When Everyone Does As They See Fit (Walk Thru the Bible Week 12)

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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12 month journey through the most exciting

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book on the planet.

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It will transform your life one page at a time.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible

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to life.

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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there and welcome back.

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This is Walk Through the Bible Week 12.

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We're going to be talking today about our reading, which from the Daily Bible this week was

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pages 354 through 383, or the dates in the Daily Bible of March 19 through the 25th.

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We read through this week the book of Judges and Ruth.

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And I have entitled this week, When Everybody Does as They See Fit.

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You know, last week we were so excited.

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It was finally time to enter the land and take possession of God's promises.

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And in Joshua 21, verses 43 to 45, it kind of gave a rosy picture about all that God

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had done for the Israelites when they conquered the land.

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And it said there that, so the Lord had given the land that he had sworn to give their answer

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to their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there.

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The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors.

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Not one of their enemies withstood them.

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The Lord gave their enemies into their hands.

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Not one of all the Lord's good promises to Israel failed.

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Everyone was fulfilled.

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Wow.

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That's like a huge wow.

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But this week, reality set in.

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The picture wasn't quite that rosy.

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So you might be asking, well, what does that mean?

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Does that mean that the writer of Joshua lied that they weren't telling the truth?

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Well, no, because other verses in Joshua actually told us about the failure of the various

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tribes to possess all of their land and to push out all of the inhabitants, the pagan

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inhabitants.

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So the book of Joshua was very honest.

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What's happening here in this verse, I think, is they were just writing in the writing style

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of the time.

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That's the way all the conquering kings from Egypt all the way up to Mesopotamia, that's

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the way they reported on the outcomes of their battles.

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And so they were just writing in the writing style of the context.

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But this week, we saw that the people of Israel, the tribes, they had moved into their allotments,

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but they were surrounded by enemies.

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And then we see that those enemies, because they were pagan, the pagan lifestyles and

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the false worship seeped into the camp of Israel and sin abound.

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And it was a very, very, very sad story.

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I have to say, I found it very depressing.

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After reading through the entire book of Judges in one week, it was very depressing.

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The only highlight was we also got to read the beautiful book of Ruth.

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So I want to just make a few comments about the period of the Judges.

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I'm going to end our time today with Ruth, but first let's wade through some of the difficult

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issues that we're confronted with this week.

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First let me say that the period of the Judges may have lasted as much as 400 years, maybe

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300 years.

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It's a little hard to really grasp the entire chronology of the period of the Judges, but

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it was a long time.

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And so the writer of the book of Judges picked the main stories of the time.

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But when you're reading it, keep in mind that these are stories that do not depict the whole

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time and all the people in that time.

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300 years is a lot.

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We've only read a handful of stories from that time.

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So while the writer of Judges is telling you about the battles, about the sin, about the

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apostasy as they're making the case for the need of a king, the book of Ruth gives us

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a little bit more of the other side of the story, the story about real people who are

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good people just seeking to survive but to be righteous.

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And it's a beautiful, beautiful story.

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So I'm so glad that we have it and that we're not just relying on the book of Judges to

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understand that time period.

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Now what is a judge?

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Who is a judge?

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You know, the word judge actually meant a military leader.

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At this time, the tribes have moved in.

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They've taken their various territories.

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They're spread out.

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They don't have a centralized government with a centralized leader.

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But what would happen is that in times in history, God would raise up a leader to bring

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justice for them which meant to protect them from foreign oppressors.

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So in other words, they were military leaders.

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They were able to call up the armies to go to war.

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That was really the function of what is called a judge in English.

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Now some of the judges were also prophets and some were even priests.

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But they were not kings and they were not government.

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They didn't have a centralized government.

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We even read that like Deborah, she was a judge.

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She was a prophet.

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And she was a judicial judge in that she actually went on a circuit and advised the people on

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judicial matters amongst them and resolved conflict.

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So not all the judges did that, but they were leaders that could muster up some of the armies

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to confront these oppressors.

