Juízes 21

Juízes 21

Henry writes that "The virgins of Jabesh-Gilead were taken out of the midst of blood and slaughter, but these of Shiloh out of the midst of mirth and joy; the former had reason to be thankful that they had their lives for a prey, and the latter, it is to be hoped, had no cause to complain, after a while, when they found themselves matched, not to men of broken and desperate fortunes, as they seemed to be, who were lately fetched out of a cave, but to men of the best and largest estates in the nation, as they must needs be when the lot of the whole tribe of Benjamin, which consisted of 45,600 men (Nu 26:41), came to be divided again among 600, who had all by survivorship. And soon after from among them sprang Ehud, who was famous in his generation, the second judge of Israel, Jdg 3:15. Daniel Block has an apt comment for this less than satisfying ending to Judges - “Through Moses Yahweh had warned that if the Israelites stoop to behaving like Canaanites, then they can expect the same fate (Deut 8:19–20). The narrator never declares so outrightly, but the present account, coming as it does at the end of the book affirms the total Canaanization of the tribe of Benjamin and the Israelites’ falsely based sympathy for their brothers.” (Borrow Judges, Ruth. Vol. 6: New American Commentary) Gary Inrig has an "editorial" comment - The mind reels. What about these poor women? Who do these people think they are fooling? Did they imagine that such a concern for legality that totally missed issues of justice, fairness, mercy, and love would be acceptable to a holy God and cause them to escape His righteous wrath? A recent Oscar-winning film advertised its delights in the following way: “Moviegoers: If violence, madness, rape, larceny, and bloodshed appeal to you, then see the best.” Millions did. Nothing could more eloquently illustrate the deep sickness of our society. It is disgusting that Israel practiced such perversions. It is infinitely worse that we in our culture not only practice them, we celebrate them in movies and flock to see them for pleasure! We are entertained by immorality and titillated by godlessness. Gibeah has nothing on the Western world! Judges 19–21 gives us one of the ugliest stories in the Bible. The key to it is that, at every stage, people were acting on the basis of what was right in their own eyes. As far as the men of Gibeah were concerned, rape was all right. To the farmer and the Levite in the house, homosexual rape was unthinkable, but the sacrifice of blameless women to protect themselves was completely justified. The men of Benjamin thought it was right to overlook sin and to defend evil men. To Israel, revenge and retaliation could be justified, and to solve their problems about marriage for the Benjamites, the massacre of innocent people and the kidnapping of young girls could be condoned. The moral elevator is in freefall! (Borrow Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay ) Judges 21:24 And the sons of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and each one of them went out from there to his inheritance. Judges 21 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries PROBLEMS SOLVED: LET'S ALL GO HOME! And the sons of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and each one of them went out from there to his inheritance: The Hebrew words here are the same as those found at the end of the Book of Joshua (Josh 24:28). However, the book’s final comment (Jdg 21:25) indicates that times were far worse than they had been in Joshua’s day. In is fascinating that Judges ends with the words each one of them went out from there to his inheritance, words that are almost identical to those at the end of Joshua "Then Joshua dismissed the people, each to his inheritance." (Josh. 24:28) What a difference a generation makes (cf Jdg 2:10-11+), for now the inheritance had been corrupted by Israel's apostasy. Dale Ralph Davis makes the cogent point that "the Book of Judges ends with a miracle. How after chapters 19–21, indeed, after chapters 1–21, can you account for the fact that there is still an Israel? It can only be because Yahweh wished to dwell in the midst of his people in spite of its sin. It can only be because Yahweh’s grace is far more tenacious than his people’s depravity and insists on still holding them fast even in their sinfulness and their stupidity. Nor is he finished raising up saviors for them (Acts 13:23)! (Judges: Such Great Salvation) Gary Inrig has a poignant summary of Judges that speaks loudly to our days which are beginning more and more to resemble the book of Judges. The first part is a study of the Organic Nature of Sin and the second part is Principles to Ponder. This summary is also available his online book Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay. Note you have to sign in to check it out for an hour but there is no cost involved. The Organic Nature of Sin There is an important truth about sin in this story. In our naiveté, we tend to think of sins as isolated acts, individual events that have no relationship to one another. However, the Bible views sin organically. There is a vast cause and effect link that, if it is not dealt with, leads a whole society into moral collapse. No sin was ever committed that affected one person alone. There is no