12397843 judges-3-commentary

Judges 3 Commentary
Written and edited by Glenn Pease
1 These are the nations the LORD left to test all
those Israelites who had not experienced any of
the wars in Canaan
1. In a world where war was a commonplace event everyone who grew up needed to
learn how to fight or they were sunk. It sounds crazy but God left enemies in the
land of Canaan to force the new generation of his people to learn how to fight. If
there was no enemy they would have no reason to prepare for warfare, and they
would be in big trouble if other nations came and decided to take their land. War
preparation was essential for their survival, and so God left enemies in their midst
so they would have no choice but to train young men in the use of weapons. God
wants his people to be warriors in every generation for the battle with enemies is
never over in this life. Every wise nation knows that it has to be prepared for war
for you never know when some other nation will decide they want what you have.
The United States is always prepared for war, and no matter how long peacetime
lasts the training of troops in the most modern weapons never ceases. We cannot
afford to be weak and unprepared, and that is what God is saying by leaving
enemies to test the Israelites.
2. In the spiritual realm it is the same story, for all believers need to be ever
prepared for spiritual warfare. The enemy will never give up trying to defeat us,
and so we need to put on the whole armor of God and be ready for every onslaught
of Satan and all his demonic forces. God leaves the devil in the world for the same
purpose he left the enemies of Israel in the land of Canaan. It forces us to train and
prepare and be ready to combat the powers of evil in the world. Peace is always
wonderful, but it is also a dangerous time, for in peace we can get weak and flabby
and careless and be in danger of being overrun by enemy forces. The guard needs to
be ever up with a sense of alertness for evil is clever and sneaky and can take the
careless by surprise. The Bible is so full of war language just because life is a battle
and God expects his people to be ready at all times to fight the good fight. The result
is, we have this funny and paradoxical truth that God supports and encourages the
presence of our enemies. This can be a capital crime in almost every country. If you
give aid and support to an enemy of your country it will usually lead to court
martial and execution. No country takes it lightly if you are not one hundred
percent on their side, but in the book of Judges we see it frequently reported that
God is on the side of Israel's enemies and sometimes he gives them the power to
defeat Israel. It is one of the greatest paradoxes in the Bible, but the record is clear,
God is sometimes the enemy of his own people, and when this is so, they do not

stand a chance of winning. This makes it all the more vital that we are ever ready
for battle, and to be ready in a meaningful way means to be fully committed to the
ways of God. The first and most important requirement for being battle ready is to
be living in obedience to God's revelation. When Israel was doing this they were
unbeatable, but when they forsook that requirement the enemy could walk all over
them and keep them in bondage. If you are not on God's side, God will be on the
side of your foes is the message of this book.
3. We often wonder why God does not do things the easy way like we would. We
think he is wasting his gifts of omnipotence and omniscience. He could know every
move of the enemy ahead of time and lead his people to easy victories, and with his
power supporting them the war would be over in a matter of minutes. Why in the
world does God leave so much to the minds and muscles of men that messes things
up and delays victory by decades sometimes? If only we could get God to think like
men it would all be so much better, for his ways are not our ways and it is
frustrating. We pray that he will listen to us and let us do it our way, and he does
that, but then he will not support it and let it be the wise way to live. We get our way
and he allows it to screw everything up so we have to come to him begging again to
show us his way. God will just not be a hundred percent on our side, and often not
even fifty percent. In fact, he is sometimes one hundred percent against us and the
greatest enemy of our way. The result is the constant battle of God and his people.
The book of Judges is about all kinds of battles, but the really big battle and the one
that matters most is the battle of God and his people. If God be fore us who can be
against us, but if God be against us, who can be fore us?
4. God is constantly testing his people, and the test is to see if they have learned
anything from their life experiences. In Ex. 16:4 we read, Then the LORD said to
Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each
day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether
they will follow my instructions." God's people are slow learners and always seem to
need training wheels because they tend to fall over everytime they are put to the test.
They want to do it their way and not read the instructions and follow what God has
written. They were not to keep the manna overnight but some did not listen and in
the morning it was full of maggots and stinking. They had simple instructions on
what to do, but they did not listen and made a mess of things. God tested them and
they failed. This story is repeated over and over until we begin to think that God
made a big mistake in choosing the people he did. How many tests do you have to
fail before you get the point that you have to follow the instructions? God makes it
clear to his people that failing tests will have grave consequences and the worst test
of all to fail is the test of obedience to the first commandment to have no other god
before Him. Deut. 8:19-20 says, "If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow
other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you
will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you
will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God."

5. We need to see that God's testing is for the sake of making his people better and
wiser. If you want the best quality in anything you need to test to see if it will stand
up to the pressures that it will face. You will not find this type of product in the
dollar store, but only in expensive stores where their products are made to last
because they have been tested to see if they will endure. For example, someone has
written this brief report about the process of making a Steinway piano. "The
Steinway piano has been preferred by keyboard masters such as Rachmaninoff,
Horowitz, Cliburn, and Liszt--and for good reason. It is a skillfully crafted
instrument that produces phenomenal sound. Steinway pianos are built today the
same way they were 140 years ago when Henry Steinway started his business. Two
hundred craftsmen and 12,000 parts are required to produce one of these
magnificent instruments. Most crucial is the rim-bending process, where 18 layers of
maple are bent around an iron press to create the shape of a Steinway grand. Five
coats of lacquer are applied and hand-rubbed to give the piano its outer glow. The
instrument then goes to the Pounder Room, where each key is tested 10,000 times to
ensure quality and durability." Many quality products go through similar tests, and
God expects to produce a quality people by the same means of testing them over and
over.
6. God gives us tests that we all need.
He tests us to His Word give heed.
It may be hard and we will plead,
"Oh let us from this curse be freed."
But God will not hear such prayer,
For his heart is too filled with care,
And he is fully informed and aware
That we all have a weakness we share.
We just do not like the test.
We prefer laziness the best,
And consider learning a pest.
"So God from testing give us rest."
But God continues to answer "No!"
And we tend to hear it as a blow,
But really its his way to show
It is the only way to go
If we, his love would fully know
In this lost world here below.
Sometimes it is so hard to take it
And we wish we could just fake it.
Our heart feels like the test may break it,
But God promises we can make it.

Sometimes you'll feel your in a slump
And you have fallen on your rump,
But God will not his child dump,
For he wants a champ and not a chump.
So its time to stand and face it;
Receive the test and just embrace it.
If you fail to pass, retrace it,
For by God's grace you can still ace it.
7. The truth of this poetry is illustrated in the book of Judges. The people of God
failed the test over and over and yet God in his infinite patience kept delivering
them and giving them another chance to pass the test. God is like a teacher who has
to keep his students back year after year because they can never catch on and learn
the lessons they need to know to advance. But he never gives up on them. He
sometimes goes against them and makes them pay for their stubborn ignorance, but
he always comes back to their side and fights for them to go on to the next level. It is
as though he is working with the mentally handicapped who demand endless
patience, for they have to be taught over and over, and still they will forget and fail
to pass the test. God understands the patience needed and the frustration endured
by those who try to teach the almost unteachable. But thank God he never gives up.
The plan of salvation demands that he develop a people who can pass the test and be
faithful to his Word. If it takes generation after generation then so be it. He will
endure as long as it takes for his plan involves the rest of mankind for all the rest of
time. He loves mankind and so he will put up with this people of slow learning until
they get the point. You may be a mental case and an ignoramus, and have everyone
give up on you, but God will still be testing you and hoping you will pass, for it is
really quite easy to do so when you realize that all he asks is that we obey his Word.
It is not brain surgery, rocket science or calculus, but just plain obedience to what
he had revealed to be his will for all his children, and it is all summed up in the Ten
Commandments. Keep these ten rules of life and you pass the test. This is still true
for Christians. Passing this test will not save anyone for eternity, for faith in Jesus
Christ is the only way to receive eternal life, but the fact is, obedience to these ten
rules is still the only way to pass the test of pleasing God so that he can use you for
his purpose in time.
2 (he did this only to teach warfare to the
descendants of the Israelites who had not had
previous battle experience):
1. God knew that all the pagan tribes of the world were in love with war. It was a
way of life and they planned wars like we plan vacations. They were always a threat

