Judges 1

So I got this idea I might try and blog my ideas about my devotions. Well I have been reading through the bible and I am currently in Judges. Just a quick background on the book of Judges, because I do love history and I believe it helps if ya know the setting from which the book was written.


Judges was written after Joshua's death and it covers the time Israel was governed by judges. Unfortunately, the judges job was to redeem Israel from their captivity because Israel had sinned against God and been overtaken by their enemy. Judges covers about 300 years of the Israelites continually repeating a cycle of apostasy (living for themselves instead of God) suffering oppression, repentance, then God restoring the Israelites just so they could live a brief moment in God's Will then start the vicious cycle all over again. Sad.


Judges Chapter 1 opens with the Israelites asking God (which is a good thing, talking to God and seeking His Will was the right thing to do) who was to go up first to take their portion of the promised land. God picks Judah (which was the linage from which Jesus came). God says Judah is to go because I have handed the land over to him. Well Judah asks the tribe of Simeon to help them. Now I am not one to say you shouldn't ask for help, but the way I see it, God already promised to give Judah the land, what more security did they need? There may be some traditional battle customs with which I am not familiar, but strictly spiritually speaking, Judah didn't need to ask anyone else to fight with them. If God be for us, who shall be against us? (Romans 8:31). It was nice of Simeon to fight with their brothers but they should have been encouraging Judah to trust God and believe He will keep His word (after all He kept His word regarding delivering them from the hands of the Egyptians, He kept his word about getting them to the place where they currently were, why would God all of the sudden stop there?)


On the flip side, When going into battle, it never hurts to take as many warriors with you as you can right? Ecclesiastes 4:8-10 talks about how 2 are better than one because they are their to help each other. Perhaps I should have mentioned earlier, I am an analyzer and I like to look at all sides of the story. So which one is correct? Only God knows the hearts and the intentions of Judah and Simeon when they chose to fight together. If they chose to fight together because they did not believe God would be enough then they were wrong. If they chose to fight together because they wanted to support each other and help out each other then way to show the love bros. Who knows there reasons for fighting together. Perhaps we should give them the benefit of the doubt especially since they did win. I would guess their intentions could not have been horribly wrong since God did allow them to win the battles.


Judah continues to fight and win and The Lord was with Judah. Then the Bible says Judah was unable to drive out those who lived in the valley because the people there had iron chariots. Now anyone who has read the bible knows God would not allow iron chariots to stop Him if He wanted to give the land to His people. My thinking is perhaps this land was not for Judah to conquer. In Joshua 17:14-18, Joshua gives Joseph's descendants the valley with the people who owned iron chariots and Joshua told them they could drive out the Canaanites despite how strong they were or how many iron chariots they owned. In Joshua 17 Joseph's decedents expressed fear and doubt at the ability to over take the valley with the iron chariot dwellers. The chapter ends with Joshua assuring Joseph's tribes that they can defeat the Canaanites living in the valley. There is no documentation describing whether they believed Joshua after his little pep talk. Once you read in Judges 1 how Judah attempted to take over that section of the land it may make you wonder if Joseph's tribes failed to trust Joshua's words. Of course, it could have also been a completely different valley with completely different group of people owning iron chariots but if God had promised that land to Judah then I fully believe He would have driven out the people. I find it sad that Joseph's tribes did not trust God enough to claim all the land they were promised. 


Just on a side note, Joseph's tribes are Ephraim and Manasseh but Joshua 17 simply says Joseph's decedents so the valley was apparently promised to both tribes which means they could have fought together and they were apparently still scared. Which fighting together apparently worked for Judah and Simeon because they conquered all the areas they fought with the exception of the valley with the people who owned iron chariots and that's because that was not their land. 


In verse 21 of Judges 1, it begins to describe the failure of the tribe of Benjamin. It's one verse which reads The Benjaminites failed to drive out the people who were living in the land they were promised and they live among the Benjamites still. God told the Isrealites they were to drive out the people of the land. God did not want them living among the natives because He knew they would sway the Israelites loyalty and the Israelites would begin to worship the gods of the people of the land. In the last chapter of Joshua (Joshua's farewell address) Joshua warns the people about residing with the natives of the land and intermarrying with them. He told them they would become a snare for them if they allowed them to stay. Then Joshua had the Isrealites renew their covenant with God and they promised to worship only the Lord but they failed to drive out the people with their other gods. Then there is a brief moment of success when the house of Joseph drives out the people from Bethel then it goes right back to how Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali all failed to drive out the people from the land they were promised. that's 5 tribes out of 12 who were promised an inheritance of the land and they failed to completely claim their inheritance. Some of the tribes did force the natives to be their servants and subdued them in that manner, but that was not God's intentions. God, did not tell the Isrealites to go into the land and subdue the people and make them your slaves. He told them to go and take possession of the land and to drive out the people and stay faithful to Him. 


In the spiritual realm, often times we may get tired of fighting and find ourselves willing to settle just like the Isrealites did. However, we must stand strong and push through for our complete victory because if we do not then our compromise may come back to bite us like it did the Isrealites. Eventually the Isrealites lost their land and inheritance and lived in captivity time and time again because they did not drive out the people, they settled among them (which was their first compromise) then they began to make compromises regarding their worship. Settling among the people I am sure did not appear to be that big of a deal. I imagine they figured they were strong enough in their faith they could live among idolatry and be fine. However, God knew what would happen and that is why He gave the Isrealites strict instructions to drive out the people and destroy their false gods. Israelite compromised in what they saw as one minor area. This lead to other compromises which eventually destroyed their homes, deprived them of their inheritance, and caused them to endure multiple captivities. One so seemingly innocent compromise. We must be vigilant and willing to obey God COMPLETELY because He knows what is best for us.