Judges 3-5

If you have lost your reading schedule like me, Click here to print a new one. (but it is always in the handout section)

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

Last night I sent out 2 visuals so that you can grasp that today’s read spans over 200 years.

Chapter 3 begins with: “These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan”.  Faith is tested.  The younger generation had not fought in the major battles, so they would need Faith to overcome their enemies.  However, by verse 5 we read: “The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.”

This book is subdivided into 6 eras of Apostasy.  Apostasy means a falling away, a withdrawal, a defection.  They believed in God, but they abandoned Him.

#1

Othiel:  (Hebrew means “Lion of God” or “Strength of God”)

Was “raised up” (think of the Cross), as the first judge of the Israelites.  He was Caleb’s younger brother.

• 8 years of oppression
• 40 years of rest

---

#2 Ehud (means union or united)

King Egon from the Ammonites,  teamed up with the Ammonites and the Amalekites. (they should sound familiar).  God raised up Ehud from the tribe of the Benjaminites.  He was left-handed meaning Ehud could not use his right hand at all for some reason.  God used this in a mighty way.  Ehud was able to sneak his sword in on his right side because the guards would only have checked his left side for a weapon.  He conquered this King by plunging the sword into him causing his bowels to discharge.  Ther smell must have been horrible!  This puts the whole scene together as to why the servants assumed he was “relieving himself” and Ehud had time to escape.

–

---

#3 Shamgar-  Shamgar is one small verse but one powerful Judge.  Here is what we know:

1. Shamgar’s leadership followed Ehud’s
2. he was the son of Anath,
3. he killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad
4. he saved Israel.

Because the name Anath referred to a Canaanite goddess, some have suggested Shamgar was a son of a mixed Israelite-Canaanite marriage or had some other connection with the Canaanites.

An Oxgoad wasn’t even a weapon, it was a herding tool for animals that Ehud used as a weapon.

NOTICE: These are not just “battles”, this is God showing himself to the next generation.  600 Philistines…the weapon wasn’t the Oxgoad.  The weapon was God!

---

#4 Deborah- (hold on a second, I need to go find my Whitney Houston cassette and blast “I’m Every Woman” while I read this.

Deborah, upon receiving instructions from God, called Barak, an Israelite warrior, to bring 10,000 troops up Mount Tabor to attack Sisera, Jabin’s commander of troops.

Barak responded by saying “If you will go with me, I will go; if not I will not go” (give me a break)

In the next verse, Deborah agrees to go to battle with Barak and the troops but says: “However, there will be no glory for you in the course you are taking, for then the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman”

Ok, a little background.  Moses’ father in law was a Kenite. They lived among the people Israelites under Judah (1:16).  God used this alliance to his advantage.  Even though the Kenites had moved North and were friendly with Jabin’s army (well, who wouldn’t be…his army was HUGE and sophisticated with 900 chariots made of iron).  Jael gives him milk and a blanket to help him sleep and then…drives a tent peg through his temple! Lord have mercy!

---

Chapter 5: The Song of Deborah, however, it is really not a song of Deborah: It is a song of the Lord.  This song was to teach the next generations (and the enemies to come) that it was not the Judges who saved Israel but the Lord that raised up the Judges.  It is a song of Praise.  Verse 2 and 9…”Praise the Lord”.

 

200+ years in 3 chapters!

Tomorrow we will read 3 chapters but I wanted you to have this BEFORE you read so that you understand how many years we are going to cover in those chapters. The Judges we will read about are:

1. Othniel – Judah
2. Ehud – Benjamin
3. Shamgar
4. Deborah – Ephraim

Click here for a printable copy

For a Chart (cheat sheet) that gives you a graph of the Judges Click here also. (Sorry, it was a pdf so I couldn’t show a preview)

Judges 1-2

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
  • Kids’ Coloring pages
    • Coloring page 1
    • Coloring page 2

The Israelites were given instructions to destroy the Canaanites and take possession of their land.  Israel begins by asking the Lord which tribe should lead the way, and Judah is chosen.  Judah naturally asks the Simeonites to join them since Judah is allowing them to live in their land (Simeon lost his right to own land when he plotted vengeance on the Shechamites after they tricked them into getting circumcised and then attacking them) (click here if you want to re-read Genesis 34)

“Adoni-bezek” meaning “lord of Bezek” was the title of the king of Bezek rather than his proper name. The Israelites cut off this man’s thumbs so he could not wield a sword, and his big toes so he could not run away, as well as to humiliate him.

