is without blemish, who can successfully execute all the demands of the covenant because of his perfect obedience to the Father. Truly, Judges is a good book. 1518, this is the mouth of Samson and what he confesses, Samson being one of these particular judges. Then he became very thirsty, so he cried out to the Lord and said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant.
And now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? He got to love Samson. I mean, that's another great thing about going through this book. The brothers.
They're cool. And then Obadiah, verse 21. Obadiah verse 21 highlights something of what judges are tasked with doing. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. before Jonah.
Then saviors, Obadiah 21, then saviors or deliverers shall come to Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau and the kingdom shall be the Lord's. So it's important as we move through this book that we get out of our heads the concept of a man in a black gown giving you a ticket because you went too fast. A judge in Israel was a man raised up by God to deliver his people from oppression and from the enemies that were invading. Now, interestingly enough, the judges did not help Israel religiously.
They did not help Israel in terms of repentance. They did not help Israel in terms of not engaging in Baal worship. As I said, their primary function was to free them or deliver them from the oppression. There are three instances where God calls upon or challenges the people in Israel to live in a holy manner.
Chapter 2, verses 1 to 5, it is the angel of the Lord that does this, an envoy, an ambassador, probably the pre-incarnate Christ. Israel is challenged by a prophet in chapter 6, verses 7 to 10, and then Israel is challenged by God himself in chapter 10. So when we read through judges and we see the spiritual decline, we see idolatry, we see all of this wickedness, we'll oftentimes see hints of this and presence of this in the lives of the judges themselves. Again, they're not perfect.
They're pointing forward to a man that is perfect, even the Lord Jesus, who would save his people from their sins. So that's the date, historical setting, and the author.
The Cycle: Sin, Oppression, Deliverance
Secondly, look at chapter 2. It is a very good outline of the entire book. Sin, oppression, and deliverance. That's the cycle that you find, beginning in chapter 3 at verse 7 to chapter 16, verse 21.
That's the bulk of the book. You have an introduction, chapter 1.1 to 3.6. You have the body of the book itself, 3.7 to 16.21. And then you have an appendix, basically, or an epilogue in chapters 17 to 21.
But in that big section from 3 to 16, or 3 to the end of 16, that's where you have the judges doing their thing. And the thing that you see, or the cycle that you see, is sin, oppression, and deliverance. If you think of fake grass, well, I guess it's not fake, but if you think of sod, you've got the book of Judges down. Sin, oppression, deliverance.
If we were fifth graders, I'd say, repeat with me. Sin, oppression, deliverance. That's the point of the book. Sin, oppression, deliverance.
Again, sounds a lot like New Covenant Christianity. We sin, we're oppressed by the devil, and God delivers us through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the point in the book of Judges.
Israel's Sin Examined
Now notice first the sin of Israel, chapter 2, verses 1 to 12. And I'm just going to give you five things to think about.
Failure to Obey Deuteronomy 7
First, they failed to obey Deuteronomy 7, verses 1 to 5. They failed to obey Deuteronomy 7, verses 1 to 5. We'll look at that in just a moment. But as we consider their sin, chapter 2 sets that out for us.
It tells us about their sin, tells us about their oppression, and then tells us about God's plan for deliverance. But the sin that they're guilty of is that they do not obey Deuteronomy 7, 1 to 5. They don't obey a lot of Deuteronomy, they don't obey a lot of the Law of God, but primarily in 7, 1-5, that's the command to Holy War. That's the command for them when they go into Canaan.
They were not to go into Canaan and leave the Canaanites alone. They were not to go into Canaan and make treaties with the Canaanites. They were not to go into Canaan and marry Canaanite women. They were not to go into Canaan and bow at Canaanite altars.
They were to go and dispossess the land. God knows us. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that if we make treaties with people that are outside of Christ, we will stumble.
He knows that if we marry people that are outside of Christ, we will stumble. He knows that if we get too close to false worship, we will stumble. That's just the reality. That's why Deuteronomy 7, 1 to 5, God very vividly says, and you can look there with me, what he says in terms of holy war against the Canaanites.
