Making Sense of Judges pt 1

Today we turn to the Book of Judges. It’s like the comic book of the Bible with strange stories and heroes—superheroes even. But it’s a dark comic book, and the further we get into it the darker it gets. If it was a movie, it would get a hard R-rating.

The name of the book is kind of misleading to modern ears. We think of a judge as the person in a courtroom wearing a black robe who presides over trials. That’s not really what’s happening here. The Judges were the local, tribal leaders of Israel. They were a combination of Governor, Mayor, and military commander. When it says that God raised up a Judge, it means that He called a local leader to rise up and bring His judgment on Israel’s enemies. A better name for the book might be “Saviors” or “Deliverers.” “Avengers” even.

Last week we ended the book of Joshua with victory and faithfulness. All the people promising to do everything that God had commanded them to do through Moses. To be a nation of priests, showing the whole world the way to live in holiness, truth, and righteousness. God promised to bless them and make them the shining light of hope and glorious life—all the nations would see them and know that Yahweh is God, that He is good, and the whole world would come to know Him through the testimony of Israel. We ended the book of Joshua with the words “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!” and all the people said “AMEN!” They were going to drive the wickedness out of Canaan.

But you know the difference between a happy ending and a tragedy, right? It’s just where you stop telling the story. This is only the seventh book of the Bible, so we have a long way to go before we actually get to the happy ending of Revelation.

Judges starts with the death of Joshua and how Israel serves the LORD until that generation of elders, the ones who had seen the miraculous works that God had done—things like manna, the glory cloud, the crossing of the Jordan, Jericho—but once that generation dies. Well… 

The Book of Joshua starts a pattern in chapter two that continues throughout Judges—and through the rest of the books in the Bible. 

First, the people do evil in the sight of the LORD. So He gives them over to their enemies to get their attention. After a while they remember God and cry out to Him for help. He sends a Judge, a savior, an avenger, to rescue them. Then there’s peace in the land for a while until God gets fed up with their unfaithfulness and the cycle starts over again.

It’s a pattern that probably sounds very familiar because it’s the same pattern you and me cycle through on a constant basis, too.

In the Book of Judges, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever any real repentance. They don’t ever stop sinning. It’s more like when someone’s driving a car and they think they’re going to get in a wreck so they say “Help me Jesus!” But they have no intention of going back to church or changing their ways. As soon as they don’t wreck, they forget about the prayer.

Here’s the verse that kicks off the pattern:

Judges 2:11

“The Israelites did evil in the LORD’s sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the LORD. They abandoned the LORD to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth. This made the LORD burn with anger against Israel, so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions. He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them. Every time Israel went out to battle, the LORD fought against them, causing them to be defeated, just as he had warned. And the people were in great distress.” Judges 2:11–15

So disappointing, right? After Moses and Egypt and everything God had done for them. Why would they do this? It doesn’t make any sense, does it? 

Baal was the most popular of the Canaanite gods—at least to the Hebrews. He was the son of El, who was like the Zeus of the Canaanite pantheon. Baal was young and sexy and powerful. He was the Thunder god. He was basically Thor—the god in charge of the weather. He was also married to a hot goddess named Ashtoreth, who was the god of fertility. They were a power couple.

So, imagine you’re an Israelite, you don’t know much about farming, even though the survival of your family depends on it—you might look at your pathetic fields and then look at the plush amazing crops of your Canaanite neighbor and ask for some gardening tips. The first thing he’s going to say is “well, you have to appease Baal if you want your crops to grow.” You might resist at first, “oh no, I could never do that, my God Yahweh forbids it.” Your helpful Canaanite neighbor would be like, “well, enjoy starving.” 

Later he might invite you to go with him to the local Baal house of worship, you know, just to check it out. And that’s when you find out that Baal and Ashtoreth worship was a lot more fun than going to the Tabernacle and praying to Yahweh.