to his people and so teaching warfare was essentian to survival for his people. Had
he just let them forget all they ever knew because their warriors had died off they
would have been at the mercy of surrounding nations and been wiped out. God had
to assure their survival for his plan to be fulfilled, and so they had to learn warfare.
War is hell, but heaven still endorces it because in a fallen world the godly need to
fight the ungodly to survive. War is not good, but it is one of the necessary evils of
life in a fallen world. If the godly are not prepared to withstand the ungodly the
world will be taken over by the ungodly. That is giving up to evil and God will not
tolerate such a spirit. He expects his people to be prepared to fight for his cause and
purpose in history, and he expects them to be as well trained as the forces of the
enemy. God does not want a bunch of inexperienced soldiers fighting for him. He
wants them to be taught by the best and be top notch soldiers.
2. This truth should have a big impact on our theology, for it makes clear that God's
omnipotence is not the sole basis for victory. If all victory over the forces of evil were
just a matter of God stepping into history, as he frequently did in the Old
Testament, and just used an angel to wipe out the entire army of the enemy, then
there would be no need for teaching his people warfare. God would be the general
and with his army of angels he could just take care of every enemy by miraculous
power. God did wonders with Moses and Joshua too and gave them victories by his
miraculous power.This is the picture we wish God would follow thrugh with for all
of history, but it just is not going to be. God does unusual things in history, but the
majority of time he just allows man to live by the natural laws of the world. He will
not win battles for his people if they are not prepared to be good soldiers. If they
cannot use a sword and a bow, and have no well trained muscles so they can run fast
and for long distances they will not be fit for the kind of army he expects his people
to have. He expects his soldiers to have the gifts he can work through to be clever
and fast and effective in battle. The implication is clear that God does not just want
to work for people, but wants to work through people. He wants them to be
instruments and tools that are useful in his hands, and if they are not, they will not
be used. He will not take a lazy soldier who had not applied himself to learn his
weapons and train his body and so use supernatural power to offset his defects.
That soldier will die in combat because he is not equipped to be superior to his foe.
Many of God's soldiers fell in battles even when Israel won, and so it is clear that
God alone does not determine the outcome apart from the quality and strength of
the soldiers. If you are untrained you will likely perish even if your side wins the
conflict. God depends on man to play his role the best he is able. He will
providentially use what man gives him to win the battle, but if man gives him
inadequate tools God will not offset it and go alone and win without man's help.
God and man must work together to win the wars of this world. Man alone cannot
do it. God alone will not do it. Only God and man in cooperation can succeed, and
that is why God demands that his people learn how to fight wisely.
3. Imagine what would happen if all the young men of Israel who never engaged in
warfare were allowed to go on peacefully farming and shepherding and never
learning how to use weapons of warfare. They would become sitting ducks for an

invading army looking to reap the harvest of their labor. They would have no skills
to repel the invaders and have to suffer the humiliation of watching superior men of
training march all over them and make them slaves. Unfortunately this is the very
thing that happened to Israel because they were amateurs at warfare. Scripture
makes it clear that pagan nations were often far superior in developing weapons and
warriors that Israel was no match for, and so they were not able to take their land
even though it was promised by God. All the land was theirs by promise, but God
did not just hand it over to them. They had to take it and if they were not prepared
to do so they just had to accept it as a gift they could not use. How frustrating to
have a gift that you cannot open because it takes special skills to get it open. That is
what Israel had. God gave them the land but they had to open it by defeating the
pagans who held it, and this took military skills they just did not adequately
develop, and so they had to leave the gift unopened. God did not open it for them,
but left it there to challenge them to get better so they could open it. The humor in
all of this is that you can be on God's side and still lose if you do not develop the
skills he can use against the enemy. It is not a laughing matter but it is so incongrous
to be on God's side and still be a loser that it falls into the category of humorous.
4. There is another paradox involved in all of this warfare business, for God
demands that his people be prepared for warfare, and at the same time he demands
that they do not boast when they win as if it is because of their skill. He demands
that they be the best and yet also demands that they be humble and recognize that
no matter how good they are they would not stand a chance without his help. The
paradoxical demands bring the necessary balance that protects his people from the
pride that goes before a fall. If they think they can do it on their own and leave God
out of the equation they are doomed to defeat. If they think they can be lazy and not
bother to train and just leave it in the hands of God, they are again doomed to
defeat. The whole point the runs through the whole Bible is that God and man work
together as partners. The sovereignty of God and the free will of man are not
opponents but allies, and it is foolish to try and keep them apart. It is only when
they are combined that life works the way God intends it to work. Each alone is just
a part of the package that God wants for blessing the world. Only when they
combine in full cooperation do you have a package that really blesses. Simply put,
the sovereign God demands the cooperation of man's free choice to fulfill his
purpose. If man does not add his part to the puzzle it will not be complete, for God
refuses to do his will for man, for him. God will do wonders when men cooperate,
but he expects men to acknowledge that their cooperation would mean nothing
without his providence. Keeping the balance is the challenge of God's people. They
need to recognize how important they are to God's plan and at the same time make
sure they do not develop the pride that exalts them to a level where they put God in
second place. It happened to Israel and it happens to Christians, and that is why the
paradox of God's demands are so important to maintain the balance in our
thinking. God does not need man, but he wants man, and he wants them strong,
prepared and humble, for with that combination he will do wonders.

3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the
Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living
in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal
Hermon to Lebo [a] Hamath.
1. It looks like God meant this test to be a hard one, for this array of pagans is scary
and not encouraging from the point of view of the Israelites. They were hoping, I am
sure, that the ones God left to test them would be the one village or so, and most of
them old men eager to retire from fighting. This gang looks way to threatning. Just
reading the following description of the five rulers of the Philistines is enough to
make every young Israelite question just how much of a blessing this plan of leaving
some of them in the land really is. "The famous Philistine pentapolis was composed
of (1) Gaza, strategically located a few miles from the Mediterranean and
controlling the Maritime Plain and caravan routes to Egypt and Arabia. (2) Ekron.
This was a very wealthy market in the valley of Sorek, close to Danite territory. (3)
Ashdod was on the main road to Joppa and lay E. of Lydda. (4) Askelon was a
strong fort on the coast, controlling principal caravan routes. (5) Gath was N.E. of
Gaza and bordered on the Shephelah."
2. These Philistines were mighty warriors and they seemed to be able to reproduce
like rabbits. No matter how many times they are defeated and wiped out they keep
coming back for more. Shamgar at the end of this chapter is said to have killed 600
of them by himself. But that did nothing to slow them down for in 10:7 they take
over control of the people of Israel. They got free but in 13:1 they take over again
for 40 years. Finally Samson began to wipe out many of them and when he pulled
their temple down on them is says in 16:30 "...he killed many more when he died
than while he lived." But this was just another speed bump to them and before long
they were back in power. In I Sam. 4:2 the Philistines defeated the Israelites and
killed 4000 of their men. In I Sam. 4:10 the Israelites went after them again and the
Philistines killed 30 thousand of Israels foot soldiers. On top of that they captured
the Ark of the Lord and held it for 20 years. Finally by chaper seven of I Samuel the
Philistines were defeated in a great slaughter. But they are like chopped up star fish
where each limb cut off grows into a full starfish, and so by chapter 12 they are
again back in control over the Israelites. By I Sam. 13:5 they were marching with
soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. Their women popped out babies
like a popcorn popper. No matter how many of them you kill they come back with
more than before.
3. Finally Israel got themselves a king in king Saul and he led the Israelites to
victory over the Philistines, and in I Sam. 14:30 the word slaughter is used again in
reference to their defeat. At last these pests are taken care of-WRONG! Saul had to
go on fighting them all the rest of his life. It was perpetual warfare and I Sam. 14:52
says it was bitter war. Slaughtering them never solved the problem of having to
fight them. Then David comes into the picture and kills the giant Goliath and the

Philistines run like mad and the Israelites chase them and (You guessed it) they
slaughtered them so that we read in I Sam. 17:52 that the road to two cities was
strewn with their bodies. Of course this slaughter did nothing to minimize their
presence and warfare with Israel. David began to fight them on a regular basis and
killed them in large numbers. But again by I Sam. 31 they were back in charge of
things and they did some slaughtering themselve against the army of Israel and
killed king Saul and Jonathan his son who was David's best friend. David now
became the king of Israel and his job now was to fight the Philistines. So it was now
their turn to get slaughtered, and David did just that in II Sam. 5:25, and by II Sam.
8:1 it is actually stated that the Philistine were subdued. But don't kid yourself if
you think it is over, for in II Sam. 21 David has to keep fighting them over and
over. They were finally defeated enough times so that under Solomon there was
peace with them. But hundreds of years later in the 700.s B. C. king Uzziah of Judah
was again fighting them. They were clearly the worst enemy Israel ever had, and so
there is no point in tracing the other pagan groups mentioned in the text, for they
alone are enough to make the point that God's test of Israel was hard and more
difficult than they could ever imagine.
4 They were left to test the Israelites to see
whether they would obey the LORD's commands,
which he had given their forefathers through
Moses.
1. If you go back and look at all the fights Israel had with the Philistines, you will
see that sometimes they passed the test and were victorious, and other times they
failed the test and were defeated. In other words, they got an A sometimes and a F
other times. It was hard testing, and it is amazing that they let themselves fail so
often when passing it was simple. All they had to do was obey God's commands
which they had in the writings of Moses. The Ten Commandments were in their
possession and all they had do was obey them and they would defeat the enemy and
live in peace. But they would cease to obey and have to endure defeat by the enemy
and be oppressed and enslaved. This learning process went on for centuries before
the people of God finally got the point that God was serious about being their only
God. They finally forsook being idol worshippers after they were carried away into
captivity in Babylon. They learned the hard way and at great cost, but God never
gave up on them. When they finally passed the test they were allowed to live in the
land until the Son of God was brought into history through them.
5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites,

Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and
Jebusites.
1. God left these people there, but he did not say to the Israelites that they were to
live among them and become one with them. That is what we see here and the
progression into paganism follows the same pattern for God's people all through
history. First we make peace with the world, and before long we come to love the
world and its ways. Then we begin to make the world part of the family by
marrying them. Now we are one with them in just about every way, for they are
family and we love our family. The next step is fatal for it leads to forsaking God in
favor of idols. Now that the pagan world is our family we owe it to them to be
tolerant of their religion. In fact, we should support the faith of our whole family
and now that we have sons and daughters going to their worhip places we should
join in too. The process has taken God's people from being worshippers of Him only
as the one true God, to being worshippers of all the idols of the pagans. They went
to bed with the pagans, literally, and now they go all the way to becoming servants
of their gods.
6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave
their own daughters to their sons, and served
their gods.
1. If you take a good apple and lay it up against a rotten apple it is a sure thing that
the good apple will not make the rotten apple better. The rotten apple will make the
good apple rotten too. This is a principle of life, and when it is ignored it leads to
God's people becoming people he cannot tolerate and has to judge severely to get
them to repent. You just cannot mix good and evil and expect to come out with a
good product. The history of Israel has demonstrated this so many times that there
is never an excuse for a Bible believing person to think he can get buy with it. Be not
unequally yokes with unbelievers is a rule of life. In Gen. 24:1-3 we read, "1
Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him
in every way. 2 He said to the chief [a] servant in his household, the one in charge of
all that he had, "Put your hand under my thigh. 3 I want you to swear by the
LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my
son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living..." Abraham
knew the importance of keeping marriage within the family of the godly, or at least
the professing godly. When this rule was ignored it led to major problems.
2. In Gen. 26:34-5 we read, "When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith
daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35

They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah." It was a source of grief to God
and his people as well, for they produced a tribe that was a constant enemy of Israel.
You get an idea of just how much grief it was for Rebekah in Gen. 27:46, Then
Rebekah said to Isaac, "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If
Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like
these, my life will not be worth living." So Jacob was sent off to find a girl from
godly relatives and with Rachel and Leah and their servants gave birth to the 12 son
who became the 12 tribes of Israel. Who you married made a great deal of
difference in whether you fit into God's plan for the world, or were rejected for
being corrupted by idolatry.
3. God warned his people in Ex. 34:15-16, "Be careful not to make a treaty with
those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and
sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when
you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters
prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same." Again
in Deut. 7:1-6 we read, "When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are
entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites,
Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations
larger and stronger than you- 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them
over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. [a]
Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with
them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,
4 for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the
LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what
you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down
their Asherah poles [b] and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy
to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples
on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession."
4. Then in Josh. 23:12-13 we read, "But if you turn away and ally yourselves with
the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with
them and associate with them, 13 then you may be sure that the LORD your God
will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares
and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish
from this good land, which the LORD your God has given you." How stupid do you
have to be to not get the point of how serious God is about marrying pagans? The
message is clear and there is no debate as to how to interpret God's will, and yet his
people went right ahead and began to marry the pagans all around them. God
knows what it is like to have children who do not listen and never pay attention to
what he says. God knows what it it like to be a screaming mother saying this is the
last time I am going to tell you to stop or else. God knows every emotion of
frustrated parents, and it is not fun. We are living in a generation not unlike what
we see in the book of Judges. People are resistent to authority and feel confident
they can defy it and come out just fine, and this is the beginning step toward
paganism for Christian children.

5. Dr. Anthony E. Wolf has written a book called Get Out of My Life. It is about the
problems of parents in raising teenagers. The following is an excerpt from this
book:
“Clarissa, would you please take those dirty glasses into the kitchen?”
“Why, they’re not mine.”
“I don’t care if they’re not yours, Clarissa. You live in this house and I am asking
you to take those glasses out into the kitchen.”
“But they’re not mine. I don’t have to do it.”
“Clarissa, you’re asking for it.”
Dr. Wolf goes on to write, "Forty years ago the above conversation would rarely
have taken place, but it’s common enough today. Teenagers have changed. This is
not an illusion. Teenagers treat the adults in their lives in a manner that is less
automatically obedient, much more fearless, and definitely more outspoken than
that of previous generations."
6. These are the kinds of teens who will pay no attention to the warning that they
need to beware of marrying a godless person who is sold out to a life of worldliness.
Parents know the folly of it, but all their screaming will not stop them, and their
Christian sons and daughters will soon be no different than the pagan kids of our
culture. It is happening today just as it did in the day of the Judges, and the result is
every cult and wierd religion is supported by former Christians. It is the same sad
story of Israel over and over again because people who do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it. Israel tolerated intermarriage with idol worshippers in spite
of all of God's warnings and ended up no longer on God's side, but as enemies of
God. What a paradox, the people of God as enemies of God. It happened, and it can
happen to us if we are equally stupid in thinking we can ignore God's Word, or
deliberately defy it.
7. All of this forces us to face another paradox. We are to be intolerant of what is
evil, and yet be tolerant people toward others, even if they are evil. This is a
theological tight rope act. You have to be tolerant of people who are not tolerant of
you, and at the same time be intolerant of their sins and views of life that are
supportive of the kingdom of evil. More Jews and Christians have fallen off this
high wire act than have fallen out of God's will for any other reason. This book of
Judges reveals how God's people became tolerant of pagan worship and soon they
were so tolerant of their gods that they were worshipping these gods and putting the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob on the back burner. This did not stop God from

getting hot enough to send them back into bondage to pagan kings. Their tolerance
was pure folly and led to massive unnecessary suffering. God cannot tolerate
tolerance when it means to be open to accepting the breaking the Ten
Commandments as a valid way of life. God is all or he is not your God at all. If you
take on other gods you have declared the God of the Bible to be just another god
and you are a polytheist and not a believer in the God of Scripture. Such tolerance is
intolerable to God, and he demands that all who believe in him also find it
intolerable. This kind of intolerance is to had toward all rebellion against the
absolute laws of God meant to be obeyed by all believers for all time. So the first
part of the paradox is that we as believers have an obligation to be intolerant people
in this world of so much violation of God's revealed laws of life.
8. The other side of the paradox is that tolerance is also a great virtue, and any great
virtue should have the support of all who claim to believe in the God of
righteousness, holiness and goodness. No virtue can be ignored as part of the
obligation of living a life pleasing to God. So in spite of being obligated to be
intolerant of all kinds of things, we are also obligated to be tolerant of all kinds of
things. Hence the need for balance in walking the tight rope of life in obedience to
all of God's revelation. Take the issue in this verse as an example. We are to be
intolerant of believers marrying unbelievers, for it is clearly not God's will. But once
this folly is done and you have such a marriage we are obligated to be tolerant of the
couple and not be unloving toward them. Paul makes it clear the I Cor. 7 that
tolerance is a virtue in mixed marriages and couples are to accept one another and
live in love even though they have stepped out of God's will in the marriage. The
church is also to be tolerant of these couples and do all possible to befriend them
and see them incorporated into the church by helping the unbeliever become a
believer.
9. The point is we are to be intolerant of certain choices and behavior, but once it is
chosen we are to be tolerant of those who have made wrong choices and seek by love
to help them overcome and avoid all the negative consequences of their bad choice.
If we continue to be intolerant when it is useless and too late to be of any value, then
we are in the wrong. To reject those who have fallen out of God's will is to
compound the evil. This is what legalism does. It holds to a strict line of intolerance
that lends no loving hand to get people out of the pit they have fallen into. Christian
love and grace bends over backwards to help the fallen get back on track and take
back the trophy that Satan thinks he has won. The game is not over just because of
sin, for where sin abounds grace can abound even more abundantly. The point is
that intolerance is to help prevent sin and all violations of God's will, but when it
fails to achieve this goal and people sin anyway, tolerance steps in and says by the
grace of God we will labor together to see that evil does not win the war even if it
has won this battle. Intolerance then is the virtue of doing all possible to prevent sin,
and tolerance is the virtue of doing all possible to prevent the ultimate victory of sin.
All of this is summed up in the cliche, "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." God just
hated the sins of his people and would not tolerate them for too long before he
brought judgment on them. But you will notice that he was ready as soon as they
truly repented to welcome them back into fellowship with himself and to be set free

from pagan bondage. Both the blazing intolerance of God and his amazing tolerance
are brought out so clearly in this book of awesome paradoxes. Nobody can hate sin
worse or love sinners better than the God of Israel.
Othniel
7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD;
they forgot the LORD their God and served the
Baals and the Asherahs.
1. You say there is no humor in this but you forget that humor is appreciation of the
absurdity or incongruity of life's situations. What could be more absurd than God's
people after a long history of miracles and guidance and records of wisdom of
obedience and folly of disobedience still going after other gods. It is so incongrous
with common sense and logic. It is not funny but it is laughable that people can be so
stupid. It is the stupid criminal joke over and over again. This cycle of folly runs all
through this book because it ran all through this period of history. The people sin,
then they suffer the consequesces, then they surrender to God's will, and finally they
are saved. It is sin, suffer, surrender, and salvation over and over just as if they have
no historical awareness and wisdom, and have to repeat the folly of past generations
like creatures without minds. You have to read it and weep and wonder, when will
they ever learn to stop repeating this vicious cycle?
2. I can understand forgetting some of the past and much of the history of the people
and even many of the leaders, but who can comprehend forgetting the Lord their
God? As unbelievable as it is, God knew that this was a likely possibility long before
they got to the promised land, and he warned them that this was a danger they
would face and if they did not make the effort to stay loyal they would suffer his
wrath. We have already looked at a number of verses on this point, but there is even
more. I share it because the quality and quantity of the material God gave his people
leaves them without excuse and justifies God in all of his judgment. People ask,
"Why did God get so angry with his own people and do so many bad things to
them?" Read another of his clear warnings and you will know the answer. Deut.
8:10-19 says, "When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God
for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your
God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you
this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and
settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold
increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you