And again, not because God is mean, or vicious or unkind, but it's an act of judgment upon a wicked people that went into his land and lived like the devil. Chapter 7 verses 1 to 5, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them. Probably a political alliance.
Don't make covenants with them. Don't agree with them that we're going to just dwell in the land together. No, don't do that. Nor shall you make marriages with them.
You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. Why? For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.
The Bible never says that we're so holy that we won't be polluted by others. The Bible says just the opposite. Our predisposition and our inclination is to that which is unholy and which is evil and which is wicked. So we need to guard our hearts and guard our minds and resist the tendency to compromise our spiritual well-being.
James says, pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God the Father is this. to visit widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unspotted in the world. That's a mandate. He doesn't say it's OK for you to go and make political alliances with the devil. It's OK to go and marry the devil's daughters.
And it's OK to go and bow at the devil's altars. Because after all, you're so godly, and you're so holy, and Christ is so much in you that you'll never stumble. It's just the opposite. We are told to pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
We are told to stay away from those things which will destroy our souls. Verse 5, but thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars and break down their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. Go back to Judges.
Judges chapter 1 rehearses. the advancement and the success that Israel had incurred. But then it indicates the problems that they faced. It indicates, beginning in verse 27, however, chapter 1, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean. The end of verse 28, but did not completely drive them out.
Verse 29, nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites. Verse 30, nor did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Ketron. Verse 31, nor did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko. The end of verse 32, for they did not drive them out.
Verse 33, nor did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh. You see the pattern? They didn't do what God said. Let's just get it out of our heads that life is good and we will be blessed when we disobey God.
It's just not going to happen. No, God is merciful. God is kind and overrules our evil and oftentimes showers grace and mercy upon us. It's not because we're idiots.
It's because he's gracious and it's because he's merciful. And then notice this. What we have are Israelites possessing the land, but they didn't drive them out. Look at what happens with Dan in verse 34.
And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountains, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley. So it's not just a matter of certain tribes having some Canaanites around. Now the Canaanites are saying to Dan, You need to get out of here. It is the reverse of what they are supposed to be doing.
This does not bode well for them. So that's the first aspect of their sin drawn out here in Chapter 2, failure to obey Deuteronomy 7.
Failure to Transmit Faith: Deuteronomy 6
I would suggest, secondly, they had a failure to comply with Deuteronomy 6. And I'm specifically connecting it with Deuteronomy because that's foundational. Remember those exhortations on the plains of Moab? This is how you're supposed to conduct yourself when you get to the promised land.
Notice what it says in chapter 2, verse 10. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel. Now, I don't believe that means cognitively. They didn't know the Lord.
They didn't know there was a Yahweh. They didn't know there was a God in Israel. I don't think that's what it means at all. It doesn't have to do with cognition.
It has to do with the reality that they did not know Him experientially. They did not know Him relationally. They did not know him as Lord and Savior. They did not know him as the God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt.
They did not know him as the one who revealed his mighty arm in the wilderness. They did not know him as the God who had saved them and brought them to this place. It was not cognitive, it was experiential. And I believe this highlights a failure to comply with Deuteronomy chapter 6.
You may turn there. Remember, this is Israel's central confession of faith. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. What is to be our response to that central confession?
It says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Now notice the mandate for parents in Israel. Verse 6, and these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children.
Judges 2.10 tells us they didn't, did they? They didn't know the Lord. They didn't know His mighty deeds. The next time you feel lazy and you don't want to open the Bible for your children, you ought to come to Deuteronomy 6 and stop over at Judges 2.10 and see what happens when we neglect to teach good doctrine to our children.
When we do not go to church where good doctrine is being preached. When we are not learning what God the Lord has called us to put in our minds and to put in our hearts so that we might not sin against Him. Look at what he says, you shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.
You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So as an individual, the word needs to be internalized. As families, the word needs to be internalized.
And here in Israel, societally, the word of God is to be on your gates. That's indicative that the society itself is under the word of the living God. He then gives cautions to Israel, how they are to avoid certain difficulties when they come into the land. Beginning in verse 10, there would be a danger of forgetting God, because they had plenty.
