Judges: In Need of a King - Part 2
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In need of a king.
In today’s sermon I intend to pick up where I left off last week in terms of establishing the background of the book of Judges.
Last week I preached less of a sermon and gave more of a historical lecture on the history of the Israelite people as they were called out by God in Abraham, established through Isaac and Jacob, built up in Egypt, and led into the promised land by Joshua.
Today my goal is to overview some of the details of the book.
Who wrote it? What are the major themes? How can we approach an overview?
Title: Judges (Tribal Rulers)
Author: Officially Unknown. Tradition: Samuel
Date: ca. 1380-1043 (roughly 350 years)
Theme: The Canaanization of Israel and its need for a King
Title:
Judges. Sometimes old Testament books have different titles across the Hebrew manuscripts, the Septuagint (which is the Greek translation of the OT), and the early Latin manuscripts, but in this care there is complete unity. It is the book of Judges. It, of course, gets its name from the characters of the book who, though they are never called Judges as a title, they are said to have Judged Israel.
The word itself doesn’t have the same kind of connotation we would take for a judge today. We think of judges to consider cased in legal setting. The Hebrew has a slightly different range of meaning. It refers more to the idea of ruling, governing, and delivering. Thus the connotation is more about leading the people rather than judging in a legal setting. Daniel Block suggests that a more accurate English translation for the Hebrew word that captures the idea better is “The book of Tribal Rulers”
Author
Officially we don’t know who the human author was. The rabbinic tradition attributes authorship to Samuel, however some of the internal data seems to suggest that Samuel would have died by the time the book was fully finished. It certainly is possible he wrote a significant portion of the book and it was finished by a later hand, similarly to Deuteronomy was largely written by Moses, but likely finished by Joshua with the death of Moses, and how Joshua was likely largely written by Joshua, but finished by another to record Joshua’s death.
Phrases like “in those days there was no king in Israel” and “they set up this monument, just as it is to this day” give us clues to the time-frame.
Ultimately who wrote it does not fully matter, but it is a relevant question because it give clues into the purpose for writing.
Date:
The time frame of the book is not as fixed as some historians would prefer. The book itself opens with the death of Joshua, but Joshua’s death is mentioned again in chapter two. Several of the Judges themselves overlap in time, and it is clear that the author did not pain himself too greatly with following a strict timeline, though there is no reason to question the basic flow. All told, we are looking at ca. 1380-1043 BC, which is just a little under 350 years, though there is considerable debate about those things.
Theme: The Cannanization of Israel and its need for a King
Sub Themes: The Covenant Faithfulness of God; The Righteous Judgement of the Wicked; Cycles of Sin;
If had a chart of all the books of the bible on the wall, we would see this in the “history” section.
However, in the Hewbrew Bible, this was collected it was was called “the former prophets”
Though this book is history and we should embrace it as historically accurate, we must also recognize that it is theologized history. This is not a mere mindless recounting of the facts without motive or purpose. This book was written for a specific prophetic purpose, and I don’t mead prophetic as in speaking of the future. The majority of the prophets spoke to their people about their own time, and only occasionally ave futuristic prophecies. When I say it is prophetic I mean it it communication from God through a human agent to speak into the culture and to the people of the day with a specific goal and desired respone in mind.
The author presents to us a harrowing storyline of what happens when Israel gets too comfortable with the world. It is a message of warning to the author’s contemporaries. A message that bears significant weight and relevance for today.
Method
Before we move into the text itself, which we are going to do today, I want make a few comments on method.
When we teach through the NT, the reaching process is usually straightforward. Paul is making a point. What is that point. How can we live to be obedient to the word. Paul says “be kind to one another, tender-hearted and compassionate” and it’s not super difficult to figure out what he means and how that applies to us.
Things get a little more difficult when we step into the OT, doesn’t it?
Many Christians simply do not know how to handle OT texts. How do we learn from it? What are stories teaching?