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Now our whole story today is summed up from Judges chapter 2, the introduction to the

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book and then the very last verse of the book.

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If that's all you read, you would understand the story.

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So I'm going to read to you from Judges 2, picking out different verses up through chapter

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3 verse 6.

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So starting with verse 10.

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Now speaking here about the generation of Joshua and the leaders that had taken the

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land, it says, after that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another

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generation grew up who knew neither the Lord, knew neither the Lord nor what he had done

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for Israel.

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Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals, the Baals

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being the false gods.

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Skipping down the verse 14.

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In his anger against Israel, the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders and plundered

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them.

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He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around whom they were no longer able to

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resist.

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Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them.

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Just as he had sworn to them, they were in great distress.

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Verse 16, Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hands of the raiders.

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Yet they would not listen to their judges.

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Verse 18, Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them

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out of the hands of their enemies as long as that judge lived.

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Verse 19, But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those

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of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them.

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They refused to give up their evil practices in stubborn ways.

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Verse 20, Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, Because this nation

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has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, I will

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no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.

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I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk

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in it as their ancestors did.

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Then chapter 3, verses 5 through 6, So the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites,

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Amorites, Parasites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

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They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons and

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served their gods.

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Then skipping down to the very last verse of the entire book of Judges, 21, 25, In those

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days Israel had no king and everyone did as they saw fit.

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So to summarize what we have read this week and what this set of verses just explained

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to us, that there were repeated cycles going on throughout the whole period of the Judges.

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It was a cycle of sin that people would fall into apostasy and idolatry and very sinful

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behavior.

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So then God would allow their enemies to oppress them and the oppression at the time was a

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very, very brutal oppression.

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Remember this was not the 21st century, it was brutal.

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And so the people would then in desperation come back to the Lord and call out in repentance

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and repent for following the false gods.

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So then God would raise up a judge to bring deliverance.

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Now remember deliverance came in a military defeat of their enemies.

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And so he would raise up judges and we read the story of Deborah of Gideon and of Samson.

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And Deborah was a prophetess who led Israel to defeat the king Jabin of Hatzor.

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And Gideon was just an ordinary farmer from a very simple background.

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But God used him in an extraordinary way.

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And Samson was a womanizer, very weak man, very tempestuous man.

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And yet God used him.

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He was a judge for 20 years.

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And so these judges, because they would bring military strength and protect the people from

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the enemy that was oppressing them, then there was peace.

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And Israel would have a period of peace.

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And then they would fall right back into worshiping the other gods.

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And this cycle would begin again.

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And that's why it is such a sad story.

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We wished that the people would have learned their lesson, right, and stayed with God.

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But judges tells us a very, very, what can I say?

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I mean, it's very detailed and not a good picture.

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And that, I want to say, is still one of the reasons why we can trust in the Bible and

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its honesty.

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These stories were not whitewashed.

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These stories were not later removed by an editor that really didn't want the people

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of Israel to look so bad.

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No, they were left here.

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And so we read these stories about moral and spiritual depravity and idolatry and even

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corrupt priests, corrupt Levites, priests.

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We read about division and civil war.

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And the lesson is clear that when the people abandoned God's ways, life broke down and

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disintegrated at all levels.

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That is the lesson of judges.

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Now I'm not going to retell every story that you read this week.

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Some of them I'd rather not tell and just skip over.

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But I want to draw out some lessons and some key points for us in the stories that we read.

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First, I want to mention, you know, was it last week or the week before, I talked about

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the depiction of God in the Old Testament, that he led his people into war and that

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he led them to actually wipe out these pagan peoples.

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And I explained why that is.

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And if you've missed that episode, I recommend that you go back and watch it.

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I believe it's episode number seven.

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And today I want to add one more point to that, that I didn't take the time to cover.

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And that is how the Israelites viewed their God.

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So you know, in the time in which they lived, as I said, it was a dog eat dog world.

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It was a kill or be killed world.

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It was brutal.

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Okay?

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Very brutal.

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So these people, the Israelites saw their God just the way the pagans around them saw

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their God.