such thing as victimless sin. Any sin sends ripples into all of society. There is an old story of a ship that was traveling across the Mediterranean, and one of the passengers cut a hole through the side of the ship. The sailors came to him and demanded to know what he was doing. “What difference does it make to you?” he asked. “The hole’s under my own bunk.” But they were still two hundred short. Once again they blamed the Lord for the situation: “the Lord had made a gap in the tribes of Israel” (v. 15). The solution was no less clever and no less perverted. This time they decided the answer was to be found in the legal technicalities of the vow. No one was to give daughters to Benjamin. But what if the Benjamites kidnapped wives for themselves? That would mean the terms of the vows were met. The legalistic maneuvering is disgusting as those involved play word games and create loopholes without concern for justice or the lives of the women involved. If you understand the absurdity of the passenger in that story, you have gained an important insight into the biblical view of the effects of sin. People go around shouting, “Do your own thing!” and demanding the freedom to do what they please, when they please, where they please. Then we wonder why the boat is filling up with water and we are beginning to go under. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not sin to ourselves. The interrelatedness of sin is vividly illustrated here. Where did Israel go wrong? Where did the problem begin? The answer is not immediately apparent, but notice Judges 20:27–28. It describes spiritual sin. “In those days the ark of the covenant of God was there [at Bethel], with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, ministering before it.” The importance of this observation is that we know from passages in Joshua, Judges, and 1 Samuel that the tabernacle was in Shiloh. The ark of the covenant belonged in the Holy of Holies of the tabernacle in Shiloh. The ark was intensely holy, and no one except the high priest was to view it once a year. But the holiness of God had been so cheapened that the high priest had allowed it to be taken out of the tabernacle and transported to Bethel, in direct disobedience to God. What makes this doubly sad is that the priest was Phinehas, a man who once stood powerfully for God (see Numbers 25). That is the root of all sin—a weak conception of the holiness of God. That is where Israel went astray. That leads directly to sexual sin—the adultery of the concubine and the homosexuality and rape in Gibeah. At first, it seems that sexual sin is the most private of sins. Over and over we hear it said, “It is no one’s business what two consenting adults do. It affects no one but themselves.” That is, of course, not true. Not only are other people almost always involved, our sexuality is one of the most determinative things about us. When we violate God’s intentions for our bodies, our perspective on life is coarsened. Sexual sin produces a cheapened view of the value of people and life. Sexual immorality brutalizes and dehumanizes us. It touches our “self” more deeply than any other sin. (1Co 6:18) It is worth noting that at the heart of Gibeah’s sin was homosexuality, albeit in a very perverted form. It was the desire of the men of the city for the Levite, not his concubine, which triggered the devastation. Paul indicates in Romans 1 that widespread acceptance of homosexuality is evidence that a people have rejected the truth of God, and, in turn, have been given up by Him to “dishonorable passion.” Sodom and Gibeah are symbols of this, and it is a frightening commentary on our own society that something the Bible calls unnatural and shameful (Romans 1:26–27) has become increasingly defended and even promoted as an “alternative lifestyle.” Related to sexual sin, intriguingly, there is often another step downward—a cheapened view of life and a loss of human dignity and worth. It is expressed in the rape at Gibeah, the desecration of a woman’s body, the slaughter of Benjamin, the massacre at Jabesh-Gilead, and the kidnapping at Shiloh. There are many other sins, but I wonder if you notice the downward flow. (1) We lose our sense of the holiness and greatness of God, and soon we find ourselves engaged in sexual sin, the sin Paul says is against our own body. (2) Then we lose our self-worth, and we are plunged into the lowest level, (3) where we view people as things and treat them as commodities. Sin devastates our spirit in our relationship to God, distorts our soul—our sense of self—and reduces us to little more than animals, living as mere bodies, with our humanity almost erased. That is the process of Judges 19–21, and it is the process of the twenty-first century. Principles to Ponder I want to draw some important principles out of all this. Ugly as Judges 19–21 is, it is a passage uncomfortably close to what is going on all around us. In fact, it reads like the plot of a modern movie. Therefore, we need to learn five important lessons from God’s Word to enable us to survive morally and spiritually in a society without standards. 