Since Baal and Ashtoreth were married, the way to worship them was to go to the shrine and have sex in their presence. Apparently, they like to watch. The idea was that you get them excited and then they’d give you what you want. Things like rain, good weather for the crops, and lots of healthy children and livestock.

Everywhere you went there were statues of Baal, temples with prostitutes—as you read through the Bible you’ll see hundreds of references to Asherah poles and Ashtoreths. These were giant phallics covered in exaggerated female genitalia. Basically ancient porn. I guess they were to help get you in the mood.

All the gods of the Canaanites, Egyptians, Phonecians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans—they were all just masks for demons. They’re still around, and we’re still tempted to worship them. They just wear different masks now. They’re not really gods, there’s only one God, but they are real and they want to hurt you.

Anytime we do something we know God doesn’t want us to do—we’re doing the same thing they did. Every time we ignore Him and don’t do what we’re supposed to, we start that same cycle of sin: God gets our attention until we cry out to the Lord, and He delivers us. If you’re like me, some weeks we go full “Judges” between Sundays. Especially if we miss a few Sundays between.

We don’t stop thinking of ourselves as Christians, we just add a little Baal and Ashtoreth to the mix.

They were supposed to drive the wickedness out of Canaan but Judges is the slow canaanization of God’s people instead.

There’s a refrain that happens about four times in the Book of Judges to kind of sum it up.

“In those days Israel had no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Judges 21:25

This book makes it clear that when we do what is right in our own eyes, things are not going to go well for us. God has told us what is good, we would do well to listen. 

When it says that Israel had no king, that’s an interesting insight into both what the people were thinking and what God was thinking. 

Israel was a loose collection of tribes, they didn’t have a centralized government. Each tribe had its own local leader and did whatever it thought was best for the tribe. When they were attacked, they were usually on their own. This is why they’re going to start asking for a king because when they got attacked, they thought it would be better to have a king that could pull them all together as a united army. 

But it also has another meaning because Yahweh was supposed to be their king. The Lord is judging them and letting the reader know that in those days Israel had no king, not even God—they just did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.

Okay, so let’s take a Cliff’s Notes look at these stories of God raising up saviors to rescue His people from their enemies. They are wonderful stories. Crazy stories. Gruesome and bloody stories. I’m going to give you enough insight so you can go back and read the stories for yourself and understand what’s going on a little better.

The first three judges are pretty good—God raised them up to save the people and He doesn’t have anything bad to say about them. This is the first one:

Judges 3:7

“And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. They forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth. Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the king of Mesopotamia. And the people of Israel served him eight years.” Judges 3:7

God “sold” them. He considers His people to be His possession, His treasure. When we say “Jesus is our Redeemer” that’s what we’re talking about, too.

“The LORD raised up a rescuer to save them. His name was Othniel, the son of Caleb’s younger brother, Kenaz. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he became Israel’s judge. He went to war against the King of Mesopotamia, and the LORD gave Othniel victory over him. So there was peace in the land for forty years. Then Othniel son of Kenaz died.” Judges 3:7–11

Forty years of peace. Nice job, Othniel!

But then the cycle starts over, they do evil in the LORD’s sight and He gives them over to King Eglon of Moab. This time it was eighteen years of oppression. The people cry out to the LORD and He hears them and raises up a savior named Ehud. Points out that he’s from the tribe of Benjamin and is left-handed—which probably means he’s ambidextrous and part of the special fighting forces of Benjamin (we’ll hear about them more in the final chapters of the book). Ehud makes a double-edged dagger that’s about a foot long and hides it on his right thigh. When he goes to take the tribute money to King Eglon, who it says was extremely fat, he pays the money and starts to go home but then he turns around and goes back to the king. He says, “I have a secret message for the king.” So the king sends his guards out of the room, Ehud comes up close to whisper in the king’s ear and says, “I have a message from God for you.” (It never seems to be a good thing when someone has a message from God.) Then it says he grabbed his dagger with his left hand and plunged it into the king’s belly so deep that the fat covered the handle and he left the whole blade inside. Says his bowels spilled out all over the floor and Ehud escaped through the shoot that led to the toilet. It’s a nasty scene. The smell must have filled the hallway because the guards didn’t come in to check on him for a long time—they probably thought he was stinking up the palace after lunch as usual. When they did finally come in, they found a dead mess.

