CHAPTER XI

THE TIMES OF THE JUDGES

ALTHOUGH the objects of the invasion had generally been attained, due partly to the strategy of Joshua, but more to the help of God, the conquest was by no means complete. The next chapter in the Bible Story emphasises this fact and shows the results that followed. The results were not apparent during the times of Joshua and the elders who had been associated with him; they exercised a good influence to which the nation gener­ally responded.

When Joshua died the need for further progress was realised, and efforts were made to consolidate the gains that had been achieved. Those efforts were far from complete. Thus Judah, while successful in various quarters “could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron.” Of Benjamin it is said, they “did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem.” Further north the same tendency was seen. Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean, Tanaach, Dor, Ibleam and Megiddo, neither did Ephraim drive out the inhabitants of Gezer. In the far north the story was just the same, for Zebulon, Asher, and Naphtali all failed to accomplish the clearance of the territories assigned to them. It was a calamity, for the failure had disastrous effects, yet it was understandable. The places which these tribes failed to take were the strongly fortified cities that commanded the great roads and important districts of Canaan, whose inhabitants were well armed. Israel settled down to enjoy the land they had conquered.

Slipping back

A rebuke from an angel made little impression. They came to more or less definite understandings with the earlier inhabitants and gradually fell into the ways of the peoples around, joined with them in marriage, and forsook the worship of Yahweh. The result was some centuries of confusion, during which the general condition of the people was that every man did that which was right in his own eyes. The book of Judges is a record of failures and reformations as they successively took place. It is a series of episodes rather than a history.

The first of their oppressors was Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia, under whom they were oppressed eight years. From this oppression they were delivered by Othniel, the son of a brother of Caleb, who intro­duced a peaceful period of forty years.

At the end of that time the conditions changed, and the king of Moab held them in subjection for eighteen years. They achieved deliverance from this oppression through Ehud, a Benjamite. He took a present, probably the stipulated tribute, to the king of Moab, and, under the pretext that he had a secret message, secured a private interview with the king and assassinated him. The death of the king ended the supremacy of Moab, and a rest of eighty years followed.

On the next occasion trouble arose in the north where Jabin ruled in Hazor. His title, “king of Canaan,” shows how precarious was the hold on the country exercised by the Israelites. Jabin was a powerful ruler with great military resources, includ­ing nine hundred chariots of iron; the most effective form of offence in those days. For twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. On this occasion a woman came to the help of the people- Deborah, a prophetess. She could not act as a military commander, and she chose Barak, a man of Naphtali, to act on her behalf. At her instigation he went to Mount Tabor with ten thousand men. Deborah accompanied them, for Barak refused to go unless she did so.

Deborah and Barak

When Jabin heard that the Israelites had gathered an army (actually there were only men from two tribes, Naphtali and Zebulon) he sent Sisera with nine hundred chariots and all his army to put down the insurrection, as he esteemed it. The position of Barak was well chosen; for chariots could not act on a mountain. Then it seemed as if Deborah and Barak made a mistake, they moved down from the mount into the plain. It was not a mistake, but a divinely directed movement. In a great song of victory that was sung afterwards Deborah said,

“They fought from heaven;
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,
The River Kishon swept them away,
That ancient river, the River Kishon.”

A terrific thunderstorm broke out, with a deluge of hail and rain. It turned the Kishon into a seeth­ing torrent, and the plain of Esdraelon into a quag­mire. No chariots could manoeuvre on such ground, and Sisera left his and fled. It was not a defeat but a rout. Famished and weary, Sisera sought refuge in the tent of a woman of the Kenites. She gave him food and drink, and, as he lay asleep, drove a tent-peg through his temples, fastening him to the ground. Israel was delivered and the land had rest for forty years.

The old tendency set in again. Baal worship gained a place among the people, and their own God was forgotten. This time they were given into the hands of the Midianites. It was not so much a subjection to a foreign power; but the occurrence of a series of raids in which the produce of the fields was taken away by roving bands of Midianites. So regular did the practice become that the people had to find hiding places for their harvests in the dens and caves of the country.