1. The basis of moral behavior is of critical importance. Why you do what you do is almost as important as what you actually do. That point may not be immediately apparent, so let me try to clarify it. For years, many people said that premarital sex was wrong because of the possibility of conceiving a child out of wedlock, because of sexually transmitted diseases, or because of social stigma. But then more effective forms of birth control lessened the fear of conception, new medicines provided solutions for disease (this proved very temporary, as new STDs evolved), and society’s moral standards changed dramatically, providing a new acceptance of casual sexual relationships. If the only reasons for sexual purity were based on fear of negative consequences, these changes made sexual experimentation and indulgence entirely appropriate. But not in God’s eyes. The point is this: If your moral behavior is not grounded on the absolutes of God’s Word, you will end up doing what is right in your own eyes. You may get your ethical guidelines from a theory of pragmatism, nominalism, utilitarianism, or situationism. Your ethics may be based on your parents’ teachings or peer pressure or religious tradition. It may be based on the lifestyle of rock musicians or Hollywood stars. Whatever it is, if it is not based on God’s Word, it is empty. The great question is, “Why is something right or wrong, moral or immoral?” The way you answer that question will determine a great deal about your future behavior, and, for a believer, there can be no answer that does not begin with God’s Word. 2. Ethical relativism is degrading and dehumanizing. It does not take a genius to recognize that we are terribly confused as a society, ethically and morally. We have lost any basis of judging right and wrong. The current motivation is, “Do your own thing,” and in modern music, on television, and in movies and literature, there is a concerted effort to prove that the old standards and values no longer have any meaning. I cannot help but think of 2 Peter 2:19 when I hear all this talk about personal freedom and doing your own thing. Speaking about the people who preach this philosophy, Peter says, “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” There is a tragically long trail of broken lives and shattered dreams in the wake of our moral anarchy, and it is those who shout “freedom” loudest who are the most enslaved. Because a person believes something to be right does not make it right, and, if Judges 19–21 tells us anything, it tells us that moral anarchy breeds disaster. “Sexual liberation” turns out to be a new form of sexual bondage, a moral cancer that spreads rapidly and destroys painfully. 3. Theology and morality cannot be separated. The only certain basis for morality is the character and Word of God. Right and wrong are not what people think they are, but what God says they are. Quite frankly, I do not care what all the psychologists, sociologists, pornographic publishers, Hollywood producers, and rock musicians in the world say about right and wrong. One million words from them do not carry the authority of one word from God. Humans can no more decide what is moral than they can decide whether the earth will rotate on its axis. A holy and righteous God determines those issues. To go back to our opening illustration, the passengers of a 747 unanimously voting that it is safe to take off does not make it safe if the control tower says that it is not. All the pilots in the cockpit of that Dutch 747 believed they were doing the right thing. All were wrong. There are three facts that ought to guide every Christian through the moral fog. Our God is a holy God who has absolute standards of right and wrong. He is also our Father, who loves His children and wants the very best for us. God has revealed Himself in the Lord Jesus. Apart from Him, we cannot know eternal life or life now. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and nothing makes sense apart from Him. God has spoken in His Word. Scripture is absolutely and unconditionally reliable, and, as we order our lives by it, we will be completely equipped for every good work. Apart from those three facts, there is no morality. 4. The alternative to the moral fog is not legalism or asceticism, but a personal dynamic faith in Jesus Christ. Many Christians have given people the impression that the Christian faith is a pleasure-denying, life-negating, joyless, legalistic kind of life. The truth is exactly the opposite. To live in the will of God is both life affirming and joy producing. No one ever accused Jesus of being a monastic recluse or an ascetic. The path upon which He leads us through life is not only safe, it is good. To follow His values is to find life. 5. We must not only know God’s answers, we must internalize His values. The only safe procedure in our time is to make the values of God so much a part of us that we instinctively turn to them when moral visibility is suddenly obliterated. One of the most important ways to do that is by the community in which we live. We learn from what we see in the lives of other believers, and the moral quality of the people we allow to have the most influence upon us is extremely important. If we are constantly bombarded by false values, it is hard to be unaffected. That is why we need fellowship with other Christians whom we can observe and with whom we can honestly discuss our moral struggles. We need to be piloted only by the Word of God as we come to know it more