June 12, 2025
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Reading along with us in Judges, Proverbs, and Psalms? 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.…..Continue Reading
So the banner that hangs over the book of judges, “Israel had no king, everyone did as they saw fit”, reigns over this chapter as well. God protects us from rash and extreme vows and actions. Why would everyone in Benjamin be judged for the actions of some of them? Why would all in Jabesh Gilead be killed because no one represented them at this meeting? And how could they rationalize allowing women to be abducted from Shiloh and that being an escape clause to the oath they had taken? It is because they had the symbol of interacting with God rather than the truth of God controlling their lives. We have the opportunity to have the substance of God within us and thereby be transformed by it. Otherwise anything can sound good…