Judges 1 Bible Study / Podcast

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Introduction to the Book of Judges -Recorded live on radio 97.3FM WLPV out of Greenfield Massachusetts

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So, if you have a Bible on hand, turn to Judges chapter 1.
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This time period in ancient Israel, the time period of the Judges was sort of like the
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Wild West, that's how I would characterize it. The Wild West in Israel was marked by lawlessness.
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Every man, the scripture says, did what was right in his own eyes. Included in Judges are well -known stories about Gideon, Samson, and Delilah, which is probably the most famous.
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And at the end of the time period of the Judges, that is when Samuel the prophet is ruling, and he of course was the last judge.
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And then you have the transition into the monarchy with King Saul, and then of course
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King David. The book of Judges was written somewhere around the 11th century
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BC, perhaps by Samuel the prophet, we're not exactly sure. And it's the 7th book of the
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Hebrew Bible, and the 7th book of the Christian Old Testament. As I indicated, it covers a time period, the
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Apostle Paul in the New Testament says 430 years I believe, but it's a time period, a little over 400 years, between the conquest of Canaan, which
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Joshua describes, and then the establishment of the kingdom in the books of Samuel.
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So the Judges is in between Joshua and Samuel, which leads into the monarchy.
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So that's the time period we're looking at. What is a judge? We think of a judge today as a man or a woman with a long black robe who sits in a courtroom.
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Well that's not what a judge was biblically. A judge was basically a military ruler, something like a governor slash military ruler, and they were temporary leaders in Israel, kind of a regional leader.
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And what would happen is the people, the Israelites, were unfaithful to the
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Lord, therefore the Lord delivers them into the hands of their enemies. The people repent and cry out to God for mercy, at which point he sends in the form of a leader or a champion, a judge, to deliver them from oppression.
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And then once Israel is restored to peace and prosperity after a generation, they forget about God and the cycle just plays, it just is repeated over and over again.
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So with that as background, let's listen along to Judges chapter 1.
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The book of Judges. Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the
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Lord. Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?
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And the Lord said, Judah shall go up, indeed
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I have delivered the land into his hand. So Judah said to Simeon his brother,
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Come up with me to my allotted territory, that we may fight against the Canaanites, and I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory.
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And Simeon went with him. Then Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the
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Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they killed ten thousand men at Bezek.
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And they found Adonai Bezek in Bezek, and fought against him, and they defeated the
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Canaanites and the Perizzites. Then Adonai Bezek fled, and they pursued him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.
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And Adonai Bezek said, Seventy kings, with their thumbs and big toes cut off, used to gather scraps under my table, as I have done.
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So God has repaid me. Then they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.
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Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem, and took it. They struck it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.
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And afterward, the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites, who dwelt in the mountains, in the south, and in the lowland.
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Then Judah went against the Canaanites, who dwelt in Hebron. Now the name of Hebron was formerly
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Kirjath -Aba, and they killed Shishai, Ahimon, and Talmai.
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From there, they went against the inhabitants of Deba. The name of Deba was formerly
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Kirjath -Sipher. Then Caleb said, Whoever attacks
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Kirjath -Sipher and takes it, to him I will give my daughter, Aksa, as wife.
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And Atheniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it. So he gave him his daughter,
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Aksa, as wife. Now it happened, when she came to him, that she urged him to ask her father for a field.
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And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, What do you wish?
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Give me a blessing, since you have given me land in the south. Give me also springs of water.
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And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. Now the children of the
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Kenite, Moses' father -in -law, went up from the city of Palms with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the south,
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Neairad. And they went and dwelt among the people. And Judah went with his brother
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Simeon, and they attacked the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and utterly destroyed it.
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So the name of the city was called Horma. Also Judah took
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Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekran with its territory.
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So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron.
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And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said. Then he expelled from there the three sons of Anak.
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But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited
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Jerusalem. So the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
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And the house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them.
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So the house of Joseph sent men to spy out Bethel. The name of the city was formerly
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Luz. And when the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him,
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Please show us the entrance to the city. We will show you mercy. So he showed them the entrance to the city.
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And they struck the city with the edge of the sword. But they let the man and all his family go.
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And the man went to the land of the Hittites, built a city, and called its name
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Luz, which is its name to this day. However, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and its villages, or Taernac and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Iblium and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages.
