Judges - The Long Slog - Mike Chipman
The book of Judges is a long, difficult slog.
My congregation just finished a Sunday school study in the book of Judges, and it took us about half a year to get through. By the end of the book, we were ready to move into the greener passages in Ruth. Though Judges was at times a plodding work, it wasn’t without its rewards. As always, a trip through the Old Testament narratives is a trip through God’s story of redemption and his plan to save his people from their sins.
And sin is something that we see in full force in Judges. Even in the opening chapters, we are met with tribes that didn’t quite finish the work of cleansing Canaan. As the Canaanite gods remained, the people of Israel were easily swayed by them. With their devotion to pagan gods came their submission to pagan rulers. Over and over in Judges, God’s people are subject to regional thugs, forced to live in fear because they had no clear leadership and no reliance on the one true King. As you near the end of the book, the sins of the people get more and more sordid. What starts as “a few bad years”, ends with a bloody civil war, and the near annihilation of one of the 12 tribes. The people of God had made themselves altogether unlovely and unlovable.
So God raised up judges to inspire the people and deliver them from their captors. These judges, like the people, seemed to diminish in quality as the book pressed forward. With Othniel, we have a judge of whom little is said, other than he did his work. (a fantastic goal in life!) Ehud was a left-handed assassin. Barak was afraid. Gideon was a polygamist who named one of his sons “my Father is king.” Jephthah said something stupid and killed his daughter. Samson broke his vow before a Holy God and lived a debaucherous life. Sadly, these men have often been immortalized by flannelgraphs and vegetable-based cartoons. Who doesn’t want to read the story of Ehud losing a dagger in Eglon’s fat belly, or Samson killing 1000 men with a jawbone? Sometimes it feels like we’re reading a superhero comic. If we’re not careful, we may even start to think that Judges is about these flawed men and their feeble attempts to lead the wayward people of God.
“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” This is the last line of the book, and it serves as a helpful marker. In fact, this idea can be found scattered throughout the book, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes through the exasperating feeling of, “Something just isn’t right?” And something wasn’t right. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to man, but the end of it leads to death.” Judges points us to the need for another way - one that doesn’t lead to death, but to life. We have mere glimpses of the right way as we read “and the land had rest.” Not only was Israel a people who turned to other gods, but they were a people who craved rest. Their two goals were at odds, just as they are for us today. The book points to the one true God, and the only one in whom we find true rest: Jesus. Though our Lord is often more clearly represented in other books of the Bible, in no other book is the need for him so clear.
One of the comments I heard over and over as we waded through Judges was, “This book has been a great mirror into my own sin.” The Westminster Confession of Faith shares this idea speaking of God’s law for the believer “discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ.” (WCF 19.6) To that end, I heartily recommend a reading of the book of Judges. It’s long and difficult, but it will point you straight to Jesus.