Ehud put together an army and attacked the Moabites. They destroyed Moab and Israel had peace for eighty years this time. Eighty years! Go Ehud.

After Ehud died, you’ll never guess what happened, though. The people did evil in the sight of the LORD and He gave them over to another Canaanite king. This time it was King Jabin but it was his military commander, Sisera, that was making Israel miserable.

There was a prophetess named Deborah who was a well-respected judge in Israel. She’s the only one of the judges that seems to have spent the majority of her time doing the kind of thing we normally think of as “judging.” It says the people of Israel came to her to settle disputes— God spoke to the people through her. There’s nothing in the text that would lead us to believe God was critical of a woman being a prominent leader of Israel but since we know that the Book of Judges is a slow descent into Canaanite paganism, and since the leader of Israel’s army refuses to go into battle unless she comes with him—I think we see hints of how goddess worship is infecting Israel’s theology. Not her fault, she’s the last judge whose story doesn't end up in a storm of tragic sin.

One day Deborah sends for a man named Barak and tells him that God wants him to assemble 10,000 warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun to go out and destroy Sisera’s army of chariots and warriors. But Barak says he’ll only go if Deborah goes with him. She says, “Okay, I’ll go with you but you’ll receive no honor in this venture because the victory will be at the hands of a woman.” Of course, we think she’s talking about herself. 

So they go and fight, the LORD confuses the Canaanites, Israel wins, but Sisera gets away. He runs and hides in the tent of a man who was on friendly terms with his boss the Canaanite king. The man wasn’t at home but his wife, a woman named Jael invites him inside and hides him under some blankets on the floor. Have you heard this story before? He tells her he’s thirsty and she gives him some milk, then he asks her to guard the door so he can take a nap. While he’s sleeping, Jael takes a tent peg and a hammer, walks up to him very quietly, and hammers the spike through his temple all the way into the ground. 

And there was peace in Israel for forty years.

Why aren’t there more daughters named Jael? 

The rest of the judges go from bad to worse. And then worser.

The Israelites do what is evil in the LORD’s sight and He gives them over to the Midianites. They’re extremely cruel and try to starve Israel to death. Steal all their livestock, take all their crops. The land was stripped bare. They were like locusts.

The Angel of the LORD comes to a man named Gideon. The Angel of the LORD, the Malek Yahweh, that’s what He’s called in the Old Testament—the New Testament calls Him the Image of the Invisible God, the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ the LORD—whenever you see THE Angel of the LORD, it’s Yahweh, it’s Jesus. He’s all through the Bible.

He comes to Giddeon. Who’s hiding in a winepress, probably in a cave. He’s threshing wheat—which you can’t really do inside, but he’s doing the best he can. 

The LORD says, “Greetings Valiant Warrior! The LORD is with you.” Which is a funny thing to call a man who’s hiding in a cave trying to separate wheat from chaff.

Gideon complains that it doesn’t seem like the LORD is with anyone anymore. Things are bad and God isn’t doing anything about it. 

The LORD tells Gideon that’s why He’s here. He wants him to rescue Israel from the Midianites. Gideon doesn’t see it. It takes a lot of convincing. He says he’s the youngest in his family and his tribe is the smallest—He finally gets there, but God has to be very patient with him.

The first thing God tells Gideon to do though, is tear down his dad’s Baal altar and Ashtoreth pole. There’s a lot in these stories I’m leaving out, you really do need to read them for yourself this week. Then he assembles an army of about 32,000 men to go fight but God says, “No, that’s too many. If you have that many warriors you’ll think you won because of how mighty your army is.” 