deeply. Reality is life as God sees it, and, as we read His Word, He dispels the fog from the moral horizon. We need constantly to go beyond instruction to application. Our children need more than right answers. They need healthy examples and right attitudes, and they must internalize truth by applying it to their lives. They must see those values in us. It is valuable to ask them not only, “What did you learn in Sunday school today?” but also “What difference should that make this week?” I need to ask myself that question as well. Not “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” but “Everyone did what was right in our God’s eyes.” We are living in the middle of a thick moral fog. Millions around us are committed to doing what is right in their own eyes. That is the path of personal and social disaster. God has called us to listen to His direction. The path to safety is the converse of Judges 21:25. Not “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” but “Everyone did what was right in our God’s eyes.” As we read in Hebrews 12:1, 2: “Having laid aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking away from all else unto Jesus, the Leader and Completer of faith” (own translation). The sin that trips us up is the sin of unbelief, and the danger that we constantly face is a lack of endurance and commitment. Endurance is difficult in a time such as ours, especially if we fix our eyes on our circumstances or ourselves. So the gaze of our hearts must be on Jesus. I am inspired and encouraged when I study the lives of significant Christians, although I am usually disappointed as well. But when I look away to Jesus, I am not only inspired, I am empowered and enabled. That is the only way to run! God has called us to listen to His direction. Conclusion And so we reach the end of the book of Judges. Not, however, the end of the period of the Judges. In the book of Ruth we have another window into this period, a window that shows us a small group of people living faithfully and responsibly, despite the chaos that surrounds them. The early chapters of 1 Samuel introduce us to the last of the judges, Samuel. He towers above all the other judges in the godliness and consistency of his life and was used by God to bring significant spiritual renewal to his nation. He was also the man charged by the Lord with the responsibility to anoint Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David, and those two introduce a very different stage of Israel’s history, the period of the monarchy. There is a 3,000-year gulf between the times of the Judges and our times. Modern technology makes that gulf look even larger, and we cannot help but wonder what, if anything, we can learn that would be relevant to our lives from a time so long ago and far away. Yet, as we have looked more closely, the gulf begins to shrink. The Israelites of Judges did not face temptations delivered by the Internet and digital technology. But as their society turned its back on the living God and allowed itself to be overrun by the timeless evils of moral relativism, sexual libertinism, and religious syncretism and pluralism, loyal followers of the Lord found themselves locked in a deadly conflict to maintain and represent their deepest values and spiritual convictions. If “Everyone did as he or she saw fit” is a slogan that captures the prevailing lifestyle of the period of the judges, it is just as apt as a description of ours. Ours is a society in which individualism has been enthroned as the supreme good, and the widespread response to authority of all kinds is “resist rules.” Ours is an ethic of self-fulfillment and self-gratification. The only authoritative moral voice is the one that speaks from within, and it should be followed wherever it takes us. And all around us, just as in the book of Judges, we see vivid examples of both the seductive appeal and the inevitable disaster of such a lifestyle. We could write Paul’s words over the book: “Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were . . . We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did . . . We should not test the Lord, as some of them did . . . And do not grumble, as some of them did . . . These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:6–11+). Judges comes to us as a solemn warning of the seriousness of sin. No matter how great our past accomplishments for the Lord, we can fall into great sin if we take our eyes off Him. (ED: DEAR PASTOR, TEACHER, ET AL - READ THAT AGAIN. SOAK IT IN! BELIEVE IT! THEN READ 1Corinthians 9:24-27+ OR EVEN BETTER MEMORIZE IT!) All believers have feet of clay, and when they try to stand on their own in a society without standards, they will quickly crumble into failure. That is the lesson of Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12+)! But the book of Judges is also “written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4+). If Judges tells of strong men made weak by self-confidence, it also eloquently describes weak men and women made strong through faith in God and by His work in their lives. Judges is the great Old Testament book on the Holy Spirit, and it describes the transforming work of the Spirit in making His people adequate servants of the Old Covenant. There is hope in seeing how the Lord gave weak men and women hearts of