SALLY and Debbie were nice enough girls, but they liked to tease each other. During the period I worked with them they would often write cheques for one another. Debbie would make out a cheque to Sally for £100,000, or perhaps even £1m.

It was all a huge joke. Neither of them had that sort of money. The cheques were never presented of course. Even if they had been, they would have bounced. There was no possibility that they would ever have been paid. For those girls, and for many of us, cheques for that sort of sum mean nothing. They are a promise that cannot be honoured.

Promises, Promises
Today, men and women make promises very lightly. Politicians, for example, may promise all kinds of things before an election. For one reason and another, many of those promises do not materialise. Broken promises breed cynicism. People become distrustful of the word of others.

God's promises are not like that. God is well able to fulfil all that He has promised. He is all mighty to ensure that His word will be honoured. It will come true.

God did not just feed and care for a whole nation in the wilderness. He brought them to the land He had promised. He was as good as His word. As we saw in Numbers, His chosen people did not believe His promise. Even with the best evidence of God's faithfulness around them, they were not faithful. They were afraid of the nations there. They could not accept that God would help them overcome their enemies.

That generation died. Yet God, true to His word, gave the land to their children. Here is His explanation of why He was still prepared to keep His word:

"Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them (the nations) out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that he may fulfil the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people:"
(Deuteronomy 9:4-6)

Over Jordan
Joshua was the successor to Moses. He was the one who led the nation across the River Jordan and into the land. The book of Joshua is the story of the conquest of the land which God gave them. God fought their battles and Israel possessed the land. Joshua also shows how the land was divided up between the twelve tribes.

The land was called Canaan. It was the land to which Abraham came. It was the land God had promised his descendants would have. In more recent times it has been known as Palestine. Today, it is called Israel. Its boundaries have not always remained exactly the same. In the main, however, it has been the same narrow strip of land between the continents. It is the bridge between Africa, Asia and Europe. It is a very small country. Yet God has called it the centre of the earth, His land. He chose it as a place for His name.

It is clear from the verses quoted above that Israel's success in the land lay partly in their own hands. It depended to a large extent on their obedience to God's commands.

God Sent Judges
Judges shows the apathy of the nation towards God. The land had been conquered and shared out between the families. God had enabled them to settle the land. Yet other nations still lived there as well. Little pockets of resistance remained. They were a means of testing the determination of the nation of Israel.

After the death of Joshua, things began to go wrong. Without the promptings of a leader the nation forgot God. They forgot that they were His people, and neglected their responsibilities to Him.

Those little pockets of resistance then grew. God allowed those nations that were left to become strong. One by one they began to create problems for Israel. Under pressure the nation realised its faults. The people turned again to God to help them. And He did. He chose a leader through whom He delivered the nation. Such leaders were known as the Judges. The word also means Deliverer or Saviour.

Once again these things are of importance to the true Christian. Each of these judges reflects an aspect of the Godly life. They help us to understand the work of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The tragedy of the Judges is that Israel did not learn her lesson. Saved by one judge, the people soon forgot and again drifted away from God. Again they sinned. Again He allowed another nation to oppress them. Again they were sorry and repented. God heard them and provided another leader to deliver them.

And so the cycle continued, round and round.

It shows that the nation was not sorry enough. When they turned over a new leaf, it lasted only a few years. Within a fairly short time they had forgotten. This suggests that they were really only sorry that they were being punished. They were not truly sorry for letting God down.
Sin is disobeying God. It means not just the great big things that hit the news. It includes little things as well. We are all guilty of sin.

Repentance means being sorry and turning away from sin. It is no use just being sorry that our sins get us into trouble or difficulty. Repentance is being sorry to God, sorry that we have not kept His ways.

Throughout the period of the judges, Israel drifted further away from God. They moved a little further from His ways each time they sinned. Slowly, His laws and values began to disappear from their minds. A man's own conscience became his guide. His behaviour could rise no higher than his own expectations. The Bible says that "everyone did what was right in his own eyes".

The time covered by the books of Joshua and Judges was approximately 450 years.

A Love Story
The little book of Ruth takes place within the time of the. Judges. It is the story of the faith in God of a non-Jew. The Bible calls such people Gentiles. The story shows an Israelite family's lack of faith in leaving God's land. It compares this with Ruth's faith. She was a Moabitess, yet she wanted to belong to God and His land. Ruth eventually married a Jew. She became an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Samuel - Judge and Prophet
Samuel was both a judge and a prophet. He did a lot to weld the nation of Israel together again. They had become disunited since the days of Joshua. They were just a collection of tribes. Samuel did much to make them one again and bring them back to God.