will forget the LORD your God . . . "You may say to yourself, 'My power and the
strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.' But remember the LORD
your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth . . . If you ever
forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to
them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed"
3. God is mystified by how it is possible his people can forget him. In Jer. 2:32 he
laments, "Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people
have forgotten me days without number?" In other words, it is not just a slip of the
memory, or a few days of hectic living where God does not come into our minds in
any meaningful way. All of us have times when God is forgotten temporarily, but
days without number, that is insane. It is practical atheism, and that is what the
people of Israel became on a number of occassions. What can be more paradoxical
than God's people being atheists? No wonder God destroyed them so many times
when they were in this state. Atheistic people are not useful for God's purpose in the
world and so it was never any loss to his plan to take them out of the picture. It is
inconceivable that a maid would forget her ornaments, for they were among her
most treasured possessions. And for a bride to forget her wedding gown would be
unheard of in any land. Some things are just not items touched by forgetfulness.
When such things are forgotten then we know something is seriously wrong with the
mental capacity of the one forgetting. If a bride came down the isle without her
gown on and said when all would ask where it was, "I forget,"she would probably
be taken to the hospital immediately for an examination. It is absurd to think that a
bride would forget her gown, for that would be impossible for any normal person.
So how abnormal does one have to be to forget their God? We say to people
sometimes, "You would forget your head if it wasn't attached." But the fact is,
nobody forgets their head, for it is one of those items that is not forgettable. God
should be on that list as well, and, in fact, he should be at the top of the list of the
unforgettable, but here we have the clear evidence that God can be on people's list
of forgettable things. Again, this is humorous because it is the ultimate incongruity.
It is so far out in left field, and so far off the course, and so contrary to logic and
common sense that it is incomprehensible how God's people could sink to such a low
level.
3B. Steven Eason wrote, "It’s very easy to forget what we know in golf. The
purpose of practicing is to go through the repetitive motions until a good swing is in
our muscle memory. Otherwise, every swing, chip, or putt is different from the last,
and we get lost. Nothing is worse than getting lost in your golf swing. You search
and search, but you just can’t find it. You try changing your grip, your stance, your
backswing, ball placement—anything. You’ve lost it. It is also very easy to get lost in
our relationship with God, and Israel is a prime example. The Chosen People kept
forgetting what they knew. Somehow their relationship with God did not become
part of their “muscle memory.” Israel’s failure is described in the prologue of
each of the judge’s stories. Israel has blown it and cannot keep their covenant with
God. This failure is repeated over and over: There it is! When we forget what we
know to be true, we get lost. One of the primary reasons that Israel kept forgetting
the Lord was because they were chasing after other gods. They were searching in

the wrong places; consequently, they kept ending up in the wrong relationship with
God."
4. Spurgeon wrote, "If a bride did forget her attire, or a maid did forget her
ornaments, it would be very unreasonable behavior. The thing was so unreasonable
that it was quite unknown! Suppose we found an Eastern woman having no regard
whatever, on her marriage day, to her attire? She would be thought to be mad! They
would say, “This is so contrary to all women’s ways in this part of the country that
she must have lost her reason.” It is unreasonable that a bride should forget her
ornaments and her attire—but how infinitely more unreasonable it is that you and I
should forget God! He is our diadem of Glory—He is our beauty of holiness! In
Christ we are arrayed in raiment of needlework and our garments are of worked
gold! Can we, shall we forget Him?
There may be a reason for forgetting to eat bread. There may be a reason for
forgetting to put on one’s garments. Such neglects have been reasonable in times of
fire, or danger to life, but there never can be a reason for forgetting God! A child of
God is in the most unreasonable condition in which a human being can be when he
is living a single day without remembering his God, his life, his Heaven, his All-in-
All! Next, it would have been a most unseasonable thing for a maid to forget her
attire at her wedding. If she forgot her dress on other days, it might be well enough,
but, when the marriage drew near, for the bride to forget her attire would be
thought a most unseasonable neglect. Forget it tomorrow, if you will, but not when
your marriage has come! You may have forgotten it many days ago, but do not
forget it, now, that the happy day has arrived. A bride who forgets her attire would
be something like the foolish virgins who forgot to take oil in their vessels with their
lamps. And, certainly, it is a most unseasonable thing for me and you to forget our
God while we are here! Let the soldier, when the arrow is flying from every bush,
forget his armor, but let us not forget our God! Let the hungry man, when famine
rages through the land, forget his supply of bread, but let us not forget the Food of
our souls, which is our Lord Jesus
Christ!"
4B. Lewis H. Bartet wrote, "A life style of doing evil is preceded by "forgettingthe
LORD."(Rom 1:28 KJV) And even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are
not convenient; They didn't intellectually deny the existence of God, they just
failed to give Him a place in their every day life. How long does it take for weeds to
overtake a garden? How long do you have to neglect a relationship before it is no
more? (Prov 6:10-11) Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands
to rest: {11} So shall thy poverty come on you like a prowler, and your need like an
armed man. Neglect is enough to ruin a man. A man who is in business need not
commit forgery or robbery to ruin himself: he has only to neglect his business, and
his ruin is certain. A man who is lying on a bed of sickness need not cut his throat to
destroy himself: he has only to neglect the means of restoration, and he will be
ruined. A man floating in a skiff above Niagara need not move an oar, or make an

effort, to destroy himself: he has only to neglect using the oar at the proper time,
and he will certainly be carried over the cataract." "Most of the calamities of life
are caused by simple neglect. --Barnes
5. We have a case of severe spiritual Alzheimer's when we can forget our God. And
unknown author wrote, "The following was copied from a clipping that I saved,
when I was in medical school, in the 1950's. The author is shown simply as
"Trench".
"No man can be without his god. If he have not the true God to bless and sustain
him, he will have some false god to delude him, and to betray him. The Psalmist
knew this, and therefore he enjoined so closely our forgetting the name of our
God...... and holding up our hands to some strange god.
For every man has something in which he hopes, on which he leans, to which he
retreats and retires, with which he fills up his thoughts in empty spaces of time --
when he is alone -- when he lies sleepless on his bed -- when he is not present with
other thoughts...... to which he betakes himself in sorrow or trouble, as that from
which he shall draw comfort and strength -- his fortress, his citadel, his defense --
and has not this "good" a right to be called his "god"?
Man was made to lean on the Creator; but if not on Him, then he leans on the
"creature", in one shape or another. The ivy cannot grow alone; it must twine
round some support or other -- if not the goodly oak, then the ragged thorn -- round
any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support, at all. It is even so
with the heart and affections of man -- if they do not twine round God, they must
twine around some meaner thing."
6. Asherahs
No matter what tempts us,
Even when we are toil-worn,
To the madness of this world
We must not conform.
For we are God’s children,
Siblings of His First-Born.
When the world entices us,
The devil’s bag is full of weapons.
He can assume most any form.
Even though he knows well our weakness,
Still, we must not conform.

Peer pressure, threats and lies,
Rumors, innuendo, scorn,
The world is full of evil,
But we must not conform.
When assailed by doubts;
Between right and wrong we’re torn,
We must first seek His Word
Then to His will conform.
When pressure is at its worst
And the absurd seems the norm,
We can’t despair, God is there.
To wrong we won’t conform.
Satan will do his very worst.
To destroy us he is sworn.
But to prevail against our foe,
Copyright © 1997 Kimberly B. Southall.
7. CLARKE No groves were ever worshipped, but the deities who were supposed to
be resident in them; and in many cases temples and altars were built in groves, and
the superstition of consecrating groves and woods to the honour of the deities was a
practice very usual with the ancients. Pliny assures us that trees, in old times, served
for the temples of the gods. Tacitus reports this custom of the old Germans; Quintus
Curtius, of the Indians; and Caesar, and our old writers, mention the same of the
Druids in Britain. The Romans were admirers of this way of worship and therefore
had their luci or groves in most parts of the city, dedicated to some deity. But it is
very probable that the word asheroth which we translate groves, is a corruption of
the word ashtaroth, the moon or Venus, (see on Judges 2:13, ) which only differs in
the letters from the former. Ashtaroth is read in this place by the Chaldee Targum,
the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate, and by one of Dr. Kennicott's MSS.
8. AND THE SONS OF ISRAEL DID WHAT WAS EVIL IN THE SIGHT OF THE
LORD: By the time one is finished reading Judges he has had his fill of the cycle of
sin. This phrase (evil in the sight of the LORD) occurs 56x with increasing
frequency in Kings & Chronicles...interestingly it is found only 2x in 1 or 2 Samuel!
(1Sa15:19, 2Sa11:27). "Secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven!"
9. How humiliating that the pagan nations Israel imitated were used as the
instruments of God’s discipline! The conquerors were now the conquered. They
regretted their sufferings, but they did not repent of their sins. They experienced a
painful cycle of disobedience, discipline, despair, and deliverance, only to go back
into disobedience again. Note that the forgetting of God precedes the commission of