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For the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land. And it came to pass, when
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Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites under tribute, but did not completely drive them out.
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Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Giza, so the Canaanites dwelt in Giza among them.
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Nor did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitram, or the inhabitants of Nile, so the
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Canaanites dwelt among them and were put under tribute. Nor did
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Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko, or the inhabitants of Sidon, So the
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Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.
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Nor did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth Anoth, but they dwelt among the
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Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and Beth Anoth were put under tribute to them.
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And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountains, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley.
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And the Amorites were determined to dwell in Mount Heres, in Agelon, and in Shealbin.
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Yet when the strength of the house of Joseph became greater, they were put under tribute.
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Now the boundary of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabim, from Sila, and upward.
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Okay, so that's Judges chapter 1, and again, this book follows a consistent pattern.
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The people are unfaithful to the Lord, therefore He delivers them into the hands of their enemies.
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The Israelites repent and cry out to God for mercy, which He sends in the form of a leader or a judge to deliver the people from oppression.
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Once again, they experience prosperity, but as usually happens when things are good, they forget about God and slide back into their old ways, and then the cycle is repeated.
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And one of the things we saw from that chapter, Judges chapter 1, is that the children of Israel did not really obey
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God. They were supposed to drive out all the Canaanite tribes, and instead, as you just heard, they did not drive them out.
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And in some instances, they intentionally allowed them to stay.
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The Bible says to put them under tribute. In other words, they enslaved many of the
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Canaanites. But after generations, the Canaanites were no longer slaves, they influenced the
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Israelites, and they were just a consistent thorn in their side. So, that's
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Judges chapter 1. Let's go through these verses a little more closely. Judges 1 begins,
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Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the
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Lord, saying, Who shall be first to go up for us against the
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Canaanites, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up.
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Indeed, I have delivered the land into his hand. So Judah said to Simeon his brother,
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Come up with me to my allotted territory, that we might fight against the Canaanites.
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And I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory. And Simeon went with him.
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Then Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand.
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So I'll stop there. A few things jump out right away. First of all, we see that this book picks up where Joshua left off.
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Joshua, the servant of the Lord, is dead. Unfortunately for the children of Israel, they didn't have a strong leader waiting in the wings.
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At least not a leader like Joshua. Moses and Joshua were very unique.
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They were very amazing leaders in Israel. When Moses was alive, you remember what he did.
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If you've read through the first five books of the Bible, you know that Moses had
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Joshua. He trained Joshua, having him sort of as his right -hand man.
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So when Moses died, Joshua took over. And it was natural.
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God then exalted Joshua in the sight of the whole nation. When he used the Ark of the
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Covenant to part the Jordan River, the people crossed over on dry ground. So that point is that transfer of leadership from Moses to Joshua was relatively seamless.
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And that's really the best situation to have because as it's been said, everything rises or falls based on leadership.
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Joshua was a good leader, so when he took over from Moses, things went well. Joshua really didn't have that great leader waiting as his right -hand man.
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And just to make application to the church, if a church has a good pastor who preaches the word and loves the people, you understand he's not going to be there forever.
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So when he gets older, it's wise to have a younger man that he has trained.
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So if and when the time comes, and that time will of course come, the church isn't left leaderless.
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And then they have to put together a search committee and import some guy from far away that nobody knows.
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That could turn out well, but it might also be a disaster. It's better to have someone you know someone who knows the people.
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Also, while churches have gotten away from this, training up men in the local church, that's where it's supposed to happen.
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Younger men are supposed to be trained up in the Lord and it's supposed to happen in the local church.
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But in modern times, unfortunately that has been outsourced to seminaries.
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And you can't look around and tell me that we are better off for it.
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No, just as Moses trained Joshua, a pastor, if he has willing young men, he also should be training them.
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Of course, if you don't have anyone, you know, what are you supposed to do? But this is one thing churches are missing these days.
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And it's pretty obvious. Churches have a lot of older folks, a lot of women, but not a lot of young men.
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So when a young man who has his act together comes into a church,
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I mean, that's what pastors are looking for. And they should be training those men up to be that next generation of leaders.
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So Moses had Joshua. What did Joshua have? Well, the first judge, we will see this in chapter 3, is a man named
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Othniel. Othniel was a great leader, but just not on the level of a
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Moses or a Joshua. Othniel was the nephew of Caleb.