Gideon

Then the Lord sent a prophet with a call to repent­ance. It found at least one who was ready to listen -Gideon, the son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh. As he was threshing wheat in a winepress an angel appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.” It was a strange greeting in the circumstances, and Gideon replied, “Oh my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all His wondrous works which our fathers told us of?” His words showed that the great events of the past had not been forgotten, and that there was a longing for further manifestations of God’s care for His people.

The angel encouraged Gideon to undertake the deliverance of Israel. Speaking in the name of the Lord, he said, “Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites.” The position of Israel was so desperate that Gideon asked to be given a sign. He prepared a kid and unleavened cakes and placed them on a rock. The angel touched them with his staff and vanished, as a flame burst forth and consumed them. Gideon erected an altar to the Lord, and during the night he and his ser­vants broke down the altar of Baal, and cut down the Asherah (a tree or a conventional representation of a tree) which he burnt on the altar he had made. Next morning, when the people saw what had been done consternation seized them; they regarded it as sacrilege, and called on Joash to bring out his son that he might be killed. There was fine irony in his reply, “Will ye plead for Baal? Will ye save him?” If Baal were a god he could look after him­self. The logic of the reasoning was unanswerable, and when Gideon issued a call, all the men of the place responded. From farther away also they came, from Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali. The Midianites gathered their forces and pitched in the valley of Jezreel.

They were a great company, and Gideon felt the need for a further sign. He put a fleece of wool on the floor and prayed that it might be wet with dew and the earth around be dry-and so it was. Then he reversed the request, and the fleece was dry while all the ground was wet.

Thirty-two thousand men had responded to Gideon’s call, but God told him they were too many. He issued a proclamation that all who were faint-hearted might return to their homes, and his force was reduced to ten thousand. Still they were too many, and Gideon was told to take them to the water and to notice the way they drank. Three hundred lapped, the rest went down on their knees to drink. Then he was told, “By the three hundred that lapped will I deliver the Midianites unto thine hand.”

That night Gideon and his servant went into the camp of the Midianites. As they crept through they heard a man of Midian telling of a dream. He saw a cake of barley bread roll against a Mid-ianite tent and level it to the ground. His fellow said, “This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon; God hath delivered Midian and all the host into his hands.” Greatly encouraged Gideon returned to his three hundred and prepared for the battle.

He divided the three hundred into three com­panies. To each man he gave a trumpet, a pitcher, and a torch, which was placed inside the pitcher. The three companies approached the Midianites from three sides. The watch had been newly set in the camp, and they must have been greatly puzzled when they saw in the darkness a hundred columns of light approaching from three separate directions. Suddenly three hundred pitchers crashed to the ground, three hundred trumpets were blown, and three hundred voices shouted “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” Roused up from sleep in the darkness, and seeing the flashing lights of torches in the hands of the three hundred, a panic seized the Midianites and they fled pell mell, killing each other in the confusion. The defeat was complete and again Israel was delivered. Gideon was not wholeheartedly received by some of the people, but a combination of severity and good humoured flattery gained their goodwill to such an extent that the people suggested that he should be made king and inaugurate an hereditary monarchy.

This incident was the first indication of a feeling that was growing up in Israel. Moses had exercised the powers of a king, but had never even suggested that he should occupy such a position. He had ruled for God, for Israel was the Kingdom of God. The Judges had been subordinate rulers, not kings. Gideon refused the proffered honour. As a true patriot, who recognised that God was the king of Israel, he answered, “The Lord shall rule over you.” He made one mistake, he asked for the golden ear­rings they had taken from the Midianites, and of them he made an ephod. It became a sacred object, and proved a snare to him and to his house. So long as he lived, however, Israel prospered, then once more they turned after Baalim. (Baalim is the plural of Baal.)

More trouble

The death of Gideon caused a complete change in the country. One of his sons, named Abimelech, the son of a concubine, a woman of Shechem, per­suaded the men of that city to support his claim to rule over the country. With the money they provided he hired a number of followers and slew the other sons of his father, of whom only one escaped. Abimelech reigned for three years, the first king in the history of Israel. Then trouble broke out between him and the men of Shechem. They found a champion in one named Gael The insurrection was put down, but in the course of the fighting Abimelech was killed. So ended the first attempt to turn Israel into a kingdom.

After the death of Abimelech a number of com­paratively unknown individuals became judges, Israel all the while serving Baal and other heathen deities. Retribution overtook them at the hands of the Ammonites and the Bedouin people who lived in the east. They invaded the country as far as the territory of Benjamin, and Israel was in sore distress.

East of the Jordan was the land of Gilead, and among the people who lived there was Jephthah, who had been driven out by his brothers because he was illegitimate. He was “a mighty man of valour” and had become the head of a band of marauders. As the people looked for one to lead them against the Ammonites they thought of Jephthah and asked him to take up their cause. After some bargaining he agreed to do so, it being understood that if he defeated the Ammonites he should be made the judge. He did so, but two things marred his triumph, one in his family, and the other among the people. In his zeal Jephthah made a vow that if the Lord gave him the victory he would offer in sacrifice the first that came out of his house to meet him. As he returned, his daughter, an only child, came out. It put an end to his triumph; his joy was turned to sorrow “Alas, my daughter,” he said, “thou hast brought me very low. I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot go back.” His daughter made no attempt to persuade him to break his vow. All she did was to beg two months’ grace to bewail her virginity, for to die without children was a thing greatly dreaded in those days. At the end of the two months he did with her according to his vow.

It is a dark story, and reflects the character of the times. Yet it has a lesson. Jephthah’s words are an illustration of a great principle. “I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back.” His daughter’s words, too, were noble. “My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do unto me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth.” Many years after­wards David asked, “Lord, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle?” and among those whom he said should do so was “he that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.”

The second thing that marred the triumph was the action of the tribe of Ephraim. They despised the Gileadites and were jealous of the fame Jephthah had acquired, so they threatened to burn his house over his head. Jephthah noted the threat and gathered the people of Gilead together to fight against Ephraim. In this fratricidal war the Ephraimites were defeated. The Gileadites seized the fords of Jordan, and any Ephraimite who attempted to cross to his own side was told to say “Shibboleth.” The dialect of theEphraimites caused them to say “Sibboleth,” and every one who did so was killed.

Samson

A number of smaller men succeeded Jephthah, and the people once more fell into evil ways. A great oppression by the Philistines ensued, during which Samson was born. His birth was foretold by an angel who appeared to his mother and instructed her to bring him up as a Nazarite, and told her that no razor should come on his head. When Samson grew to man’s estate he desired to take a woman of the Philistines as a wife. His parents tried to dissuade him, but he insisted. On the way to the Philistine town where she lived he met a lion. Catching it by its two jaws he rent it asunder as if it were a kid. Returning soon afterwards he found the carcase of the lion occupied by a swarm of bees.

When the time came for the marriage to take place he issued a challenge to the Philistines who had come to be his companions. If they could answer his riddle he would provide each of them with a shirt and a change of raiment. They accepted the challenge, and he gave them the riddle.

Out of the eater came forth meat;
And out of the strong came forth sweetness.

As the days passed and they could not answer the riddle they threatened to destroy his wife if she did not tell them the answer. By tears she obtained the answer from Samson and passed it on to them. They had won, though by unfair means. In great anger Samson went out and slew thirty Philistines and gave their garments to the young men in dis­charge of his wager. Then he returned to his father’s house.

When he next went down to his wife he found she had been given to another. He showed his feelings by catching a number of foxes, tying them in pairs, tail to tail, with a lighted brand between them, and then driving them into the standing corn of the Philistines.

After a number of adventures he was betrayed to the Philistines by a woman with whom he had fallen in love. He lost his strength through her wiles, and the Philistines put out his eyes. On one of their religious festivals they brought him out to make sport of him. In the intensity of his feelings he determined to bring one final act of judgment on his enemies. He asked a lad to lead him to the pillars on which the house rested. Then he prayed, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” Bearing with all his might upon the pillars, he uttered a final prayer, “Let me die with the Philistines,” and the whole building collapsed, “so the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

Samson was not like the other judges. He was no warrior who risked his life to deliver his people. Yet he was the hero of his times, and his exploits greatly heartened the people of Israel at a time when they most needed it.

Wicked times

Two other incidents of the times of the Judges need to be mentioned. In the division of the land the Danites found the territory assigned to them too little for their requirements, so they set out to seek farther land in the north. On the way they found a Levite who had taken service with a man who had made a graven image with some money his mother had dedicated to the Lord. They had known him before, and induced him to become their priest in their new home. There they set up the graven image, and the Levite, “Jonathan, the grand­son of Moses” (not Manasseh as in the Authorised Version) “became its priest.” Nothing could show more clearly the degeneracy of the times than the fact that a grandson of the great law-giver should become a priest to a graven image.

The other is an unsavoury incident in relation to the tribe of Benjamin. A Levite and his concubine, travelling from Bethlehem, would not seek hos­pitality in the city of Jebus (Jerusalem) because it was not an Israelitish city. They went on to Gibeah of Benjamin, where the concubine was so foully treated that she died. The Levite adopted a terrible means to call the attention of the tribes to what had happened. He cut her body up into twelve pieces and sent them through the land. A wave of indignation swept through the country, and the people called on Benjamin to punish the people of Gibeah. Benjamin refused, and gathered together in defence of the inhabitants of Gibeah. A terrible war ensued; twice the Benjaminites were victorious, but in the third battle the tribe was almost exter­minated, only about six hundred escaping.

The people had taken an oath that they would not give any of their daughters to Benjamin. Yet a tribe could not be allowed to perish. Enquiries showed that the city of Jabesh-gilead had taken no part in the war, so Israel made war on it and, killing all the adult males, handed the women over to the tribe of Benjamin. Still there were not sufficient for all. There was every year a feast to the Lord at Shiloh at which the maidens of the place took part in a dance. The survivors of Benjamin were told to go and wait in the vineyards near by and then to seize the maidens and make them their wives. They were rough times with rough methods, and they are well expressed in the words that are found at the end of this chapter of the story, “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Ruth, the Moabites!

A delightful contrast to the evils described in the book of Judges is furnished in that of Ruth. Owing to a famine in Canaan a man of Bethlehem emigrated to Moab with his wife and two sons. There the young men married women of Moab, Orpah and Ruth. In the course of time the man and his two sons died, leaving his wife, Naomi, and his two daughters-in-law. Some time afterwards Naomi determined to return to her own country. Her daughters-in-law accompanied her part of the way, then she told them to go back to their own people. Orpah went, but Ruth, with noble simplicity, replied “Intreat me not to leave thee; and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Hers was a definite choice of Israel’s God, Israel’s people, and Israel’s land, the Land of Promise.

When they arrived in Bethlehem it was the time of the barley harvest, and Ruth found her way into the fields of Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi. Boaz saw the stranger from Moab and enquired who she was. When he knew he told her not to go into another field, saying, “The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord, the God of Israel, under Whose wings thou art come to take refuge.” In the evening Ruth reported to Naomi all that had occurred.

Later on, acting on Naomi’s instructions, Ruth went to the threshing floor where Boaz was winnow­ing his corn. After he had lain down to sleep she lay down at his feet, as Naomi had told her. At midnight Boaz realised that a woman was at his feet, and anxiously asked who she was. “I am Ruth, thy handmaid,” was the reply, “spread there­fore thy skirt over thine handmaid, for thou art a near kinsman.”

With kindly tact Boaz told her that there was a nearer kinsman than he, but intimated that if he would not act a “kinsman’s part,” he (Boaz) would do so. Next day he saw the kinsman, who declined to act lest he should spoil his own inherit­ance. The only obstacle being thus removed Boaz took the elders of the city to witness that he pur­chased all that had pertained to the husband of Naomi and to her sons, and that at the same time he took Ruth to be his wife.

The marriage of Boaz and Ruth was a link in the chain that led from Adam, through Shem and Abraham to Jesus the Christ. Their child was named Obed who was the grandfather of David. Thus the blood of a Moabitess had a place in the line that finished in Jesus of Nazareth.