evil.
10. An illustration - After stopping in Montgomery, Alabama, for gas, Sam drove
more than 5 hours before noticing he had left someone behind--his wife. So at the
next town he asked police to help him get in touch with her. He admitted with great
embarrassment that he just hadn't noticed her absence. It's hard to understand how
Sam could forget his wife, but we're not much different in our relationship with
God. We actually fail to remember the One Who created us and redeemed us. We're
no different from Israel in the OT. If God seems far away, guess who moved?
11. To forget the Lord involves neglect of his covenant demands, ingratitude for his
blessings, and a self-sufficient attitude, which in turn opens the door to idolatry.
Moses had given clear warning..."Then it shall come about when the LORD your
God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full
of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig,
vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you shall eat and be satisfied,
then watch yourself, lest you forget the LORD who brought you from the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deut 6:10-12, cf Deut. 8:10-20; 32:15-18)
12. Gill wrote, "and served Baalim, and the groves; of Baalim, see Jdg_2:11; the
groves mean either idols worshipped in groves, as Jupiter was worshipped in a
grove of oaks, hence the oak of Dodona; and Apollo in a grove of laurels in Daphne:
there were usually groves where idol temples were built; and so in Phoenicia, or
Canaan, Dido the Sidonian queen built a temple for Juno in the midst of the city,
where was a grove of an agreeable shade (d): so Barthius (e) observes, that most of
the ancient gods of the Heathens used to be worshipped in groves. And groves and
trees themselves were worshipped; so Tacitus says (f) of the Germans, that they
consecrated groves and forests, and called them by the names of gods. Groves are
here put in the place of Ashtaroth, Jdg_2:13; perhaps the goddesses of that name
were worshipped in groves; and if Diana is meant by Astarte, Servius (g) says that
every oak is sacred to Jupiter and every grove to Diana; and Ovid (h) speaks of a
temple of Diana in a grove. But as they are joined with Baalim, the original of which
were deified kings and heroes, the groves may be such as were consecrated to them;
for, as the same writer observes (i), the souls of heroes were supposed to have their
abode in groves...."
8 The anger of the LORD burned against Israel
so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-
Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the
Israelites were subject for eight years.
1. It says that God sold them into the hands as slaves, of Cushan-rishathaim. That

name means the man of double wickedness or double evil. They had chosen to serve
Baal, and God in his sovereignty said, "That service is going to become slavery."
When we see God's anger poured out on the pagan nations we tend to think God
may be too hard on these people, but look at the wrath he pours out on his own
people, and we see that God is just, and he treats all alike when it comes to
punishment for idolatry. Nobody gets special treatment. If his own children are
wicked, they will pay the price for it. James writes about a pattern that fits every
age when he writes in James 1:13-15, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am
being tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not
tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his
own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is
accomplished, it brings forth death."
2. Commentators do a lot of speculation about just who this king is, but it does not
really matter, for the point is, as bad as he was, the Lord used him as a tool to
discipline his own people. Nobody is so evil that they cannot be used of God to
achieve a purpose he needs to achieve. They will still be judged for their evil, and
there will be no reward for their service in achieving his plan, but they do become
useful tools for his purpose. Someone made these helpful comments, "Very little is
known about Chushanrishathaim other than that he came with his armies from the
land of Mesopotamia. This in itself, however, was highly unusual and worthy of
special note. It was far from customary for kings in that day to make forays so far
from their homeland. Many centuries had yet to pass before that would become an
expected thing. This was undoubtedly the working of the hand of God. As yet the
nations of Egypt and Canaan had not sufficiently recovered from their battles with
Israel to be able to form an oppressing force. Neither did they have the courage to
take Israel on after all that had happened in the past. Thus God brought this great
army a distant eastern land which had never engaged with Israel in battle. Against
it the resistance of was completely without effect. God was not with them as He had
been in the past. Suddenly Israel found itself at the mercy of an oppressor. It was
powerless to interfere. For eight years the army of the invader sallied back and
forth, plundering the land at will."
3. An unknown author wrote, "Anger...kindled" is literally "His nose became hot"
so the KJV is closer to the literal Hebrew, a most expressive metaphor for the anger
and one of the most obvious examples of the anthropomorphisms for God in the OT.
This is true righteous anger, fully justified by the actions of Israel in the face of both
the truth about Jehovah and the warnings & commands regarding their enemies in
the land. Flesh does not like to be told what to do...in the Old Testament or the New
Testament (cp Ro5:12, Jn8:34). Is it any wonder that God became angry? Is it any
wonder He humiliated Israel by using pagan nations to discipline His own people?
Since Israel was acting like the pagans, God had to treat them like pagans! “With
the kind Thou dost show Thyself kind; With the blameless Thou dost show Thyself
blameless; With the pure Thou dost show Thyself pure; And with the crooked Thou
dost show Thyself astute.” (Ps18:25,26).

4. Sidlow Baxter comments, "Israel's servitudes were not just accidents. They were
punishments. This is a point for serious consideration. God may confer special
privileges on certain persons and nations, but He is no respecter of persons in any
sense of indulgence to favourites. Those who sin against extra privilege bear heavier
responsibility and incur heavier penalty. God may give many privileges, but He
never gives the privilege to sin. Let us beware lest a sense of privilege should beguile
our own hearts into the sin of presumption.
As we read this book of Judges we may well feel amazed that such low living could
go with such high calling. Yes - high calling and low living! A convention chairman
once said: "It is possible to be moral without being spiritual: and it is even possible
to be spiritual without being moral!" Paradoxical? Impossible? Yet have we not
come across persons knowing the deeper and higher truths of the Christian life, able
to converse freely in a most spiritual vein, and who, nevertheless, could stoop to
behaviour that the average non-Christian would shrink from in disgust? It is only
too easy for familiarity to engender callousness, and then for callousness to be
hypocritically covered with an outer garment of seeming spirituality. We must
watch and pray, lest we ourselves enter into this temptation...."
5. Davis has some thought provoking comments on this cycle of sin and slavery that
runs all through this book. He wrote, "Yet even here, in Yahweh’s anger, is hope for
Israel, for his anger shows that he will not allow Israel to serve Baal unmolested.
Yahweh’s wrath is the heat of his jealous love by which he refuses to let go of his
people; he refuses to allow his people to remain comfortable in sin. Serving Cushan–
rishathaim may not sound like salvation to us — and it isn’t, but, if it forces us to
lose our grip on Baal, it may be the beginning of salvation. We must confess that
Yahweh’s anger is not good news nor is it bad news but good bad news. It shows
that the covenant God who has bound himself to his people will not allow them to
become cozy in their infidelity. “Steadfast love” pursues them in their iniquity and
is not above inflicting misery in order to awaken them. The burning anger of
Yahweh is certainly no picnic, but it may be the only sign of hope for God’s people,
even though they may be yet unaware of that fact." (Ralph Davis, D.. Focus on the
Bible: Judges)
6. Spurgeon said that God never allows His people to sin successfully. Their sin will
either destroy them or it will invite the chastening hand of God. If the history of
Israel teaches the contemporary church anything it’s the obvious lesson that
“Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a disgrace to any people” (Pr14:34)
9 But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised
up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz,
Caleb's younger brother, who saved them.

1. God's anger is always subject to his mercy, and when his people cry out for his
mercy he comes to deliver them from the very judgment that he has inflicted on
them. He does not come with supernatural forces in nature to set them free, but with
human agents that we call the Judges. Othniel is the first of these Judges, and he
was already a hero in the land as the nephew of Caleb. He became an Old
Testament savior, for he saved them from the oppression of the pagan king. It was
not a spiritual salvation, but a temporal salvation. He was oppressed just like
everyone else, and so he had no special power for 8 years until God gave him that
power, and so it is true what someone has said, "With God there are no
extraordinary people—only ordinary ones through whom He chooses to do
extraordinary things." Someone else wrote,"And so we come to the first of the
judges, Othniel. (3:7-11) Now Othniel is unusual, purely for the fact that there’s
nothing unusual about him. Almost all the other judges have some particular
feature that distinguishes them, but we’re not told anything special about Othniel at
all except that he’s Caleb’s nephew. Now it may be that this is quite deliberate.
Othniel is an Everyman. That is, he’s a model of all the other judges. His story
contains the pattern that all the other stories seem to follow.."
2. Henry wrote, "At first they made light of their trouble, and thought they could
easily shake off the yoke of a prince at such a distance; but, when it continued eight
years, they began to feel the smart of it, and then those cried under it who before
had laughed at it. Those who in the day of their mirth had cried to Baalim and
Ashtaroth now that they are in trouble cry to the Lord from whom they had
revolted, whose justice brought them into this trouble, and whose power and favour
could alone help them out of it. Affliction makes those cry to God with importunity
who before would scarcely speak to him."
3. Clarke wrote, "Othniel had already signalized his valour in taking Kirjath-sepher,
which appears to have been a very hazardous exploit. By his natural valour,
experience in war, and the peculiar influence of the Divine Spirit, he was well
qualified to inspire his countrymen with courage, and to lead them successfully
against their oppressors."
4. Frank Wallace wrote, "We find in Othniel one of the bright lights of the book of
Joshua. His name means 'lion of God', or 'force of God', but whichever
interpretation is taken, we can see that it means that there was strength and power
with this man, and as we examine his life in the few details that we have of it, the
meaning of the name that he bears is amply borne out. First of all we can see what a
favoured young man he was. He belonged to the royal tribe Judah, the tribe from
which our Lord Jesus Christ came. Here was a man who was prepared to fight to
overcome the enemy; he was prepared to fight to secure for himself a wife, he was
governed by the Spirit of God and was used of God to secure great things for God
and for His people. We can divide Othniel's life into two portions, firstly the
challenge that came to him, and secondly, the committal that was given to him. He