It should not be imagined that the whole nation became Godly again, however. Many had forgotten God's words (including the ones quoted from Exodus in our previous chapter). They had forgotten the covenant God had made. They had forgotten that they were God's kingdom.

The First King of Israel
They approached Samuel and asked him to appoint a king. Samuel was upset. God was their King. In wanting to be more like the nations around them Israel were rejecting God. However, a king was appointed and reigned for forty years. He was king Saul. Details of his reign occupy most of the first book of Samuel (I Samuel).

God rejected Saul and his family for disobedience. His successor was David. He was the shepherd boy who became king. He also reigned for forty years. The second book of Samuel contains the story of his reign, ending just before the year 1,000 BC.

David was a man who loved God. He recognised that Israel were God's people. He did his best to shepherd and guide them for God. He drove other nations out from God's land. He set about removing idol worship. Jerusalem became the capital of God's kingdom. David also prepared a temple for the glory of God.

A Man After God's Heart
God loved David. He was called the man after God's own heart. That means that he identified with God. They both looked forward to the same things. God made promises to David as He had to Abraham. He promised that his son should be a king for ever on the throne in Jerusalem. We shall see what became of the promise later.

David died. His son Solomon became king. He built the temple which his father had prepared. He was a man to whom God gave extraordinary wisdom to rule Israel. Yet in his own way of life Solomon was often not wise. After his death the kingdom split into two. Solomon's son retained control of only two tribes. They were known as Judah. The remaining ten tribes of Israel formed a separate kingdom. They were called the kingdom of Israel. The details are to be found in the first book of Kings.

More Kings and Prophets
God sent prophets to warn the people and to turn them from their sin. Elijah demonstrated the power of God, but the nation continued to worship idols.

Elisha followed Elijah in speaking for God, but the kingdom of Israel grew worse. Other prophets were also sent to the people. In some cases we have a record of their message in the Old Testament books. Their work was largely without result. Very few responded.

At last there was no remedy for their sin. God brought the Assyrians against them to destroy the kingdom. Many of the people were killed. Others were taken away to torture or cruel slavery. A few of the poorest were left in the land.

Some of these refugees migrated south to the kingdom of Judah. The Assyrians transplanted other people into the land who intermarried with any who were left. In the time of Jesus these were known as Samaritans, a mixed race. They were hated by the Jews.

The second book of Kings relates the end of the kingdom of Israel. It also describes the history of the kingdom in Judah. Judah had some good kings. Men like Hezekiah and Josiah who loved God and were faithful. The kingdom also had bad kings, however. Eventually, it too was removed by the Babylonians.

The first and second books of Chronicles deal with the same period. They alternate between contemporary events in Israel and Judah. They contain information additional to the Kings record supplied perhaps from prophets of the time. Originally, there would be only one book of Chronicles. When books were written on scrolls, however, this would have taken two scrolls. The same is true of Samuel and Kings which also appear as two books in our Bibles.

In all these books there is a frankness which is almost alarming. They do not flatter the men whose stories they tell. They look at things from God's point of view. They speak of things that men would have tried to cover up or exaggerate. They deal with them in an open and honest way. This is because they are God's assessment of these men.

At junior school, history used to seem a very dull subject. It was all dates. It was hard to remember and there seemed little point in it.
At secondary school we did more social and economic history. That was more interesting. It was things like the history of canals, of railways, of the trade union movement and so on. It involved learning why things happened, why canals declined, why railways took over.

Bible history is like that. It is not a succession of dates, or even events. It is certainly not just Jewish history. It is how God's purpose was working out. It is why the Jews failed to become the most important nation on earth. It is why they could not stay in the land God gave them.

Captivity in Babylon
The people of Judah spent seventy years in Babylon from about 600 BC. The Babylonians were then defeated by the Medes and Persians. Under their rule the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem. They began to rebuild the city as God had promised they would. Under Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the governor they resettled the area. The temple was also rebuilt. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell us about this.

Not all the Jews returned to Judah. Many were comfortable in captivity. The book of Esther, however, describes a persecution that arose in Persia. An ancient "Hitler" tried to wipe out the Jews. Esther, a Jewess who had become queen, saved her people. The wicked Haman's "final solution" came to nothing.

These events are of more than passing interest though. They show the power of God in working out what He has planned and foretold. The work of Esther teaches something of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in saving his people.

That concludes this very brief survey of Israel's career. It takes us right through to the end of Old Testament history. The remaining books of poetry and prophecy fit into the same period.