The Military failure: What do verses 1:21, 1:27, 1:32, and 2:23 all have in common? DID NOT DRIVE OUT followed by “Nor did” “Neither did”.  They did not follow through driving out their enemies.

---

Chapter 2:The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you,  and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.”

Yes.  Yes they will!

The next generation of Israelites now grows up who did not know the Lord nor the might acts he had don’t for their parents in battles (2:10).  Remember the “Shema” verse in Deuteronomy 6:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Well, they ignored this too.

• Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals (Canaanite gods of rain and agriculture) and the Astoreths (the mother god of love, war, and fertility) They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them.
  • They aroused the Lord’s anger, in his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them.
  • He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 
  • Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

Look at the cycle the Americans Israelites they are in:

Click here to print this

If you read in a Bible rather than on-line, go back and underline the cycle: V.16-19

Then the Lord raised up judges,who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.  Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands.  Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

This became a cyclical pattern BECAUSE their crying out was not an act of repentance, simply a cry for help (wrestle with that application in your own life, I do that ALL the time)  Look at verse 19: when the judge died, the people returned to the ways even MORE corrupt than those of their ancestors.

Have you ever struggled with scriptures like this:

• Deut: 5:9 “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,”

Now you get it.

So now begins the cycle.

Judges Overview

Look how far we are into the Old Testament!!

The book of Judges is a continuation of Joshua. Now that they are in the Promised Land (Canaan) , Israel has to learn that no matter how great their leaders are (Moses and Joshua) ultimately God is in command. When the Israelites entered Canaan they were one nation.  Now they are divided into 12 groups, each responsible for driving out the remaining enemies in their own territory. Spoiler Alert: The book of Judges records their failure to do this.

It is hard for us to understand why God would command the Israelites to execute ALL the people.  Seems cruel.  However, God is the “ultimate” Judge and just like he brought judgment onto the Israelites descendants to wander for 40 years and never enter the land, executing all the Canaanites is a judgment too.  They are wicked people and this is God’s judgment on them.

So why don’t the Israelites follow the commandments they have been given?  Well, for the same reason, we don’t…

1. They have been fighting for a long time and they are too tired
2. Their enemies were strong and it would take work
3. After Joshua dies, they really don’t have someone leading them (or keeping them accountable)
4. They thought they could handle the temptation

Basically, they just didn’t follow through with their commitment!!

God’s agreement to help Israel conquer the land is broken BUT his covenant to make Israel a nation whom the whole world will be blessed (through a Messiah) always remains valid!

The Judges and their Tribes:
1. Othniel – Judah
2. Ehud – Benjamin
3. Shamgar
4. Deborah – Ephraim
5. Gideon – Manasseh
6. Tola – Issachar
7. Jair – Manasseh
8. Jephthah – Manasseh
9. Ibzan – Judah
10. Elon – Zebulun
11. Abdon – Ephraim
12. Samson – Dan

We will read the WHOLE book in 1 week….so don’t fall behind just because you want to watch The Tiger King!!

Opportunity knocks…

We just read the book of Joshua.  It went fast!  If you are looking for something to binge-watch on Netflix…I get it.  But if you have fallen behind in the Read-through….this recap video will get you to the start of Judges.  The book Judges contains shocking stories involving murder, human sacrifice, gang rape, killing their own brothers, dismemberment and even some “poop”.  Everything you might see on a Netflix show. So watch this….and jump into Judges tomorrow! (I will send Judges overview tonight.

 

Joshua 22-24- The End!

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
• I didn’t realize we were at the end of Joshua already!  Starting Judges tomorrow 😬

---

An altar was built that caused quite a stir and almost led to civil war in the newly founded nation of Israel. God prohibited the building of altars other than those He had commanded (Deuteronomy 12). Yet the tribes on the east side of the Jordan River—Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh—constructed an altar. As a result, the western tribes felt the Law had been violated and intended to go to war against their own people.

Deuteronomy 13 is dedicated entirely to making false altars.  But it does say “¹² If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you,  you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town”

Thank heavens the western tribes investigated the situation before they went to war. As it turned out, the altar built by Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh was a memorial to the Lord God. They had built the altar on the east side of the Jordan to show their connection to the rest of the Israelites who lived in the Promised Land. The altar was a sign of unity, not rebellion.