came from the royal tribe, a favoured tribe. It was a good position to be in, but not
only was he in a good position but he expressed in his life that he was a real man of
God; he was a real 'son of Judah' if you like. Judah was the tribe that was to reign,
and this we find in Jacob's blessing of the tribes in Gen.49:10, "The sceptre shall not
depart from Judah". Here was one who was imbued by that spirit, here was one
who said, 'I am prepared to fight in order to secure this territory, it belongs to us,
and I am going to fight to secure it.'
5. Wallace points out the great heritage Othniel had to inspire him. "Not only was
Othniel the member of a favoured tribe, he had a very famous uncle, Caleb, a man
who "wholly followed the Lord" (Num.32:12, Deut.1:36, Josh.14:14). What a
faithful and devoted man Caleb was. We read in the book of Joshua that there came
the moment when he said, "I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses
sent me [to spy out the land]; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now,
for war, both to go out and to come in", and he was well over eighty years of age
when he said it (Josh.14:10-11). Now here is Othniel, the nephew of this great man.
He shows the same characteristics. It would be a wonderful thing if all the nephews
and sons of the men of God were to follow the pathway of faith, but sadly, they do
not. Many of them give up, many of them have no interest in divine things; but here
was a true follower of his uncle. Here was one who exhibited exactly the same
features of courage, determination and faith in order to do the things that were
pleasing to God; and he overcame sin. It is a great thing when men are prepared to
turn aside from man's knowledge with all it's boasted heights and accept God's will
and God's direction."
6. Ken Stone gives us an interesting insight when he writes, "Othniel is referred to
in the text as “Othniel ben Kenaz” (1:13; 3:9, 11), literally “Othniel son of Kenaz,”
which is to say (in biblical terminology) a “Kenizzite.” This might seem
inconsequential, until the ruminating reader recalls that Kenizzites are, in Genesis
15:19, included among the peoples already living in Canaan whose lands are to be
given to the descendants of Abraham. On the basis of the Bible’s patrilineal kinship
principles and narrative logic, a Kenizzite should be numbered among
Israel’senemies. And yet, in Judges, a Kenizzite appears to become the first judge in
Israel, thereby blurring the boundary between righteous Israelite and wicked non-
Israelite." There are other examples of non-Israelites in Judges who are used of
God. In chapter 4 we read of Jael the Kenite who helped Israel in battle. It is
necessary to keep in mind that the people of Israel were successful in bringing many
other people into the family of God, and so there are former pagans of many
condemned tribes who became converts to the God of Israel. Some of them became
servants of God, and we see this under the rule of David. None are excluded who are
willing to trust in the God of Israel as the one true God.
7. The debate is over if the people really repented or not, for there is no reference to
repentance. Davis says it is not repentance that brought the rescue, but the sheer
grace and pit of God. He wrote, "for it shows that when “Yahweh raised up a
savior” for Israel he was not reacting to any repentance on Israel’s part. If anything,
he was responding to their misery rather than to their sorrow, to their pain rather

than to their penitence. Who then can ever plumb the abyss of Yahweh’s pity for his
people, even his sinful people, who are moved more by their distress than by their
depravity? Yahweh is indeed the one “who could bear Israel’s suffering no longer”
(Judges 10:16 NJB). What sheer grace then when Yahweh delivers! Our primary
problem is that verse 9 moves us only to yawn. After all, we already know the
theological truth of verse 9 — we’ve read that sort of thing often before. So we
respond with a, pleasant, nodding ho–hum. Isn’t God nice? What’s for supper? If
we fail to see, to feel, to delight in the miracle of God’s own nature, are we not
strangers to rather than partakers of such unbelievable grace?" (Ralph Davis, D.
Focus on the Bible: Judges)
8. Despite lack of evidence that the people genuinely repented of their sins when
they cried out to God for help, the Lord responded to their plight and gave them a
deliverer. It was the Exodus experience all over again. David Legge wrote,
"'Yahweh is not a white-gloved standoffish God, out somewhere in the remote left-field
of the universe, who hesitates to get His strong right arm dirty in the yuck of
our lives. The God of the Bible does not hold back in the wide blue yonder
somewhere, waiting for you to pour Chlorox and spray Lysol over the affairs of
your life before He will touch it. Whether you can come comfortably, put it together
or not, He is the God who delights to deliver His people even in their messes, and
likes to make them laugh again. He is the God who allows weeping to endure for the
night, but sees that joy comes in the morning'." We see this time and time again in
this book.
10 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so
that he became Israel's judge and went to war.
The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of
Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered
him.
1. Othniel had been a part of the eight years of oppression just like everyone else,
and though he was a war hero he had no power to do anything about the slavery of
his people. God had to empower him with His Spirit to give him the motivation and
the strength to take on the forces of the oppressor and overpower them. Imagine his
frustration for those eight years when he could do nothing because in his own power
he was helpless. So supernatural power was involved in using human agents to
deliver the people of Israel. Human power was enslaved, and only when the power
of God's Spirit entered the picture could the people be set free. Othniel went to war
in order to win for himself a bride, the daughter of Caleb. Now he goes to war to
win God's bride back to him. But he could not go and win the battle until he was

empowered by the Spirit. In
Gideon you find the same thing - the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. The
Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon
Samson. There are no hero figures who can deliver God's people without the help of
God.
2. David Legge wrote, "Isn't that what Zechariah said? 'Not by might, not by
power', human power, 'but by my Spirit, saith the Lord'. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1
did Paul not say this, in verse 25: 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the
weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And
base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory
in his presence'."
3. Barnes wrote, "And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him - The phrase occurs
frequently in this book and in the books of Samuel and Kings. It marks the special
office of the Judges. They were saviors (Jdg_3:9 margin; Neh_9:27) called and
directed by the Holy Spirit, who endued them with extraordinary wisdom, courage,
and strength for the work which lay before them (compare Jdg_6:34; Jdg_11:29;
Jdg_13:25; Jdg_14:6, Jdg_14:19), and were in this respect types of Christ the
“Judge of Israel” Mic_5:1, in whom “the Spirit of the Lord God” was “without
measure” Isa_11:2; Isa_61:1; Mat_12:18-21; Job 1:32; Act_13:2.
4. Clarke wrote, "We are not told or what nature this war was, but it was most
decisive; and the consequence was an undisturbed peace of forty years, during the
whole life of Othniel. By the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him, the Chaldee
understands the spirit of prophecy; others understand the spirit of fortitude and
extraordinary courage, as opposed to the spirit of fear or faintness of heart; but as
Othniel was judge, and had many offices to fulfil besides that of a general, he had
need of the Spirit of God, in the proper sense of the word, to enable him to guide
and govern this most refractory and fickle people; and his receiving it for these
purposes, shows that the political state of the Jews was still a theocracy. No man
attempted to do any thing in that state without the immediate inspiration of God..."
5. It is surprising that there are no details about this war that delivered Israel from
so powerful a king. It had to be the talk of the people for all the decades that Othniel
reigned as Judge, but there is no word about how he triumphed over this oppressor
of his people. It is not that we need another bloody war story, but it was such a
wonderful victory that it seems there would be some details to celebrate. All that
really mattered is that the people were set free and were able to enjoy the Promised
Land in peace for 40 years.