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And that is that their God was going to protect them and would bring victory over their enemy.

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Now you and I can sit here in the 21st century and we can look down on the Israelites for

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thinking that God would lead them into victory and that God would direct them to kill others

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and to wipe out the pagan peoples around them.

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And like I said, I gave a full explanation on that last week.

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So I'm not going to go there this week, but I want to say they saw their God exactly the

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way society then saw God.

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And it was within the context of a very, very brutal society.

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And today we have the luxury of sitting here in the 21st century.

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I'm sitting in the safety of the United States.

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I don't live in that world.

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And so my view and my relationship with God is slightly different.

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But does that mean that they were wrong?

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Does that mean that I'm wrong?

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And the answer is no.

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I believe God met His people where they were and within their context just like today.

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God meets us where we are and within our context.

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And I also want to talk about some of the archeological evidence that backs these stories.

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You know, I'm always wanting to share with you not just the story behind the stories,

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but also how accurate they are once we get to know the archeology of the time and some

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of the finds and some of the things going on in the context.

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And we have that in these stories this week.

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You know, first of all, the story of Deborah, the judge who was also a prophet.

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And her people were being harassed and oppressed by the Canaanites and by Javan, the king of

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Hattsoar.

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And so the head of his army, Cicera, or Cicera, if you want to pronounce it, was killed by

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El who took the tent peg and ran it through his temple.

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You read that story actually at the end of last week, beginning of this week.

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Well, do you know that in the Amarna letters, which are findings of thousands of writings

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of the time found in Egypt, they talked about the main cities of Canaan.

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And it was Gezer and Hattsoar and Shechem.

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And we read this week about two of them, Shechem and Hattsoar.

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And here they have found the archeological remains of Hattsoar in Israel.

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And it was destroyed and it was burned, just like we read about in this story.

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And in the ruins, they found an artifact with the name on it in the palace of Javan.

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Now we can't say 100% sure that this Javan is the Javan of the Bible and that the fire

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that destroyed Hattsoar is the fire of the Bible.

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But hey, what are the odds that it's not?

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I think it probably is.

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And I think it's a pretty cool find.

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We read the story about Gideon and his victory over the Midianites.

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We all know the story of Gideon because he actually was told to only take 300 men with

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him.

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And yet they brought about this great victory because, of course, it wasn't up to them.

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It was up to God who was with them.

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And Gideon is a good judge.

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He's a prophet and he brings strong leadership to the people and a very, very good season

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of their history under Gideon.

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But it says, no, as soon as he died, the people went after the Baals again.

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And then his son comes and his son, which is one of 70 sons that says he kills all 70

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in order to become the leader.

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And he gets the city of Shechem to follow him and to proclaim him as leader and to help

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him in this.

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Now like I said, Shechem is one of the three main cities of the region of the time.

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And here we have this story.

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And in the Amarna letters, it describes Shechem as having lords and a mayor.

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So they had this governing body that in the Bible it says Gideon went to.

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Isn't that cool?

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So little hints here and there of just how accurate these stories are.

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And then we had the story about Micah and the idols in his home and the Danites who

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came and stole his idols and took them up to the north of the country where they then

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took over a city called Laish and turned it into Dan.

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Now I told you about this story before I alluded to it that the tribe of Dan was given a territory

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that was down next to the Philistines.

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It was on the coastal area and they could not defeat the Philistines.

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They could not take their territory.

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And the other tribes did not come to their defense and help them in it.

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So they were kind of stuck.

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And here in this story it says they went looking for other territory.

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And they stumbled upon Micah and his home and this Levite priest who obviously is corrupt.

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He's got a shrine here with idols in it.

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And they end up taking these up to the north of the city of Laish which they turn it to

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Dan.

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In one of our very first episodes I told you how that up in the north of Israel and the

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city of Dan which during the time of Abraham was called Laish and that there at that city

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we have found a mud brick gate to the ancient city of Laish.

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This gate is 4,000 years old and the archaeologists have called it Abraham's Gate because it's

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so likely that Abraham actually entered that gate in the story that we read in I think

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Genesis 14 or 15.