Right? This is what the wise man said, give me neither poverty nor riches. Why? Because if I'm poor, I might go out and steal and dishonor the Lord.
But if I'm rich, I might forget God. And the Lord tells Israel, when you go into this land, and you eat things you didn't grow, and you drink things you didn't drink, the danger is you will forget the Lord your God who gave you these good gifts. They do that. This isn't fake.
God's not just saying, you know, this might possibly happen. He is telling them this is going to happen. So the danger of forgetting God due to affluence or prosperity in verses 10 to 13. Danger of abandoning God because of idolatry, verses 14 and 15.
Danger of doubting God because of hardship, verse 16. And then notice, one of the correctives, one of the helps, one of the encouragements that they do not fall prey to this, Verse 20, When your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household.
See, I don't really get surprised when people who don't spend time with God's Word get all shaken in their lives. I'm not suggesting that when you know God's Word or you have some of it hidden in your heart, you don't have trials and you don't have difficulties. You have trials and you have difficulties, but that Word of God acts like a buoy to keep you rooted so that you don't freak out. This is the point when you go into the land and you have these tendencies and these temptations, and your son says, tell us about the Lord.
You rehearse to him the great things that God has done. This will have a good effect upon the heart of these young men. Then he brought us out from there that he might bring us in to give us the land of which he swore to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always that he might preserve us alive as it is this day then it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God as he has commanded us so in 210 in Judges it says another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel that's it right there When you get to 1 Samuel, you will meet Eli's sons.
Are Eli's sons good men? No. Eli's sons lay with prostitutes, and they steal sacrificial meat. I mean, imagine that.
You go to hand your meat to a priest so he can offer it up, and he takes it and eats it. Eli's sons were bad actors. Do you know what their primary problem was, according to 1 Samuel 2.12? They did not know Yahweh.
That's it. They didn't know God. So that when we see them laying with temple prostitutes, we don't actually see that. The text tells us.
And when we see them stealing meat, it's not a surprise because they didn't know the Lord. So when we follow beyond chapter 2, verse 10, and we start to see that they forsook the Lord, they worshiped Baal, they worshiped Asherah, they did these sorts of things, it shouldn't surprise us. They didn't know the Lord. If we do not know the Lord, then we're not going to act consistently like those who know the Lord.
It's just the way it goes. We need to believe the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's at that vantage point that we then are able to pursue those things which are pleasing to the Lord our God. They did not know him. Davis says amnesia produces apostasy.
They forgot God. What's the natural inclination? Apostasy. We take God out of society, what happens?
Apostasy. It's not rocket science. If people are not worshiping and serving the creator, they will worship and serve the creature. So they failed to obey Deuteronomy 7.
They failed, secondly, to comply with Deuteronomy 6.
Israel's Outright Rejection of God
Thirdly, they reject God. They reject God. Notice in verse 12, they forsook the Lord God of their fathers. He was the God of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
He was the God who delivered them from Egypt, as it says here, and he was the God who made a covenant with them, according to 220. So they had a relationship with this God, and yet they reject Him, they forsook Him, and now they're chasing after idols. They're chasing after the gods of Canaan. They prefer Baal and Asherah over Yahweh.
Why? Because Baal and Asherah give you what you want, essentially. This was a fertility religion. And Baal was the male god.
Asherah was the female god. So the worshipers would fornicate or copulate or engage in some form of sexual immorality with a view to get Baal and Asherah to do the same sort of thing. It's kind of like priming the pump. My uncle had a cabin out in Oregon, and before they had a sink inside where you could just turn the thing, there was a pump.
One of those things that you do like this to get the water going. We had to prime the pump. There was a little bucket of water there. You poured it down into the nozzle, and then you started wrenching it and then it would start to give water.
That's why when you're reading through the Old Testament you see people engaged in sexual immorality a lot of times. It is for the purpose of religion. They're trying to get Baal and Asherah to copulate so that they will then fertilize the land. One commentator makes this observation, and I think he's right on.
Fertility religion was concerned to secure for the worshipper a large family, large flocks and herds, and abundant crops. It was the ancient equivalent to the modern health and wealth gospel. So Bale and Asher were the Benny Hinn of that generation. They were the Freddie Price of that generation, the Kenneth Copeland of that generation.
