July 30, 2021
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Reading along with us in Judges? Here’s today’s reading:
Judges 20 (NIV)
The Israelites Punish the Benjamites
1Then all Israel from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came together as one and assembled before the Lord in Mizpah. 2The leaders of all the people of the tribes of Israel took their places in the assembly of God’s people, four hundred thousand men armed with swords. 3 (The Benjamites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah.) Then the Israelites said, “Tell us how this awful thing happened.”.........Continue Reading
Well sometimes it takes us getting to our lowest point to truly repent and seek God and that seems to be what happened here! God allowed the first two days of battles to be loss…he could have given them victory but that would not have changed their hearts. It wasn’t until they stopped, repented, and truly looked to God to lead them that He gave them victory!
Doesn’t seem to be much to say about the last couple of chapters. This is the kind of stuff you deal with when God is not in your life. Miserable.
Judges 19 & 20
Well as we come to the last chapters of Judges, the people finally standup for righteousness and seek to right the wrong done to the concubine…even though a little over the top. It seems the 2 losses could have served 2 purposes. One making sure the Israelites were seeking God’s will rather than them coming to God to validate their plans. And two, to lull the Benjamites into a sense of pride so when they were beating them the 3rd day, they assumed it would go the same as the first two and let their guard down. Both are good lessons for us to learn and for us not to assume that God is not in the setbacks we might face because the set backs might be setting up something better in the future. We just need to continue to pursue Him and His will in our lives and trust Him for the results.
Now I can understand destroying the town of Gibeah for the great evil perpetuated there. But all the towns of Benjamin seems excessive. But the people of Benjamin also should have taken care of the evil amongst them, themselves, rather than gathering an army to defend Gibeah.
12The tribes of Israel sent messengers throughout the tribe of Benjamin, saying, “What about this awful crime that was committed among you? 13Now turn those wicked men of Gibeah over to us so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel.”
But the Benjamites would not listen to their fellow Israelites.
Judges 20
Civil war.