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Of course, Caleb was another great man of God, to be sure. Now, I had said, just to clarify one thing,
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I said everything rises or falls on leadership, or that's something that is often repeated.
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That's true to a large degree, but the people do bear some responsibility. And clearly, in the book of Judges, the people were fickle.
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Of course, they were pretty fickle in Moses' day also, but Moses was able to deal with it.
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All right, let's get back to the text, verses 1 and 2. Now, after the death of Joshua came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the
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Lord, saying, Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?
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And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Indeed, I have delivered the land into his hand.
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So, we see that Judah is first. Judah was the largest tribe.
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In the way that the tribes were camped around the tabernacle, Judah was first.
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They were the biggest, they were the strongest, so much so that the whole tribe of Simeon, when
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Simeon received their allotment of land, and their territory was within Judah, and eventually
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Judah just kind of swallowed them up. Look at verse 3, So Judah said to Simeon his brother,
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Come up with me to my allotted territory, that we might fight against the Canaanites, and I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory.
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And these, remember, these are the tribes. These are, or the leaders of the tribes speaking to one another.
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Since the men, Judah and Simeon, had been dead for hundreds of years. What does that say?
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Judah said to Simeon his brother. Well, that doesn't mean that the man Judah said this, because again,
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Judah and Simeon are both long gone. So, the leaders of the tribes are speaking to one another.
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So, that's not to be taken in a literal sense, that Judah is speaking to Simeon.
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And let's not forget, what's the nation called? The nation is called Israel. And that's named after a man.
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Jacob had his name changed by God to Israel.
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So, Israel can refer to a man, it can refer to a family, it can refer to a whole nation.
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Therefore, the people of the nation were called the children of Israel. Now, there were the literal, physical children of Israel, Judah, Simeon, Levi, Asher, right?
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But, it's also a reference to the nation. So, the 12 sons of Jacob, being the patriarchs, the tribes are named after the physical children of Jacob, or Israel.
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Sometimes we think of the patriarchs as being Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but actually the Bible talks about the patriarchs as being
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Judah, Simeon, Levi, and the 12 sons. Of course, that's a bad word today, in our godless culture.
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Have you noticed this? I'm sure you have. If you haven't, God bless you that you're not watching the news and hearing everything that's going on.
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But, that's kind of a bad word in our day and age, right? Patriarch, or people complain about the patriarchy.
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And I always, when I hear that, not to get too off topic, but when I hear people complaining about the patriarchy,
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I think to myself, well, what do they want? Do they want a matriarchy? Do they want women in control?
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I guess they probably do, but I digress. Of course, living in New England, we do have ministers who write into the newspaper, and instead of talking about God the
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Father, using he and him for pronouns for God, they talk about God as a she or a her.
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So, if you don't live in New England, and you've never heard of such a thing, again, God bless you, please pray for us.
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But there's still, hey, there's still 7 ,000 up here who haven't bowed the knee to Baal, amen? Alright, so Israel was in covenant with Jehovah God, and, right, we're reading the pages of the
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Old Testament. The term Old Testament and Old Covenant are synonymous.
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I mean, Old Testament we usually refer to as the Scriptures, but Testament and Covenant mean the same thing.
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Old Covenant is the covenant they were under, the covenant of the law, and God told the
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Israelites through Moses, if you obey me, you will be blessed, but if you disobey me, you will be cursed.
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So, the book of Joshua was a bright spot in Israel's history, but the book of Judges is just known as probably the darkest time in Israel's history, with the exception of maybe the
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Babylonian captivity. But things are starting out well. Look at verse 4, Then Judah went up, and the
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LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand.
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And then it goes on to tell of all their great victories.
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It says they killed 10 ,000 men at Bezek. Then they found
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Adonai Bezek in Bezek, and they fought against him, and they defeated the
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Canaanites and the Perizzites. Then Adonai Bezek, who was their king, so Bezek is the land,
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Adonai means Lord, he's the Lord of Bezek, he's the king, he fled, and it says
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Israel pursued the king, they caught him, and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes.
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It's kind of like when you, well you read about this too, I think we read this when we went through Joshua, how at times they would immobilize the horses by hamstringing them.
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Right, so this is the same idea with a warrior, with a king, you cut off his thumbs, and that makes it impossible for him,
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I know this is kind of grisly, maybe for some people, this isn't, this is in the
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Bible? Yeah, it's in the Bible, there's worse things than this in the Bible. So if little kids are listening, you know, it is what it is.