You just give me what I want, Bale. So they saw immediate gratification in this particular way. Their Canaanite neighbors would go out, say a little prayer to Baal, and then it might happen to rain. And being fools, they'd say, wow, we ought to try praying to Baal, and maybe it'll rain on our crops as well.
You see what happens. They start to entertain a little bit of Baalism in terms of neighbor, and then it's not long before they're bowing down with them. So they reject the Lord God Almighty. They serve the Baals.
They forsook the Lord God of their fathers. They compromise with Canaanite religion. When you reject the living and true God, you are still a worshiping creature. Never forget that.
Man is a religious being. He will worship something. He will worship money. He will worship sex.
He will worship drugs. He will worship himself. He will worship something. So when you stop or you turn back or you reject God, the living and true, you turn to Baals or Asherah or whatever it is that you think is pleasing.
Davis again says, what began as toleration, where they didn't kill all the Canaanites, became apostasy. What seemed so reasonable proved lethal. Living with Canaanites led to worshiping with Canaanites. Tolerate Baal's people, and sooner or later you bow at Baal's altar.
That's just reality. That is true. You've got to believe that. That's legit.
That's for new covenant Christians as well. How does John end his first letter? He says, my little children, keep yourselves from idols. He writes this glowing letter about love and about obedience to the Father and about pursuing righteousness.
He talks about Jesus Christ being the advocate, the propitiation for our sins. He talks about, I write these things so that you may not sin. But if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous. He talks about loving one another.
He talks about all these great Christian themes. And then in 521, as he ends the letter, it's not, I can't wait to see you again. I love you all so very much. I hope everything goes well for you and that you live happily ever after.
It's little children. Keep yourselves from idols. If we as Christians aren't going to learn that from 1 John 5.21, we should stick our faces in the book of Judges. Because the last thing that we can consider with reference to the sinfulness of man is their continual slide into moral depravity.
We get to chapter 17 and Micah hires his own private Levite and has family religion in a way accursed before God. It's not a teaching his children when he rises up and when he walks by the way and when he lies down. It is to take from the central sanctuary and put it in one's living room. Micah sins.
The Danites join in that. A Levite's concubine gets raped and murdered. He ends up cutting her up into pieces to send them to the various tribes. There's a civil war engaged with Benjamin.
Now remember that Joshua was tasked with taking the children of Israel in to engage holy war against Canaanites. The book ends with 11 tribes going to war against one tribe in the space of 21 chapters. This is real. Sin is powerful.
If we are not careful, we will end up likewise. It truly is a tragic picture. Remember when we ended Joshua, we made a bit of a link between Genesis and Joshua? How old was Joshua when he died? 110.
How old was Joseph when he died? 110, right? We get this link at the end of Joshua 24. It talks about the bones of Joseph being buried in Shechem. It talks about the final disposition of these servants of the Lord.
And we noted that Genesis is the book where promise is given. And at the end of Joshua, they inherit the land. Do you know that Judges returns to Genesis as well? But not to a positive.
When we get to that situation concerning the Levites' concubine, it's new Sodom. And guess who Sodom is? It's Israel. The same stuff that took place in Genesis chapters 18 and 19 with those dirty, vile Sodomites happens in Israel in the book of Judges.
You want to talk about wickedness? Just read this book. It really does encapsulate what is in man's heart. So that's sin.
Oppression. Remember? Sod. A teaching device there.
Sod. Think green. Think sod. Think judges.
Sin, oppression, deliverance. Chapters 3, 4, 6, 10, and 13. We won't rehearse each instance. There's Syrian oppression that Othniel delivers the people from.
There's Moabite oppression in chapter 3 verse 12, which Ehud delivers Israel from. Isn't that a great story? Can't wait to get there. He who has a message from the king, or from God.
Actually, it's this way. He's a left-handed man. Canaanite oppression, Deborah and Barak. Midianite oppression, Gideon.
Philistine and Ammonite oppression, chapter 10, Jephthah. And then Philistine oppression again in chapter 13 with Samson. So you see the sin. brings oppression. This is God's judgment of his sinful people.