So God helps Gideon shrink the army all the way down to 300 men. 300 versus the multitude.

They surround the enemy camp armed with clay pots, ram’s horns and hidden torches, when Gideon gives the signal, they break the pots and shout “a sword for the LORD and for Gideon!” Then they blow their horns. Make noise and let them know where they are! This is not a great war strategy but it works.

The Midianites are thrown into a panic, God confuses them and they start fighting against each other. The ones who aren’t killed in the confusion scatter and run away.

You would think that’d be the end but Gideon keeps chasing after the two kings of Midian with his 300 men. He finally catches up with them about 100 miles away on the other side of the Jordan. A little bit of success has gone to his head. Along the way, some of his fellow Israelites disrespected him, so he tortured and murdered them. Gideon went from insecure and scared to angry, cruel, and vengeful. 

There’s a twist to the end of his story that some people miss, it makes you go back and reread the whole thing again. 

Just before he kills the two kings of Midian that he chased across the desert for 100 miles he asks them if they remember the men they had killed at Tabor, “Do you remember what they looked like?”

This is the first time we’re hearing about any of this.

The two kings say, “They looked like you. They had the look of a king’s son.”

Gideon said, “They were my brothers, the sons of my own mother.”

The two kings had murdered Gideon’s brothers. This had been a revenge mission all along. 

After this, the people try to make Gideon their king but he says “No, Israel has no King but the LORD.” But then he pretty much sets himself up as king anyway. Even names one of his sons “Abimelech,” which in Hebrew means “my dad is king.”

Oh Gideon. It gets worse.

Remember the first thing the LORD had him do? Tear down the altar of Baal and the Asherah pole at his father’s house? Well the last thing he does is set up another one. He takes the gold they plundered from the war and makes a golden ephod, an object of worship, and sets it up in his hometown. It says the people of Israel prostituted themselves worshiping it, that it became a trap for Gideon and his family. 

And Gideon had quite the family, it says he had 70 sons.

But Abimelech murders his brothers and tries to become the ruler after Gideon dies. It doesn’t work out for him though. While he’s trying to take a city by force, a woman throws a millstone off a tower and hits him in the head.

The youngest son of Gideon is the only one of his 70 sons that survives and the story ends where it began, with his youngest son hiding in a well.

After Gideon things get really dark. In chapter 10 it says

“They abandoned the LORD and no longer served him at all.” Judges 10:6 

God was going to send the Philistines this time. We’ll finish the Book of Judges next week.

These Judges, the saviors that God sent to rescue Israel from their enemies were sent because of His promise to His people. His faithful love. His neverending loyalty and mercy. Every one of them, in their own way, pointed to Jesus, the ultimate Savior and Redeemer. The One who has died, and is risen, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. On that day, He will bring His judgment and His salvation to all people. The LORD became a human being so that He could completely fulfill the covenant He made with His people, so He could keep the law perfectly, and then save His people, deliver His people—by taking all of Israel’s sin and guilt on Himself once and for all. We’re used to the story of the cross but if you think about it, the cross, allowing Himself to be executed as a sacrifice for the sin of the world—that’s a really strange battle plan and choice of weapon to defeat His enemies, too. It’s just as weird as the stories we’re looking at in the Book of Judges. It’s certainly not the kind of rescue we would have come up with or expected.

Here’s the cycle: Every week, as you leave this place, you’re going to do what you think is right in your own eyes. You’re going to forget God and chase after Baal and Ashtoreth in one way or another. God will get your attention, when He does, however He does it, turn around. Repent. Cry out to the LORD. He promises to hear you. Remember this: because of Jesus, your sins are forgiven and His anger is not burning against you. Your enemies were defeated on the cross and in the resurrection. Live in peace, by faith, hoping and waiting for the return of our Judge and our Defender and King. Repeat as necessary. AMEN