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We'll talk about that in a second, but obviously if you don't have thumbs, you can't hold a weapon, and by cutting off the king's big toe, it makes it difficult to remain stable on his feet, and I realize that there will be some people who listen.
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If you've never read through the Bible cover to cover, I highly recommend you do that, but if you've never done that, it might surprise some people, the things that are in Scripture.
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So the Israelites cut off his thumbs and his big toes, and someone's thinking, oh, that's an awful thing to be in the
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Bible. But this is an important lesson for us to learn, that number one, just because something is in the
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Bible, it doesn't mean that God told them to do it. Just because you read something in the
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Bible doesn't mean that God necessarily approves of it. So that's the first thing. Because sometimes you do get those commands, thus saith the
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Lord, but just remember, just because an Israelite did something, it doesn't make it right.
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The other thing we have to understand, the second thing, is that there are verses of Scripture, there are passages of Scripture that are descriptive, and there are passages of Scripture that are prescriptive.
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Let me give an example. When God told the
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Israelites, thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy, that was prescriptive.
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God was telling them to do that. But this verse, about how they cut off the king's thumbs and toes, that is descriptive.
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It's just telling you what happened. It doesn't say that God told them to do it or didn't, or that he approves or doesn't approve.
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It's just telling you what took place. So the Bible is a book about God and about man.
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The Bible contains just about everything. It contains the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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So we need to approach Scripture with an open mind, an open heart, that's true, but also we need to approach
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Scripture with a mature attitude. If you read a book about any war, it's going to give you some details, and they might be gruesome at times.
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That's the world we live in. So this is what happened to the king of Bezek.
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And if you do go by the principle of an eye for an eye, or that which a man sows he will also reap, the king did seem to deserve what he got.
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Look at verse 7, because that's what he says about himself. Verse 7 says,
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And Adonai Bezek said, Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps under my table.
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So he did this to other kings. And he says, As I have done, so God has repaid me.
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That's a sobering statement. What did Jesus say? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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If you treat people a certain way, don't be surprised when it comes back to you. And it says,
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They brought the king to Jerusalem, and there he died. And you say, well, see, maybe
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God did approve of it. Well, I don't know. It doesn't say. But Adonai Bezek did come to the realization, at least this is his opinion, this is his assessment that, hey,
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I got what I deserved. So there is that scriptural principle that what a man sows, he shall also reap.
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In modern times, these days, people call this karma, right? Christians would say you reap what you sow.
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Unbelievers, they talk about karma. And by the way, if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be using the term karma because karma is not actually real.
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Let me just quickly describe the difference. You reap what you sow goes like this. If you're cruel to others, don't be surprised when someone is cruel back to you.
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You kind of have it coming. You're sowing seeds, and then you're going to get the harvest. If you reap to the wind, or if you sow to the wind, you'll reap the whirlwind, right?
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If you spend half of your paycheck on scratch tickets every week, don't be surprised when you end up poor and in debt.
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If you eat McDonald's five days a week, don't be surprised if you're unhealthy. This is pretty basic.
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Karma, though, is a tenant of Eastern religion. The idea is you store up good karma or bad karma so that when you are reincarnated, that karma will determine how your next life goes.
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Of course, that's completely unbiblical, and there is zero evidence for reincarnation.
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Of course, we don't believe in that. That's another sermon for another day. But karma and you reap what you sow is not the same thing.
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Let's look at verses 8 through 10. It says, Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it.
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They struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.
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And afterward, the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the mountains in the south and in the lowland.
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Then Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. Now, the name of Hebron was formerly
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Kirjath Arba. So, if you have followed along in our
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Joshua Bible study, or if you have read the book of Joshua and know the story, you know that the conquest of the land of Canaan, it's complete, but it's not really complete.
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The tribes all get their land, the nation is established, but each tribe is then responsible for sort of finishing the job and driving out the remaining stragglers from the land.
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Ultimately, they fail in this. And because they fail, the tribes that remain, the heathens that remain in the land, they become a snare to the children of Israel.
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Eventually, Israel will adopt their practices. There's another principle there.
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If you hang out with unbelievers all the time, who's influencing who, right? So, if you have the people of God living in Canaan, but you have the heathen living in Canaan, one will influence the other.