6. Gill wrote, " Moved him to engage in this work of delivering Israel, inspired him
with courage, and filled him with every needful gift, qualifying him for it; the
Targum interprets it the spirit of prophecy; it seems father to be the spirit of counsel
and courage, of strength and fortitude of body and mind: and he judged Israel; took
upon him the office of a judge over them, and executed it; very probably the first
work he set about was to reprove them for their sins, and convince them of them,
and reform them from their idolatry, and restore among them the pure worship of
God; and this he did first before he took up arms for them." What Gill is saying is
that there are many details not given of all Othniel did in getting the people back on
track in their loyalty to God, and living lives that were more in conformity to those
who were followers of the one true God. This was a great revival, but it is reduced to
just a few sentences.
7. The "Spirit of the Lord" appears seven times in Judges. It is interesting that the
OT rarely link the terms holy and spirit, the expression “Holy Spirit” in fact
appearing only three times in all of the OT (Ps. 51:11; Isa. 63:10–11). Brensinger
summarizes the roles of the Spirit in the Old Testament writing that "Generally
speaking, the Spirit of God appears in the OT in three distinct contexts.
First, the Spirit of God actively participates in both the creation and the
preservation of the world (Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13, KJV and Heb.; Ps. 33:6; 104:30). In
this way, the Spirit powerfully brings order and life out of chaos.
Second, the Spirit of God frequently serves to energize and inspire Israel’s leaders
(e.g., Exod. 31:3; Num. 11:25–29). The Former Prophets typically envision the Spirit
in this way—coming upon and empowering selected individuals assigned to perform
specific tasks (Judg. 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Sam. 10:10; 11:6; 16:13).
So too do the prophets themselves refer to the enabling operation of the Spirit in
their ministries (Ezek. 11:5; Mic. 3:8; Zech. 4:6; 7:12).
Third, the Spirit of God plays a crucial role in ancient Israel’s eschatological hopes,
in her dreams concerning the future. The same life-giving Spirit, for example, will
restore flesh to parched bones and reestablish Israel (Ezek. 37:14). Furthermore, an
anticipated outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all people resounds within the
prophetic proclamation (Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 39:29; Joel 2:28). With this
outpouring will come transformation, renewal, and a longed-for spiritual vitality.
Reflected in the OT’s depiction of the Holy Spirit, then, is a progression of sorts.
What begins with the movement of the Spirit at creation and continues with the
empowering of selected individuals eventually gives way to a remarkably
comprehensive hope in which the Spirit of God will indwell all of God’s people—
young and old, men and women. Herein lies a major qualitative difference between
the OT and the New. What formerly could only be imagined has now come to pass:
God’s Spirit not simply coming upon selected individuals, but actually dwelling
within the hearts of the members of the entire community of faith" (Acts 2; 1 Cor.
3:16; Gal. 5:25). (Brensinger, T. L. Judges. Believers church Bible commentary.
Page 232. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press)

8. Someone wrote, "What is the NT parallel of Othniel's power to defeat the enemy
as the result of God's Spirit descending upon him? The NT believer's power to wage
spiritual war against and live victoriously over his or her enemies (world, flesh,
devil) comes from the Holy Spirit Who indwells us and empowers us (e.g., "walk by
the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh... if you are led by the
Spirit, you are not under the Law." Ga 5:16, 18, cf Ac1:8, Ro8:13) This meant that
he exercised authority in managing the affairs of the nation, and it was his spiritual
and civil leadership that brought rest to the land. Never underestimate the good that
one person can do who is filled with the Spirit of God and obedient to the will of
God.
11 So the land had peace for forty years, until
Othniel son of Kenaz died.
1. For the rest of his forty years of life Othniel was the leader of God's people, and
according to the record he was the Judge most free of weaknesses. None are
recorded, and so he was a noble hero for his entire life, and a whole generation of
people enjoyed living in peace under his leadership. Not all is bad news in this book
of Judges, for this had to be a pleasant time for the people of God. There are not
many forty year periods of peace in the history of any people, but under Othniel
these people had it.
2. Ralph David urges us to recognize the importance of earthly peace as a gift of
God. He wrote, "The rest that God gives must be met by the constancy of his people.
A footnote. Let us not as Christians be too hasty to spiritualize this rest into
heavenly rest. It was the land that enjoyed rest. Even Christians, I would hold,
should keep to the earthiness of the text here. There is no need to fly off to heaven at
this point. Does not the apostle command us to pray “for kings and all those in
authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1
Tim. 2:2,)? To have rulers in one’s country who can maintain social and civil order
is one of God’s wonderful gifts to his flock. And if your land has relative rest, you
should thank the kind King who has granted it to you. (Ralph Davis, D. Focus on
the Bible: Judges)
3. Chris Appleby has an interesting insight about the patter of decline and
deliverance that runs all through this book. He wrote, "As you read through the
Judges you find that while there’s a clear pattern of sin, punishment, repentance
and rescue, there’s a certain unpredictability about the time intervals involved.
Sometimes there’s a long period of time of oppression, sometimes less, likewise there
are longer and shorter periods of peace. God wants them to see that there’s a
connection between moral behaviour and divine blessing, but there’s nothing

mechanical about it. God enjoys personal freedom of action. Sometimes he responds
quickly, other times he delays, and he gives us the same freedom even when we
choose to misuse it." This is important theology, for we need to respect the freedom
of God to choose when to respond in mercy, and when to respond in judgment, for
there are many variables that we have not idea about that determine how God
wisely chooses. We cannot lock him into any scheme of things that we have invented.
It is sheer pride for anyone to say, "This is how God always acts in such and such a
situation." Nobody knows for sure just how God is going to act in any situation. He
may act swiftly to judge, or he may be exceedingly slow to act, and it is his choice,
and we cannot come up with any system that forces him to do it our way.
Ehud
12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of
the LORD, and because they did this evil the
LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over
Israel
1. Just a note to make it clear: when I use the word funny, which I do quite often, it
is not to be taken as ha ha funny, but strange, odd, unusual type funniness. Many
things are funny that do not make you laugh necessarily, but they make you see
from a different perspective, and you may think it is funny that you never saw that
before. Many things are funny in the Bible because it is God’s Word to us, and
much of it is surprising, and sometimes difficult to grasp. It is funny in the sense
that it often makes us ask why is God saying or doing this, and why this way? It is
always dealing with the sins, weaknesses and follies of man, and so there is much
that is funny in the sense of foolish and hard to make sense of logically. People are
funny in lots of ways that are not laughable because they are evil, and yet we have to
laugh because it is so stupid. So the word funny is covering a lot of territory, and so
do not expect to laugh every time you read it. It is, in fact, quite funny how often I
use the word funny. I use it here at this point because I ask, how stupid do you have
to be to lose God's blessing that makes life as near perfect as it can be, and begin to
do things that offend him, and make life as near miserable as it can be? This is not
funny at all, but it is laughable because it is so stupid.
1B. Here we go again. The godly leader dies and the people fall apart, and they go
back to the same evil ways they had forsaken under Othniel's leadership. They were
a weak people who could not be commited on their own will power, but needed
strong leadership to keep them faithful. They were like little children who needed
constant supervision, or they would get into some kind of mischief. So their heavenly
Father had to send them to their room again, which means to restrict their freedom,
and he did this by using another pagan king to oppress them. This king had the

strange name of Eglon, and it is a term used to refer to the fatted calf, and so in
essence it is calling him a fat cow. It turns out that he was a fat man, and we will see
some funny details about his fatness later in the chapter.
1C. There is humor in folly because it is such stupid behavior that it is laughable. It
is serious stupidity and sad and pathetic, but we have to laugh in disbelief that
human beings can be so foolish as to repeat the same folly that caused so much
suffering. It reveals just how pathetic human nature is when people get addicted to
sin. These people know from history and experience that they cannot forsake their
God for idols and escape judgment, and yet they do it over and over again. They are
just like the prisoner who has suffered years of imprisonment for his crime, and
then gets out finally and goes right back to the same crime. Sometimes the very day
he is paroled and then ends up back behind bars. That is sad, and yet laughable
because it is so inconsistent with common sense that it provokes wonder and
amazement of the mind. It is hard to believe that people who know the best can still
revert to the worst, but we need to heed the words of Solzhenitsyn who said, ""If
only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were
necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line
dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being: and who is
willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" In other words, all of us have the
potential to backslide into a life of forgetfulness of God and to a life of secularism
and idolatry.
1D. What about the person who gambles and gets so hooked on it that they keep
going back until they lose their job, home, family, and all their possessions? This is
so stupid that the non-gambler has to cry and laugh at the same time at such folly.
But that is just what the people of God were doing. They were risking all on the bet
that they could get by with it this time. They could worship other gods and thereby
have the pleasure of sex connected with much pagan worship, and build
relationships that could benefit them. God is slow to lose patience, and so people get
by with their folly for some time, and this leads them to the false assumption that
they can keep on being stupid without penalty. People get addicted to sin and keep
on doing it over and over even when they know it will end in disaster. This is not
funny, and yet it is laughable, for it is such nonsense.
1E. God’s chosen people are amazing in their ability to forget the past and prove the
saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The
Jewish people had to be practically destroyed and carried away into Babylon before
they finally learned the folly of idolatry. They suffered the judgment of God over
and over and kept on going back to idols until it led to losing their homeland. This
judgment finally made an impact that lasted and they gave up their folly. This is
just how stubborn human nature is in its rebellion against the will of God. We see
this in little children who take a stand and refuse to quit pushing the buttons on the
Television. They grit their teeth and defy you to make them stop, and even when you
slap their hand until it is red they will persist in their determination to do what you
forbid them to do. It is so funny to see a child defying a parent who can punish them
for their rebellion, and it is hard to keep from laughing at their stubbornness. God