If you don’t realize how close the Transjordan tribes came to being killed then you may not remember the guy mentioned in verse 13: Phinehas.   Once I saw his name in the chapter I thought “Oh stars”.  He is the zealous priest who stabbed the couple having “fun” in the tent.  He put his spear through both of them at the same time!  Click here if you want to reread it)

---

Joshua’s Farwell Speech: Just like Moses’ speech there is a reminder of the blessings and curses. I try not to bring the current events of Covid-19 into the Blog…however…one of the key points I noticed was individual sins would bring down the whole community. So here are the instructions for America, Israel:

• Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. 
• Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.  But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.
•  So be very careful to love the Lord your God.
• But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.
•  If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.”

Chapter 24:

• “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. 
• Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped
•  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.

“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

¹⁹ Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.  If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

Joshua 19-21

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

Maybe you read this word for word, but if you skimmed some of these distributions,  the summary can be found on 19:51

⁵¹ These are the territories that Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel assigned by lot at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And so they finished dividing the land.

Click here for a printable copy

---

• Chapter 20-Cities of Refuge.
• Chapter 21- Towns for Levites

We talked about this in Numbers 35 but here is a quick recap.

They yellow dots are Levitical Towns, the red dots are the Cities of Refuge. The cities were divided 3 on each side of the Jordan River so that no Israelite would have to travel far to reach one of them.  These were safe cities so that they had protection from revenge or injustice from an accidental death.  (Today, Jesus is the High Priest that protects us from injustice at death.  He is our refuge)

• – Kadesh– in Naphtali
• – Shechem– in West Manasseh
• – Hebron– in Judah
• – Golan– in East Manasseh
• – Ramoth – Gilead in Gad
• – Bezer– in Rueben

The tribes also had to set aside 42 additional cities for the priests and Levites to inhabit.  In all, the Levites received 48 cities with their surrounding pasturelands, including the six cities of refuge. God arranged the distribution of the 48 Levitical towns in such a way that the Levites, whose responsibilities included the teaching and counseling of the other Israelites in the Law, were not far from anyone in Israel.

Today’s read ends with:

 So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands.  Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.

---

Yesterday in comments, Crystal asked how big is the territoy.  Click here if you are interested.

 

Joshua 16-18

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

If you did not print the coloring page for “the adult”, click here.

 

Who are Manasseh and Ephraim?  They are Joseph’s two sons that were adopted as equal tribe leaders of Israel.

The eastern half-tribe of Manasseh had already received its inheritance, and the remaining “half-inheritance” would have been small compared with the other tribes. These one and one-half tribes together formed a large group of Israelites. Their lot fell in central Canaan, and their territory consisted of two parts: with Ephraim settling in the southern portion, and Manasseh in the northern. A single lot determined the inheritance of both Ephraim and Manasseh, which resulted in Ephraim complaining later (17:14-18).

Chapter 18.  Joshua is at Shiloh.  Find it on your land distribution map from last month.  (I don’t even know what day of the week it is right now so let me help you out)  Click here for a new copy.  Shiloh is in the Division of Ephraim.

 

 

The rest of the land is divided by the continuing process of “casting lots”.

So you have all figured out how weird my brain is…I picture this scene like a Vegas Craps table….”C’mon, C’mon….give mamma a river or a coastline”….It WAS NOT LIKE THAT…just in my head!

BUT please pick up on:

18:3 So Joshua said to the Israelites: “How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you?

Uh oh…looks like they are losing steam now that they feel “comfortable” in the land with all the major kings destroyed. I wonder if they will get lazy and start to ignore God’s commands?  So what I am hearing is “When things are going my way, I tend to ignore God?” (This is the conversation in my head, just ignore me)

 

 

Joshua 12-15

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen

Many of us started this 86 days ago.  EIGHTY-SIX!  (And through some of the hardest to read parts of the Bible)  If you opened your BIble 87 days ago to these chapters many of us would not know who the names were,  where this land is, or why this is important.  So this might not be exciting to read, but it is pretty stinking cool that you could explain the overview of it to someone who has not read a Bible.

So as you read, listen or let’s be transparent…skim a little.  Here is a fun activity for you while doing it.  As you read them,  color them.

Click here to print.

Chapters 13—24 describe how Joshua divided the land, and the events following that division, including the settlement of the tribes and national rededication. Many, if not all, of the Israelite tribes, did not conquer or control all the land allotted to them.   At the end of the seven-year period of conquest, Israel occupied very little of the Promised Land. Consequently, dividing all the land among the tribes required great faith, that God would eventually give His people all of it. Joshua (well, the Lord) had removed the significant military threats to Israel’s existence. From now on, each tribe was responsible to conquer its own designated territory.