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Now, God didn't say, okay, Israelites, just do your best and try to be good and you can influence the
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Canaanites. That's not what God said. He said, drive them out. And, you know, sometimes believers think, well, you know,
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I'll just, yeah, I'm hanging out with heathens and they're doing all this stuff that really I shouldn't be involved in, but maybe
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I'll have a good influence on them. That's almost never the way it works. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
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The unbeliever almost certainly will influence the believer. Okay. So, in this passage, verses 8 through 10, two cities are mentioned,
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Jerusalem and Hebron, depending on how you pronounce it.
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So, both became Israelite capitals. If you remember
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David, when he was king, he was king first at Hebron. That was the original capital city until David took the stronghold of Zion, defeating the
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Jebusites who dwell in Jerusalem. So, David was first king at Hebron and then he took the city of Jerusalem and he made that the capital city.
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So, even though it says that Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it, that clearly was only temporary because we're going to read a verse just in a little while that makes it seem like, no, the
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Israelites didn't occupy Jerusalem. So, we'll address that too because this is common throughout the book of Joshua and Judges.
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Statements are made and then, like in the next chapter, it seems like the opposite is said and it's just how you define it.
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Did they take the land? Yes. Did they drive out the Canaanites? Yes, but not completely.
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So, you could say yes, they did and no, they didn't. Both are true. So, verse 12, then
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Caleb said, so while Jerusalem, or excuse me, Caleb said, whoever attacks
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Kirjath, Sephir, and takes it, to him I will give my daughter
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Ashath. So, remember, Joshua is dead, his former partner
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Caleb is still alive and Caleb offers this reward to whichever man will lead the assault on this city.
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And verse 13 says, and Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it.
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So, he gave him, Othniel, his daughter Aksah, as wife.
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So, Othniel, again, he will be the first judge of Israel.
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And you can already see it, he's already in Caleb's family, which is a very prominent family in Israel.
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So, he's Caleb's nephew and yes, I guess that means he married his cousin, right?
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This was a different time. People did that kind of thing back then. But by marrying
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Caleb's daughter, now he's the son -in -law. So, he kind of climbs up the ladder a little bit after he gets this victory and marries
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Caleb's daughter. Verse 14, now it happened, you know, Abraham married his half -sister.
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So, like this type of thing happens in Scripture and it doesn't mean that it was right.
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Actually, when Moses gave the law, he gave commands that you are not to marry close relatives and we're thankful for that.
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Verse 14, now it happened when she came to him that she urged him to ask her father for a field.
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And she dismounted from her donkey, this is Caleb's daughter, and Caleb said to her, what do you wish?
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So, she said to him, give me a blessing since you have given me the land in the south. Give me also springs of water.
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And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. So, you can see now
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Othniel is with Caleb's daughter. They possess this land. He's earned this great honor and he got this victory.
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So, now Othniel is in a position to become a leader in Israel, which he does again in chapter 3.
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Verse 16 says, now the children of the Kenite, we need to keep all these characters straight.
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It says, now the children of the Kenite, Moses' father -in -law, went up from the city of Palms with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the south near Arad.
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And they went and dwelt among the people. So, the city of the Palms is either
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Jericho or an area surrounding Jericho.
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And the children of the Kenite are probably Hobab and his children.
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I know most people listening right now, Hobab? Who's Hobab? Needless to say,
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Hobab is not one of the more well -known characters in the Bible. Might be the first time you've ever heard of him.
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But we studied this back in Numbers chapter 10. According to Numbers 10 .29, Hobab, you know, kids just don't name their children
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Hobab anymore. I don't know if they, well, they obviously did here. But, Numbers 10 .29,
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Hobab was the son of Rul, the Midianite, Moses' father -in -law.
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Okay, so, most people know the father -in -law of Moses. They know him by the name of Jethro.
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So, there's at least two different names in the
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Pentateuch for the father -in -law of Moses. Jethro and Rul. And he had a son,
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Hobab. But here we see in the book of Judges that Jethro is called the
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Kenite, or the Kenite. So, that would be the people that he descended from.
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Remember, he was the priest in the land of Midian. This is when Moses lived with him for 40 years after he killed the
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Egyptian. That's where he encountered God. In the wilderness of Midian, he encountered
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God at the burning bush. So, that's who the Kenite is.
