Judges: Book outline. Chap 1: Judah takes the south and helps her brothers, but is unable to take the plains. Failure is lack of faith.

Title: Judges: Book outline. Chap 1: Judah takes the south and helps her brothers, but is unable to take the plains. Failure is lack of faith.  

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

Structure of the book:

1. Prelude: 1:1-3:6. It is a summary record of the incomplete conquest of the land.

 

Initially Judah will fight the Canaanites on behalf of all the people who seem to afraid to fight, however, they will not be strong enough to remove Canaanites from the valleys and this will become a problem. The valleys are more fertile and easier to cultivate while the mountainous regions where Israel is settled is more difficult. The Canaanites in the valleys, stronger than Israel due to their chariots, but only because Israel becomes without faith, will claim that Baal is stronger than Jehovah because they possess the valleys while Israel had the mountains.

 

2. Cycles of oppression and deliverance. There are seven recorded.

a. Rest: a period when Israel is obedient.

b. Rebellion: apostasy of a new generation.

 

It would seem that rest and prosperity are not always the best things for mankind. Because of our fallen condition, we need trials and adversities.

 

c. Retribution: divine judgment by oppression by enemies.

d. Repentance: Israel's cry to the Lord.

e. Restoration: God raises up a judge who delivers.

 

This occurs seven times in the book. While some Judges are written about in detail some others are briefly mentioned. The pattern is clear and instructional.

 

The whole book is pervaded and ruled by the idea distinctly expressed in the introduction, that the Lord left those Canaanites who had not been exterminated by Joshua still in the land, to provetest Israel through them in order to determine whether she would obey His commandments.

 

JDG 2:19 But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.

 

JDG 2:20 So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, "Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to My voice,

 

JDG 2:21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,

 

JDG 2:22 in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did, or not."

 

JDG 2:23 So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

 

There is another reason that the Canaanites were not removed quickly; so that the land would not be abandoned in which it would have been overrun by beasts and weeds.

 

DEU 7:22-23

And the Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. But the Lord your God shall deliver them before you, and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed.

 

God also chastised and punished His people through them for their disobedience and idolatry; but that as soon as they recognized His chastening hand in the punishment, and returned to Him with penitence and implored His help, He had compassion upon them again in His gracious love, and helped them to victory over their foes, so that, notwithstanding the repeated acts of faithlessness on the part of His people, the Lord remained ever faithful in His deeds, and steadfastly maintained His covenant.

 

3. Appendices: there are two from chp. 17-21; the migration of the tribe of Dan and the war with the tribe of Benjamin. These are not chronological.

 

We must not look to the book of Judges, therefore, for a complete history of the period of the judges, or one which throws light upon the development of the Israelites on every side. All of this information is not given. We can try to piece some of the history together with the help of archeology, but so little has been excavated and so few discoveries made that the science only gives us a lot of conjecture, and we must avoid that when studying the Bible. So you may have questions which as of yet cannot be answered.

 

Judges is a transition period in which the nation tried to take root in the land. The monarchy, 350 years later, will start a new period.

 

The time of the judges did not form a new stage in the development of the nation of God. It was not till the time of Samuel and David, when this period was ended, that a new stage began. It was rather a transition period, the time of free, unfettered development, in which the nation was to take root in the land presented to it by God as its inheritance.

 

The maintenance of civil order and the administration of justice were in the hands of the heads of tribes, families, and households; and for the relation in which the congregation stood to the Lord its God, it possessed the necessary organs and media in the hereditary priesthood of the tribe of Levi, whose head could inquire the will of God in all cases of difficulty through the right of Urim and Thumin, and make it known to the nation.

 

The different tribes began to follow their own separate interests, and eventually even to oppose and make war upon one another.

 

JDG 8:1 Then the men of Ephraim said to him, "What is this thing you have done to us, not calling us when you went to fight against Midian?" And they contended with him [Gideon] vigorously.

 

Ephraim was bent upon securing to itself the headship of all the tribes, though without making any vigorous efforts to carry on the war with the oppressors of Israel. Plus, in this instance they are angry at Gideon. Shouldn't they have rejoiced that God delivered Israel with only 300 men? And God made clear why He would only use 300.

 

JDG 7:2 And the Lord said to Gideon, "The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, lest Israel become boastful, saying, 'My own power has delivered me.'

 

Ephraim's anger for not getting the call to join the fight would most definitely be the result of wanting to boast of the power to deliver Israel.

 

Consequently, due to their apostasy, Israel suffered more and more from the oppression of heathen nations, to which God gave it up as a chastisement for its idolatry; and it would have become altogether a prey to its foes, had not the faithful covenant God taken compassion upon it in its distress as often as it cried to Him, and sent deliverers in those judges, after whom both the age in question and the book before us are called.

 

In the case of all the judges, it is stated that they judged "Israel," or the "children of Israel;" although it is very obvious, from the accounts of the different deliverances effected, that most of the judges only delivered and judged those tribes who happened to be oppressed and subjugated by their enemies at a particular time.

 

Judah takes the south and west but is unable to exterminate the Canaanites in the plain.

 

After the death of Joshua the tribes of Israel resolved to continue the war with the Canaanites, that they might exterminate them altogether from the land that had been given them for an inheritance. In accordance with the divine command, Judah commenced the strife in association with Simeon, smote the king of Bezek, conquered Jerusalem, Hebron and Debir upon the mountains, Zephath in the south land, and three of the chief cities of the Philistines, and took possession of the mountains; but was unable to exterminate the inhabitants of the plain.

 

JDG 1:1 Now it came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, saying, "Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?"

 

JDG 1:2 And the Lord said, "Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand."

 

This was likely determined by the Urim and Thumin of the high priest through which God could answer "yes" or "no".

 

Since Judah conquered Jerusalem we discover that they are taking the lead for all the other tribes in fighting to clear out their allotment, since Jerusalem was in the territory of Benjamin. They are not taking command of the other tribes but being more like a leading role as an example.