---

Tribes on the East side of the Jordan River-(Transjordan Tribes)-  Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh.  These tribes requested this land, and Moses approved AS LONG AS they joined the army and fought the battles and then returned to that land.

---

Eleazar the high priest, Joshua, and the heads of the tribes took the leadership in dividing the portion of the land by “casting lots”.  (The stones the High Priest used to confer with God when a decision was to be made. The stones were called the Urim and Thummim)

---

Moses had promised Caleb land in Canaan but had not specified its location. The reason for this special blessing was Caleb’s faithfulness to God.  The portion that Caleb requested was within the tribal allotment of Judah.

Caleb was from the tribe of Judah and he was given Hebron.  If you went back to Genesis 23, this was the land that Abraham purchased knowing one day they would claim the land.  He purchases Hebron to be a burial site for his wife.  Actually, Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, are buried there.  Hebron also will become King David’s first capital (before Jerusalem)

---

The tribe of Judah probably received first consideration in the text, because it was this tribe that had received Jacob’s blessing. It was also the largest tribe.  This part of Canaan contained four distinct regions: the southern
Negev, the lowland plain (Shephelah), the mountains (hill country), and the desert.

• The “Negev” (“south” land)
• The “Foothills” (“lowland”)
• Five groups of cities stood in the mountainous “hill country” of
  Judah, north of the Negev, east of the Shephelah, and west of
  the wilderness of Judah
• The “wilderness” of Judah was the northeastern part of the
  tribal inheritance.

---

“Othniel” (put his name in your pocket) later became one of Israel’s prominent judges.  He was Caleb’s younger brother.

---

To be continued:

Joshua 9-11

• Click here to read
• Click here to listen
  • Click here for Coloring Page 1 (from Yesterday’s read)
  • Click here for Coloring Page 2 (from Today’s Read)

The Gibeonites decided that if they could not defeat the Israelites, they would join them. Gibeon stood seven miles south of Bethel. It was one of the largest towns in the central part of Canaan, larger than Ai. The Gibeonites deceived the Israelites and pretended to fear the Lord, but their objective was to save their own lives.

So now the Israelites are stuck between a rock and a hard place when they find out about the deception.  It was their fault for getting into the mess because in 9:14 it states they did not inquire of the Lord.  However, they chose to honor their oath since in Numbers 30:2 God stated:

“This is what the Lord commands: When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

In the end, they made the right choice:

• The Gibeonites submit to the Israelites
• The Israelites took necessary steps to keep them under their thumb by making them the workers to support the tabernacle (service to creating proper worship, not their own types of altars) 9:23
• The Gibeonites are a large group of fighting men that can be used in the conquering of the land

(Unfortunately, our first King, Saul will break this treaty and attacks them in 2 Sam. 21, bringing a judgment of famine to the Israelites.  Why Saul???)

The news of the powerful Gibeonites treaty with the Israelites raises red flags to the other major cities and they ban together.  Look at the map above at the yellow dots: Kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon (verse 10:5).  However, instead of attacking the Israelites, they target the Gibeonites.  The Lord honors the keeping of the oath and the Lord takes over this massive battle in 3 ways:

1. Throws the enemy into confusion (10:10)
2. The Lord hurled large hailstone (10:11)
3. The sun stood still so they would have more time to fight in daylight.  (10:12)
   • First, let me say that I am warped and I thought of God throwing hail like snowballs in the scene in “Elf”
   • Also, for all my science people: we know that the sun does not move,  but that the Earth stood still.  (But Copernicus wasn’t born yet so we are good).  For those who don’t know me, I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade at the same time so I have to prove my worth at times 😉 In case one of my teachers reads this.

The battles we are reading appear to go quickly, but note that this is over a 7 year period.  After the victory over the Amorite Kings, the Israelites conquer the major cities in the South and the North.

 

When you read about these battles, keep in mind ONLY the Lord could bring these victories to the Israelites.  We are in the midst of the Bronze age and cities like Havor are a city that had ramparts, horses, and chariots.  Joshua went back himself to burn this city. (this is, by the way, the largest archeological site in Isreal with 3 feet of ash to dig through.   We continue to find artifacts, weapons, tools, and cuniform tablets that affirm these events.)