July 31, 2021
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Reading along with us in Judges? Here’s today’s reading:
Judges 21 (NIV)
Wives for the Benjamites
1 The men of Israel had taken an oath at Mizpah: “Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite.”
2 The people went to Bethel where they sat before God until evening, raising their voices and weeping bitterly. 3“Lord, God of Israel,” they cried, “why has this happened to Israel? Why should one tribe be missing from Israel today?”........Continue Reading
Judges has really been a bad example of man left to their own devices and the misery that follows! Again making foolish oaths that literally bring about the extinction of the tribe of Benjamin….an oath that God did not require but something they decided to do in their anger.
We just don’t think things through, we don’t see the big picture, and without God we literally bring about our own destruction!
Judges 20&21
Well I suppose it is not surprising that the last chapter of Judges would have some good, bad and ugly. It is a book whose banner is “there was no king and so everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” So it is good that they come before God in humility and worship and sacrifice. It is right that they would be saddened for the loses suffered by the Benjamites, but it is they that have left a tribal whole in Israel, not God. It is bad that they compensation for their brutality against the Benjamites by destroying those of Jabesh Gilead just for not showing us for their gathering and then take their virgins (who have lost family) and just hand them over to the Benjamites. It is both bad and ugly, but uglier still is to give these girls dancing in Shiloh, innocently and unto the Lord, to the Benjamites as well. It’s no wonder these impulsive, unwise and uncaring decisions are followed with the banner of the book of Judges. How bad we become when left to our own devices!
Judges 21
25In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.
Judges 21
These last few chapters are certainly damning in the treatment of women. Concubines given over to be ravaged…and even her “husband” telling her to “get up” when he finds her dead in the morning. Then cutting her up. Not sure if the other tribes are angry because of the ravaging of the Levites concubine or because they killed her. Unrepentant Benjaminites go to war with Israel instead of putting forth the murderers. Israel destroys all of Benjamin and then grieves the loss of a tribe and violates more women to “make it right”!
“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” A fitting summary to the book of Judges.inin