Indeed, it is not uncommon for some church attendees to question why we both studying the OT at all, seeing as we are in the church age and the OT was given to Israel. Wouldn’t we be better served sticking with the NT since it was given to the church?
The irony with this kind of objection is the that NT places a high value on studying and understanding the OT. Many texts directly quote or allude to OT passages and the best way to understand the NT text is to have a firm grasp of the OT text it is quoting.
Furthermore, Paul directly states the value of the OT Scriptures when writing to a young pastor, Timothy:
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Furthermore, we find this testimony in the book of Romans:
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
and finally 1 Cor 10:11 where we find Paul making direct application to our lives based on the OT narratives:
11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
So we do well to Study the OT Scriptures, for in them we find instruction for our lives.
The question still remains, okay, how do we do that?
There have been a variety of approaches to studying the OT text over the years that I think are less than helpful if I’m putting charitably.
Possible approaches to the text:
Ignore it
Moralize it
Allegorize it
Typologize it
Seek Authorial Intent
First there is the moralizing approach. This is common in children's Sunday schools and children’s church. The idea is that we look at the stories and we boil everything down to either this is an example to follow or an example of what NOT to do. Stories get reduced to hero and villains. Gideon, look at his faith! Now you should have faith too! Oh man. Look at what Samson did. Shameful. Don’t do that.
Allegory. Sometimes people try to find spiritual significance from seemingly mundane details in the text. So Gideon went out to fight the Midianites at night. If we allegorize the text, we might say something like “This symbolizes the trials and tribulations we endure as believers in this world. Sometimes when we fight the enemy we must do so in the midst of the darkest night”
Is that what the text is telling us? Is that what the author meant to communicate? No, he meant that Gideon went out to fight Midian at night.
Another form of this is when we are tempted to insert our own lives into the text and consider how we can be the hero just like the character in the story was. This is famously done with David and Goliath. We read that and try to insert ourselves into the text and we become David fighting against whatever Goliath is in our lives at the time. To quote a famous preacher in a famous sermon, You’re not David. There are things to be learned from the story, but it isn’t that you can vanquish all your foes if you just do such and such.
Finally, we want to avoid the error of what is presently called a Christo-centric hermeneutic. Of all the errors that we could make, this one has the initial impression of being good and virtuous. Why wouldn’t you want a Christ-centered approach to the text??
According to this approach, because Jesus said in the NT that all the Bible was really about him, we must seek to find him on every page.
This is based on Luke 24:27 “27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Therefore, every detail about Scripture is about Christ, it all points to Christ, and so our job is to figure out how. This leads to what is otherwise called a typological approach to the text. Everything becomes a type of Christ, it all prefigures Christ, and everything finds its fulfillment in Christ.
Now, on one hand, I do agree that everything does point us to Christ, but the way we go about getting there matters. What happens with this approach is that the interpreter is seeking to find parallel details from the story to Christ’s life and show how Christ is the fulfillment of the text.
For example, a famous preacher was commenting on the story at the end of Judges, which has man traveling with his concubine, the men of city want to rape the man, but he throws his concubine to the crowd instead who literally rapes her to death. The man then cuts her body up and sends it to all the tribes to being about justice against the wicked men of the city.
It’s a rough story. The Christo-centric approach, according to one famous preacher at least, means that this man is a type of Christ in the sense that in every way that this man failed as a husband, Jesus will succeed as the bridegroom of the church. He won’t throw us to the evil of the world, he will protect us, and he will bring judgment against the world.
And I just have to sit back and ask, where do you get that from the text? Is that really what the author intended for us to understand? That this text is about Jesus in that way?
This approach has to invent connections and use imagined parallels to accomplish their goal, all the way ignoring what the original author was trying to communicate the whole time! He had a pointThis approach to Scripture is growing in popularity today, and I think we need to be more discerning of the text than that.