iron, and it is reinforced by the glorious truth that the Holy Spirit works in the life of the humblest believer today in a way far surpassing anything Old Covenant believers knew. We serve a crucified, risen Savior. We live by the power of His indwelling Spirit. We hold in our hands the complete, inerrant Word of God. Our resources in Christ far outstrip anything the judges knew, and our potential for spiritual victory is far greater than theirs. But, at heart, the issue remains the same. There can be no victory apart from a dynamic, obedient fellowship with the Lord Jesus. A distinctive positive life in a difficult secular age is not the product of proper techniques but of a daily walk of faith. The apostle Paul was a man whose spiritual achievements and experiences set him apart from most believers. But because the Lord was aware of the danger of self-exaltation and self-confidence, He gave him a physical disability, that he might learn this truth of the spiritual life: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). God’s strength does not remove human weakness; it transforms it, so that people with fearful hearts and feet of clay become people with hearts of iron to serve their God. That alone is the pathway to a spiritually powerful life in a secular and seductive age. The great missionary Hudson Taylor explained that living a victorious life of faith and obedience results from an unswerving trust in God. His words echo the lessons the Holy Spirit teaches us from the book of Judges: Want of trust is at the root of almost all our sins and our weaknesses; and how shall we escape it but by looking to Him and observing His faithfulness? The man who holds God’s faithfulness will not be foolhardy or reckless, but he will be ready for every emergency. The man who holds God’s faithfulness will dare to obey Him, however impolitic it may appear. Abraham held God’s faithfulness and offered up Isaac, “accounting that God was able to raise him . . . from the dead.” Moses held God’s faithfulness and led the millions of Israel into the waste, howling wilderness. “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell” of those who, holding God’s faithfulness, had faith, and by it “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises . . . out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” Satan, too, has his creed: Doubt God’s faithfulness. “Hath God said? Are you not mistaken as to His commands? He could not really mean just that. You take an extreme view, give too literal a meaning to the words.” How constantly, and alas, how successfully are such arguments used to prevent wholehearted trust in God, wholehearted consecration to God! How many estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt! All God’s giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.39 (Biography of James Hudson Taylor - 1965, pages 348-349) (ED: While not the same Biography of Hudson Taylor, this one is definitely worth borrowing to read - Hudson Taylor by Taylor, James Hudson, 1832-1905) Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay. Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes Greek Septuagint (LXX): en tais hemerais ekeinais ouk (absolute negation - absolutely no king of any king, divine or human) en basileus en Israel aner hekastos (each one individually) to euthes (Not found in NT = righteous) en ophthalmois (another translation = enopion = in the face of, in front of) autou epoiei (3SIAI = imperfect tense depicts action occurring over and over!) No king Jdg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1 Right: Jdg 18:7 Dt 12:8 Ps 12:4 Pr 3:5 14:12 Eccl 11:9 Mic 2:1,2 Judges 21 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries Related Passage: 1 Samuel 8:7 The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. NO KING = PROBLEMS KNOW KING = NO PROBLEMS In those days there was no king in Israel Everyone did what was right in his own eyes: If these last chapters teach us anything, they teach that there is no sin committed which affects only one person alone. There is no such thing as victimless sin. Any sin sends ripples into all of society. Do we not see this principle rippling across (and ripping apart) the moral fabric of America! Revival in the Body of Christ is the last bastion of hope for our country. Pray for revival in the true Church. John Witmer - When the individual’s conscience has authority over law, then government by law is jeopardized. At that point a nation is logically only one step removed from the condition of Israel when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Jdg. 17:6; 25:25). Sooner or later anarchy rules. (The Man with Two Countries - Bib Sac 133:532 Oct 1976) Ryken writes that "the people, living in a pluralistic society, turn to their own ways and in turn lose a vision of God. The book of Judges describes what happens to a society that loses sight of God and finds meaning solely within the individual. The image of the cycle in the end collapses tragically into a downward spiral. The narrative of Judges becomes an image of decline through its use of plot, characterization and imagery. All the other major images in Judges underscore the reason and result of a leaderless society that loses its sight of God. (See context in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery) Henry