must also laugh at the folly of his children defying him. It has to be funny to see
puny man refusing to bow to the will of an all-powerful God. It is downright silly,
but it is the picture that we see all through the history of God’s people.
1F. So God has to discipline his kids again, and the way he does this is to give their
enemies the strength to take control of their lives and reduce their quality of life by
making them prisoners to a pagan king. They have to give a good portion of their
hard earned money to this tyrant and work to keep him in luxury. This is a bitter
pill to swallow and makes life miserable. It is a funny paradox that we see often in
the Bible, for God will bless a pagan power with the ability to defeat his own people
and bring them into subjection to them. Imagine that! God is on the side of the
pagans against his own people. God is not saying these people are better than his
people, though that may be true in certain situations, but he is saying that I would
rather give pagans power to dominate my own people rather than let them continue
to live lives that will make it impossible for them to be channels for my plan of
salvation for all people. God needed a people through whom he could bring the
Messiah into the world and bless the whole world. If he allowed his people to
become pagan idolaters permanently he would have no special people at all, and the
line to the Messiah would be corrupted beyond hope. Discipline had to be applied to
keep his people on the right path, and God would not cease to discipline, no matter
how painful for Him and His people, until they got back on the path of his purpose.
1G. It is one of the funniest paradoxes of the Bible that God so often uses pagan
people to do his will when his own people refuse to do his will. His will is that when
they defy his will that they suffer judgment and the way he judges them is by means
of pagan powers. God was often the enemy of his own people and was the
motivational power behind the pagan leaders who came to defeat them. This seems
so incongruous and incongruity is a basic aspect of humor. It is a crazy mixed up
picture where God is on the side of evil people in order to bring his own people back
from their evil into his will again. So God has to play a dual role of his people’s
greatest friend and protector, even doing miracles to see that they survive, and on
the other hand playing the role of their greatest enemy and destroyer. It is one of the
strangest paradoxes of the Bible. The dual role of God is love and God is wrath is
one that has confused people and so they reject the paradox and throw one of the
two out of their thinking and theology. This is folly, for any parent knows that both
roles are essential to effective parenting. You have to be loving at all times, that is
until your child is so rebellious that the only solution is judgment. Every child needs
to feel the anger of his parents at their sins of disobedience. God is just being the
ideal parent for children who are cursed with a nature stained with evil. God would
not be truly a loving parent if he never judged his children as worthy of
punishment. Just read this passage from Ezekiel 20:30-38 and see how concerned
God is to keep his family pure and on the right path.
"Therefore say to the house of Israel: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Will
you defile yourselves the way your fathers did and lust after their vile images? 31
When you offer your gifts—the sacrifice of your sons in the fire—you continue to
defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. Am I to let you inquire of me, O

house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I will not let you
inquire of me. 32 " 'You say, "We want to be like the nations, like the peoples of the
world, who serve wood and stone." But what you have in mind will never happen.
33 As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I will rule over you with a
mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath. 34 I will bring
you from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been
scattered—with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath.
35 I will bring you into the desert of the nations and there, face to face, I will execute
judgment upon you. 36 As I judged your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt,
so I will judge you, declares the Sovereign LORD. 37 I will take note of you as you
pass under my rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. 38 I will
purge you of those who revolt and rebel against me. Although I will bring them out
of the land where they are living, yet they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you
will know that I am the LORD."
1H. When I read this I get an image in my head of little Johnny throwing a fit in the
grocery store because mom will not buy him the toy he wants. She has made it clear
she is not buying the toy, but he is making his stand and will not quit screaming
until she relents and makes the purchase just to keep him quiet. He hopes she will be
too embarrassed to let him go on throwing his fit and give in to his whim. But she
grabs him by the arm, and like God drags his children into the wilderness to execute
judgment, so she drags him out to the car where he no longer has an audience and
makes it clear that instead of getting something for his display of rebellion, he will
lose something that he treasures. He will pay for his disobedience just like Israel
paid for their disobedience to God. If you keep the parental image before you it will
make perfect sense why God has to be our greatest friend and our greatest enemy. It
is only by being our greatest enemy that he can be our greatest friend, for he alone
cares enough about his children to do all that is necessary to develop their highest
potential. You best human friends can live with your sins and like you none the less,
but God cannot do so. He must see you repent by choice or bring you to repent by
coercion, and that means punishment.
1I. There is a lot of theology in just this one verse. You will notice that the reason for
the judgment is not because God chose to just be mean and bring in a pagan king to
make their lives miserable. It was because of the choice of the people to choose evil.
God is responding to human conduct. This makes it clear that God does not choose
all that happens in life, but responds according to the choices of humans. You have
theologians all the time saying that God is sovereign and that he chooses all that
happens in life and history. This is nonsense in the light of this whole book of
Judges. God did not choose for his people to worship idols. Had he done so he would
be guilty of causing the very sin that he most hated and judged most severely. The
only reason a pagan king was now on their back was because they were living in
rebellion against God. God hates judgment and does not even have pleasure in the
death of wicked people. It is thrust upon him by the folly of people. Now the funny
thing about this clear teaching of the Bible is that people are afraid to accept it. This
puts too much responsibility on man for the things that happen in history, and

especially judgment. They prefer to throw it all in the lap of God and make him the
bad guy. All kinds of clever arguments are given to convince us that God is the only
one in charge and so all that happens is due to his will. They can seem so convincing
until you just read a verse like this, and then such theology seems funny indeed. Yes,
it is true that God is the one who puts this pagan in power over Israel by his
sovereign choice, but it was never his will that his people sin and make God choose
such a negative thing. People are always blaming God for bad things, and the fact is,
God is often behind the bad things that happen, but the greater fact is, He never
wanted those bad things to happen. They were forced upon him by the foolish
choices of people who could have made other choices and avoided the judgment of
God.
1J. One more funny thing before we move on. The Moabites were enemies of Israel,
but God refused to let Israel fight them and take their land when they marched near
Moab in their wilderness wandering. We read this in Deut. 2:9 where God spoke to
Moses: “Then the LORD said to me, "Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them
to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the
descendants of Lot as a possession." God would not let Moab be taken by Israel, but
now he lets Israel be taken by Moab. The funny thing is that God is sometimes
harder on his own people than he is on those who are his enemies. The importance
of seeing this is that it keeps us from being superficial and thinking that God is
always on the side of Christians and that he always supports their agenda as over
against the agenda of the non-Christian. It is dangerous and foolish thinking for
Christians to assume that they have God in the bag and that He has to be always on
their side. The Bible that the Christian takes as final authority will not support this
conviction, and that is funny.
2. Frank Wallace wrote, "All through the Bible, when a leader dies there seems to
be failure following. This was true in the apostolic day Paul warned the Ephesian
elders in Acts 20:29-30 saying, "after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in
among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking
perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." The power, strength and
direction of the apostles' leadership was sufficient to keep at bay those evil things
while they yet lived, but when they died it seemed a great barrier was removed and
evil men began to work." The rebukes of Jesus on the churches in Rev. 2 and 3
make it clear that the church tends to slip away from consistent faith without strong
leaders. It is sad that people cannot have a strong and consistent faith and practice
in loyalty to God and the Lord Jesus regardless of human leaders, but it is a fact of
history in both the Old and New Testaments. Every believer needs to have a
personal commitment to Christ that is not dependant upon any leader, for that
leader will die, or possibly fall into sin and be a disgrace to the kingdom. It is a form
of idolatry to make your loyalty to God depend on any man. Men die and fail, and
that should have no bearing on your loyalty to God. Those who do not learn from
history are condemned to repeat it, and this is so often the case in this matter of
depending on man rather than God.
3. The Jews have a humorous story about a slow learner that fits the people of

Judges perfectly, for they just could not get it that sin leads to judgment. When will
they ever learn?
The slow learner
Young Bernie Gold was nearly 12 years old and although he had a lower than
average IQ, he was a dutiful and caring son. One day, he was having a chat with his
father.
“Dad, it’s Father’s Day on Sunday and I want to buy you something. Mom said I
should ask you what you wanted.”
Mr. Gold only needed to think for a moment. “What do I want? I only want one
thing — you are 12 months away from your bar mitzvah and I would be so very
happy if you could learn at last to speak Hebrew.”
Bernie groaned aloud, “You know how hard I’m finding it at school to learn new
subjects, Dad. I’m such a slow learner. I just don’t think I would be able to learn
Hebrew.”
Mr. Gold looked squarely at his son and said, “Bernie, you’re better than you think
you are. I’ll even help you, just as my father helped me. If you could do this for me,
it would please me so very much!”
“OK, I’ll try Dad, just for you, but please don’t be angry with me if I fail.”
So next Sunday, they went to see the rabbi and soon after that, Bernie was enrolled
in the synagogue’s Hebrew classes. Over the months that followed, Bernie kept his
promise by attending regularly and trying as hard as he could.
One day, Mr. Gold decided to visit the synagogue and check on Bernie’s progress.
He entered the class in the middle of a lesson and when it came to Bernie’s turn to
read, Mr. Gold was soon dismayed to discover how little Hebrew Bernie could
manage after all the months that had gone by. Bernie was very slow and made many
mistakes in his reading.
But even worse, Mr. Gold realized that what he was hearing from Bernie was the
beginning of the Kaddish. He was shocked — the Kaddish is the prayer for the
dead, the words that every son is expected to say after the father’s death.
“Rabbi, what on earth are you teaching my son?” argued Mr. Gold after the lesson
was over. “I’m only in my 40s — I’m a young man still in good health. I go jogging
and Israeli dancing every week. Do I really look so ill that you are teaching Bernie
to read the Kaddish now?”
The Rabbi replied, “Mr. Gold, please God you should live so long that Bernie is able
to read the whole of the Kaddish over you!”

12397843 judges-3-commentary

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (12)

Similar to 12397843 judges-3-commentary

Similar to 12397843 judges-3-commentary (20)

More from GLENN PEASE

More from GLENN PEASE (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

12397843 judges-3-commentary