And then interestingly enough, when they are in that position, they cry out to the Lord and he delivers them. I learned it not as sod, I learned it as sword. Sin, oppression, repentance, and deliverance. I'm not, however, convinced that they repented.
Not at all. Just because they cried out in their distress doesn't necessarily mean they had a change of mind and were wholly following the Lord God. So I leave that R out. If you want to throw the R in and remember sword, you're free to do that.
But Sod seems to encapsulate it well. Sin, oppression, deliverance. That's the cycles that recur throughout the book. The children of Israel would cry out.
God would hear them and would raise up deliverers. The children of Israel cry out, according to chapter 3, twice, chapter 6, and then chapter 10. That is the background for each of these judges whom God raises up to deliver Israel from that oppression caused by their sin and God's just judgment upon them.
Outline of Judges
The outline, it breaks down into three easy sections, 1-1 to 3-6, introduction, 3-7 to 16-21, body, or the bulk of the book, and then chapters 17 to 21 is the epilogue, as I said, or the final word dealing with Israel. Now, some of the commentators, I think, help explain it quite well. Dumbrell, not Dumbell, but William J. Dumbrell, a very good Old Testament scholar, and a very helpful book called The Faith of Israel.
I highly recommend that book. It's very readable. It's a biblical theology of the Old Testament. Very good.
He says that chapter 1, verse 1 to 3, 6 is the introduction to the period of the judges. And it is. It tells us what advancements they had made in Canaan, and their apostasy and what God is going to do to them. Secondly, he describes that bulk section, 3.7 to 16.31, as the exploits of the heroic figures, the judges themselves.
And then the third section, two appendixes about life during the period, and that's 17 to 21. Dale Ralph Davis, again, the numbers don't change. There's three sections. Every commentator sees that.
The first section, 1.1 to 3.6, is the failure of a second generation. 3.7 to 16.31 is the salvation of a long-suffering God. I like that. Failure of the people, salvation of a long-suffering God. And then the last section, Davis says, is the confusion of a depraved people, 17 to 21.
Another theme that is recurring, I neglected to say this when we considered the sin of Israel, is that there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. If you want a good picture of what autonomy looks like, that means self-rule, Judges is a good one. It's not a pretty picture. Some say that Judges was written as a bit of a tract to promote monarchy.
In other words, here's what Israel looks like without a king. That's how desperately we need a king. But there is somewhat of some anti-monarch statements in the book itself. It's interesting that Judah in chapter 1 is the first tribe that we see going out and doing their job and conquering the land.
You know it's Judah that gives Samson into the hands of the Philistines? I mean, Judah, the royal tribe, they're shown to us in chapter one, doing their job, conquering the land. We get to chapter, I think it's 16, with Samson. They give Samson over into the hands of the Philistines.
Terrible. I mean, it's just, if you wonder how the depths of depravity, how low they can go, Judges is a good book for that. Anyway, so that's how Davis does it. I think I like Daniel Block.
I don't think I like him. I like his commentary anyway. I like the way he refers to what's going on in Judges. He says it is the Canaanization of Israel.
In other words, Israel has gone into Canaan, and instead of dispossessing the land, they are becoming Canaanites. They are taking on the characteristics of the people there, because they do enter into political alliance. They do marry their sons and daughters, and they do worship at their altars. So Bloch says that first section is the background to the canonization of Israel, Israel's failure in the Holy War.
The second section is God's response to the canonization of Israel, the cycles of apostasy and deliverance. And then third, climax, the depths of the canonization of Israel, those last three chapters. That's a bit of an outline. I always find it helpful to have that right at my margin so I can know where I'm at.
Major Themes in Judges
Major themes I think you probably can surmise at this point. Wickedness of man, yes. You know, that's definitely a major theme. His disobedience to God, his rejection of God, his idolatry, and his moral depravity.
We get to 17 to 21 and they're living like the devil. Again, it shouldn't surprise us because they've rejected the true and living God, they've turned to idols, and as a result, their practice looks abominable. It is for a very specific reason that when the Apostle Paul comes to set forth the gospel of free and sovereign grace in Romans chapter 3 at verse 21, he prefaces the good news. That's what gospel means.