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And when he's pursuing the people that had abducted Lot he says he goes up to the city

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of Laish.

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He reorganizes and then he goes on north past Damascus.

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And so this is Laish and we know Dan took it and we know that they renamed it.

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We know this from archaeology.

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And then we had the story of Samson, very troubled man, womanizer, carnal.

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But he had made this, his mother had made this Nazarite vow to God that his hair would

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not be cut.

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And the other parts of a Nazarite vow are that he would not partake of anything from

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the grape, which of course includes wine, but it's anything from grapes.

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And then secondly he wouldn't touch a dead corpse.

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And thirdly he would not cut his hair.

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And this was this Nazarite vow then actually produced in his life great strength.

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And the setting of this story is once again the Philistines.

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But we know that the Philistines were in the area along the coast during this period.

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We know this from other writings from Egypt.

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The Philistines were a seafaring people and they had actually fought in Egypt against

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Pharaoh Ramsey III, I think was his name.

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And they had been kicked out of Egypt.

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But Egypt allowed them to settle the coast here along the Canaanite area.

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The Philistines were very strong, fierce people.

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And they weren't just there, they were in a much larger area in Mesopotamia.

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And so they were a very formidable enemy to any of the Israelites in the area.

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And that's how we keep hearing about these Philistines.

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We know from archaeology they were there.

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And then their main god was Dagon.

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And Dagon was a major god throughout Mesopotamia at the time.

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And according to the book of Judges, he brings Dagon's temple down by pushing over the pillar.

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Now it may sound like a made up story, but actually in archaeology they have discovered

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there in that area two temples that had like a semi-open foyer area that had two pillars

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there and they were wooden pillars on stone pedestals.

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And so these two pillars held up a roof over this open entranceway, or open courtyard area.

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And Samson knew that.

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And I think Samson knew that he could maybe dislodge the wood pillar from off its stone

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pedestal.

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And that's what he did and brought it down.

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Well, my final point about Samson that I want to make is that his hair isn't what gave him strength.

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It was the Lord.

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And so in that story it says that although his hair was cut, when he got up, he did not

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know that the Lord had left him.

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It was the Lord that brought him the strength.

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One last thing I want to talk about is the Ark of the Covenant because in our stories

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thus far, we saw in the wilderness how God told them to make this ark.

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And this ark had a mercy seat over the top where the presence of God was known to reside.

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And in the wilderness, the Israelites were led by either a pillar of fire or a cloud.

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But it was the Ark of the Covenant that was known as housing the presence of God in the

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Holy of Holies.

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And so when they entered the land, if you'll remember, the priests carried the Ark of the

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Covenant first and stepped into the Jordan River and the water stopped and the people

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were able to cross.

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And after that they then took the Ark up to where they did a rededication of the Covenant

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at Gilgal.

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But then we read next about the Ark in Joshua 18 where, sorry, it's right before that.

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I don't know the exact chapter, but in Joshua, where Joshua takes everybody to Shechem,

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which is in between and puts half of them on Mount Gerazim and half of them on Mount

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Ebal.

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And they stand on either side of the Ark of the Covenant.

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So we read about the Ark of the Covenant there at Shechem in that scripture.

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But in Joshua, we later see and we read in our story this week that the Ark was at Bethel

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for a while because it was managed or kept by Aaron's grandson, Phineas.

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And I may not be pronouncing it right, but Phineas was the son of Aaron's third son because

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his first two sons were killed, they died.

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His next son had a son named Phineas and Phineas was keeping the Ark of the Covenant.

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But then in Joshua 18, we see the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle are in Shiloh.

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And later it is being kept by Eli, who is another grandson of Aaron by Aaron's fourth

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and last son.

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So we have the Ark kind of moving around during this time, but it ends up at Shiloh for something

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like 360 years, they think.

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And Shiloh becomes a real center for worship and that's where Eli is that we start our

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reading next week where we read the story about Eli and Samuel.

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That Ark of the Covenant is there in Shiloh.