The irony in this is that I think we can “get to Christ” from that text, but it isn’t in making that wicked man out to be a type of Christ. We do it by seeing the wickedness of the land and asking the question “who can rescue us from this vile evil??” We need a King. We need a Savior. We need a rescuer. We need a redeemer.
So these are ways that this book has been attempted to be taught, and we need to avoid them. How should we approach the text?
I’ve already tipped my hand a little bit, but we need to approach the text seeking to answer this question: What did the original author intend to communicate? What was his purpose? We seek to learn this through studying the words themselves that were left on the page, seeking to observe the literary devices, story structure, and purposes revealed in the text itself. This is also known as the grammatical historical method.
Once we know what the original author’s aim was, we can find out what principles he was seeking to instill in the original audience, and then from there we learn how those principles apply to us here today. This method helps us take the original intent and apply it just as the author would have wanted us to, rather than inventing typology, allegory, or moralizing the text.
If you want more information about hermeneutics and I did a 6 part series on hermeneutics on my podcast Do Theology, which you can find at DoTheology.com or on Youtube.com/DoTheology.
So that is how we will approach this text and discern its modern applicability.
Here is an outline of the book that we will be using. This is one of the few books of the bible that there is near universal agreement for the best way to outline the book. There are few that differ, but many scholars outlines the book in a remarkably similar fashion:
Outline of Judges:
Prologue: Israel’s Failure - 1:1-3:6
The Cycles: Israel’s Canaanization - 3:7-16:31
Epilogue: The Depth of Israel’s Depravity - 17:1-21:25
The prologue sets up the book. As we will see the cycles in a moment, the prologue sets the stage explaining how things got started into the cycles in the first place. It explains how the people failed to drive out the people God said to drive out, and how that decision resulted in their demise.
We will break down that middle section much more extensively as we move into it.
On the screen is a picture of the cycle of the judges that you are likely familiar with if you have done any kind of reading whatsoever in the book of Judges. The land is at rest, but then there is rebellion and departure from the one true God in favor of the false idols of the Canaanites. God responds just as He promised he would with retribution, a chastening, a judgement upon the Israelites. After a time of groaning they remember their God and they repent of their sins, call out to God and beg for his mercy and rescue. God sends a rescuer who delivers them and ushers in an era of peace in the land as they are restored to their prior state. and the cycle goes on.
This is the traditional view of the cycle that you will see pretty much anywhere you look to study the book.
However, I should make a slight modification to this, that is much hard to make a handy visual for. I gave it my best shot, but here it is:
The cycle is the same, but each time the cycle goes around, they are descending further down and away from what God has commanded them. The judges get worldlier. The people get worse. By the end we are left scratching our heads at how in the world can these men be listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, as some of them are.
So there is a decline in the cycle. It’s not just circular. They descend into a depravity that would call to mind the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah.
1 After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” 2 The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.” 3 And Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites. And I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you.” So Simeon went with him. 4 Then Judah went up and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they defeated 10,000 of them at Bezek. 5 They found Adoni-bezek at Bezek and fought against him and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. 7 And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.
8 And the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. 9 And afterward the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, in the Negeb, and in the lowland. 10 And Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba), and they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.
11 From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir was formerly Kiriath-sepher. 12 And Caleb said, “He who attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter for a wife.” 13 And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter for a wife. 14 When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” 15 She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
16 And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the city of palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the Negeb near Arad, and they went and settled with the people. 17 And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they defeated the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and devoted it to destruction. So the name of the city was called Hormah. 18 Judah also captured Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. 19 And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. 20 And Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had said. And he drove out from it the three sons of Anak. 21 But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
22 The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) 24 And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” 25 And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. 26 And the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day.
27 Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. 28 When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely.
29 And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.
30 Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol, so the Canaanites lived among them, but became subject to forced labor.
31 Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob, 32 so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.
33 Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, so they lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.
34 The Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the plain. 35 The Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim, but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily on them, and they became subject to forced labor. 36 And the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward.