Israel had no king…
The book of Judges shows us the depths to which a people can
sink when they reject God as Lord and as king. The writers of the book know
they are reporting terrible stuff; this is why four different times we read the
refrain, “Israel had no king” (Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, and 21:25). The message
was obvious to the original readers: this is a result of Israel’s rejection of
God.
With only rare exceptions, the judges sent to free Israel
from her oppressors were cut from the same cloth as the Israelites themselves. The
judges’ role was one of physical liberation, not spiritual leadership (note:
every reference of the Spirit of the Lord coming upon a judge in power in the
book of Judges results in a tail-kickin’). So it shouldn’t be surprising that
even many of the judges had glaring moral flaws.
Exhibit A: Samson
is the obvious example of this. If all you had ever known of Samson was what
you had learned in Sunday School, then you are in for a surprise the first time
you read the book of Judges. Up until the day that he died, it is a challenge
to find anything that he did praiseworthy.
Exhibit B: Perhaps
the most tragic example, however, is that of Jephthah. In a moment of pure
stupidity, the judge Jephthah made a rash vow that he would sacrifice “whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I
return in triumph”. The very words he used in his vow assume the fact
(or at least the possibility) that what would come out to meet him would be
human. Of course, human sacrifice is an abomination to God and expressly
forbidden throughout the Old Testament. So when his only daughter comes out to
meet him and he follows through with his vow, this is a tragic case of the
Bible simply reporting what happened, rather than in any way endorsing his
behavior as right or justified.
These are just two of the examples of the shocking moral
slide that the nation of Israel takes during the time of the judges. And just
for added emphasis, the writer of Judges ends the book saying, “In those days
there was no king is Israel. Everyone did
what was right in his own eyes” (21:25, emphasis added). While this is a
depressing period in Israel’s history, it should serve as mirror to our own
hearts, considering our own tendencies toward desiring to be our own kings.
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