Good news. Good news presupposes or assumes Bad news. And in chapter 1 at verse 18 to chapter 3 and verse 20 in the book of Romans, Paul points out the bad news. And he starts in Romans 118 by saying that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
Some commentators do not see that order as being for a particular purpose. I think it is. John Murray says so, and I think Murray's right. All ungodliness and unrighteousness.
When we are ungodly, we will be unrighteous. What we think about God, what we conceive concerning God, how we respond to God affects the way that we live. If we reject God, if we say no to God, then idolatry and all manner of evil and wickedness is certainly going to follow. So the Book of Judges follows that trajectory.
They do not remember, or they do not know God. They turn to Baal. They turn to Asherah. They turn to the fertility religions.
They do what's right in their own eyes, and it ends up in an absolute mess and chaos by the time we get to the end of the book. So the wickedness of man, but something that we really need to appreciate in the Book of Judges is the character of God. Because I think that when we see man as man is, then we can see God as God is. There's an instance in the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah chapter 3. Five times God says to the people, yet return to me, says the Lord. It's truly amazing. Yet return to me, says the Lord.
Now you can read Jeremiah 3 and really get thrilled by reading that and seeing five times God saying, yet return to me, says the Lord. But if you read chapter 2, It's even that much more amazing, because chapter 2 tells us how sinful these people were. It tells us things like, can a bride forget her ornaments? Could it ever be the case that a young woman would show up on our wedding day and not be decked out?
Of course not. Every woman, it's just built in, right? I'm getting married, I gotta look great. I'm getting married, I gotta do the whole spiel.
And that's biblical. When John sees New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, how does he describe it? As a bride adorned for her husband. It's biblical.
It's legit. It's righteous. It's godly. But the Lord says, can a bride forget her ornaments?
Well, of course not. My people have forgotten me days without number. Does a nation change its gods? No, the pagans are consistent.
My people exchange their glory for that which is not God. So when you understand Jeremiah 2, when you get to the yet return to me says the Lord in Jeremiah 3, it's mind-blowing. So every time you're walking through the land of Canaan in the book of Judges, and you see what the people are doing, you see them bowing at Baal's feet, or you see them calling upon Baal, or you see them forsaking Yahweh, and then you see the suppressor come in, and then they cry out to the Lord. It's as if God can't help Himself, He goes and delivers them.
That's the grace of God. That's what the book is about. It's about deliverance. It's about salvation.
It's about how God deals with his people in their misery, in their sin, in their ungodliness. The Lord initiates the covenant. He tolerates no rival. The second commandment says that he's a jealous God.
You see that here in the book of Judges. He is long-suffering, he is gracious, and it ultimately is he who will build his church. The children of Israel do not get out of the period of the judges based on their virtue or on their goodness. No, it is God alone who sustains.
It is God alone who keeps. It is God alone who preserves and advances this covenant community. So those are some of the lessons that I hope that we'll see as we move through this book. It certainly pictures, typifies, and shows for us the redemption that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
For certainly, as we look at Judges chapter 2, I hope that we will all see at least a glimmer or a glimpse of us in that passage. We do not know the Lord by nature. We reject him outright. We serve Baals.
We serve Asherah. We serve whatever gods, whatever idols, whatever things please us. God brings oppression. God brings things in our lives to get our attention.
He shows us our sin. He shows us our misery. And by his grace, we cry out to him. And what does he do?
He comes. He saves. He delivers. He frees.
And it's through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly, that is the deliverer that these judges picture and point forward to. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Our Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for this book of Judges. We pray that you would guide us in our studies and help us to see in it the things that you would have for us as a local church and as individuals. We just thank you for your grace. We sing of it.
We talk about it, but God, I wonder at times if we really consider how wonderful it is that you forgive us, not of some of our sins, but you forgive us of all of our sins. As the scripture so clearly says, in Christ we have redemption through his blood. Please go with us now, watch over us in the remainder of the week, bring us together on the Lord's Day, that we may worship and praise and honor you. And we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.