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So I just wanted to give you that little rundown about the Ark because we don't hear a lot

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about it, it doesn't tell us when it actually moves from Bethel to Shiloh, but we do know

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that it ends up there in time for our reading next week.

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So next week we're going to do another going deeper interview with an archaeologist, Dr.

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Scott Strickling, and he is going to talk to us about Shiloh and the Ark of the Covenant

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and the Tabernacle there.

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So now I'm going way too long, I still want to talk really quickly about the beautiful

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book of Ruth and leave you with that beautiful, beautiful story.

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So in Ruth 1-1 it opens up and it says, in the days when the judges ruled, there was

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a famine in the land.

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So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for

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a while in the country of Moab.

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Of course, this is Eli Melik and his wife is Naomi and their two sons and their two sons

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marry local daughters who are from pagan families, they're from families that worship other

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gods.

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And that's the setting for this story of Ruth.

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It is the period of the judges, but it gives us a little bit of a different view of life

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then in that there was a peaceful migration because of famine from Bethlehem to Moab.

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There wasn't fighting.

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And there was an intermarriage here that was respectful of the God of Yahweh because Naomi

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still worship the God of Yahweh, but yet her sons had married these other daughters.

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So we know the story, her husband Eli Melik dies, the two sons die.

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She tells her two daughters-in-law, go back to your families and to your gods.

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And her daughter-in-law, Ruth, refuses.

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And her daughter-in-law, Ruth says these beautiful words that we have in chapter 1, verses 16

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through about 18.

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Where you go, I will go.

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And where you stay, I will stay.

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Your people will be my people.

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And your God, my God.

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Where you die, I will die.

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And there I will be buried.

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Beautiful story of this pagan girl who has adopted the God of Israel and become a part

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of the people of Israel through her loyalty to her mother-in-law.

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And then we have the beautiful story goes on of Boaz who is a relative of Naomi.

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And we understand this right of the Leverite marriage and the Kinsman Redeemer that when

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a woman has been widowed that someone in the family is to marry her in order to carry on

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the family line.

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And also it keeps the property within the family.

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And I should say within the tribe.

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So it's very important that the tribe of Benjamin keep the lands of the tribe of Benjamin as

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owned by someone in the tribe of Benjamin.

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And because the land was seen as owned by God, they didn't actually own land.

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So but they did have the right to possess the land and these property rights that passed.

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And that's why it was important to keep it in the family and in the tribe.

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And so we know the story.

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If you didn't have time to read it, please read it and let the beauty of it just soak

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in how that she, Ruth goes to Boaz and it says that she pulls the corner of his garment

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over her there on the threshing floor at night.

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Don't read too much into that.

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It wasn't a sexual gesture.

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I actually noticed that it used the word Knoff which was the same word for the corner of

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the garment where the tassels were to be tied as a reminder of the covenants of God.

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And so it could be that she was taking this hem of his garment and covering her as a physical

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depiction of his responsibility as the kinsman redeemer according to the covenants.

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It might have been like a reminder of him according to the commandments, what he needed

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to do and that she was asking of him to do that.

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I don't know.

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I just noticed that as I was doing the reading.

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But the story of Ruth wraps up with this.

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It demonstrates God's inclusiveness all along of anyone who wanted to join themselves to

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his people.

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And that's why we previously had the story of Rahab, how that she ends up in the family

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lineage of the Messiah.

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And here we have Ruth does the same.

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Ruth and Boaz have a son who then has a son, who then has a son who is King David.

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So Ruth ends up being the great grandmother of King David.

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And God is demonstrating there his grace and his mercy and that anyone could be included

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in the family.

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And so with that, I'm going to conclude today.

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I want to remind you to come back when we release the Going Deeper interview about Shiloh and

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the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle.

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And I hope you enjoy the reading.

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Next week we're going to move past the period of the judges.

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Thank goodness.

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What a relief.

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The cycle begins to come to an end.

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But we have a whole other transition to talk about next week.

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So I'll see you back then.

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And until then, God bless.