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He's Jethro or Rul, the father -in -law of Moses.
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So, we're getting a little description of who's who and who came from where. Most people today, when we read over these details, it's sort of like with a genealogy in the
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Bible. We see this person begot this person, begot this person, and they lived here, and they went there, and lived there.
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And, you know, you think it doesn't have a whole lot of relevance to you and your life, and it probably doesn't.
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But this was important information for the Israelites. This is history. History is important.
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And when you study it, you do gain some significant...
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There is some significant things we can learn. So, let's pick up in verse 19.
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So, the Lord, it says, was with Judah. So, after all these details are given, all these different men and where they lived, and all the battles that are won, we see the statement, the
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Lord was with Judah. And the people would have wanted to know the history of the tribe of Judah.
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This is the tribe that would bring forth the Christ. So, the
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Lord is with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland because they had chariots of iron.
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So, it appears that they tried. And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said.
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Then he expelled from there the three sons of Anak. And here's another biblical character,
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Anak. Now, I think this is interesting. We've read about Anak before. Because in the
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Old Testament, it talks about the giants, right? Of course, we know David and Goliath. Goliath was a giant.
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Well, Anak was an early inhabitant. The man, Anak, was an early inhabitant of central
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Canaan near Hebron. And from Anak came a race or a group of people called the
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Anakim. Now, Star Wars fans, that's not Anakin. That's Anakin with an
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M. Who the ten spies, remember back in the Book of Numbers, the ten spies came back with the bad report and they said, we can't take the land.
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I know God told us to take the land, but we can't because the giants are living there.
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Well, that was the Anakim, descendants of Anak. So, Israel did not take the
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Promised Land the first time because the ten spies saw the descendants of Anak and they said, we are like grasshoppers in their sight and we're like grasshoppers in our own sight.
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You know, we can't do it, which is kind of a pathetic statement. But I don't actually think they were giants, not like giants we would think of.
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This was probably an excuse by the ten spies to pull off a coup against Moses, get a new leader who would bring the
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Israelites back to Egypt. But here's why it's significant. Here's the neat thing about it.
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Remember the ten spies gave the bad report. There's giants in the land, but there were 12 spies originally.
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And who were the two spies that gave the good report? It was Caleb and Joshua.
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So, this is the neat thing. It is fitting that over 40 years later,
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Caleb is the one who does what the ten spies said could not be done.
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He eliminates the descendants of Anak. I don't know about you,
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I think that's pretty cool. So, he drives them out, but not fully. Now, he's not able to drive out the inhabitants of the lowland because they have chariots of iron.
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You know, today, you know, that might be the equivalent, be like, well, they had tanks.
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So, we couldn't, you know, we tried to drive them out, but they had tanks. You can understand. Verse 21.
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So, he drives them out, not fully. And this is kind of the whole situation with all of the tribes.
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They do their best, maybe. Some of them probably don't try very hard.
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Others don't really try at all. But the consistent thing that we see with all the tribes, they don't drive out all the
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Canaanites. And that comes back to bite them. Verse 21. We see this statement that the children of Benjamin did not drive out the
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Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem. So, the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
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You say, wait a minute, doesn't that conflict with that statement earlier that Judah took
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Jerusalem? Right, well, that's the thing. There's many statements throughout
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Joshua and Judges where, for example, in Joshua, it says the land rested from war.
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And then in the next chapter, they're fighting again. So, it's like, well, yes, it did rest from war for a time.
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Or, well, they took the city. Well, the Jebusites are still there. Well, it's like, which is it?
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Well, it's both. But the main point to remember is that each of these tribes, they're just not driving out the people like they're supposed to.
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Now, this is not a contradiction. I'll just address that because there's somewhere there's a critic listening and say, yeah, there's a lot of stuff in the
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Bible like that where there's contradictions in the Bible. No, well, yeah, if you're a critic, if you don't believe the
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Bible, you're going to say there's contradictions. Admittedly, there are some things that are hard to reconcile.
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There are probably a few things that may, in fact, be scribal errors. That's sort of a bigger subject.
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But all of this history has been available to people for hundreds and thousands of years.
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And the Bible has stood the test of time. So, yeah, the critics are going to say, well, that's a contradiction.
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He said he took the city of Jerusalem, but then this verse sounds like they didn't really take the city. Well, both can be true depending on how you define take the city.
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It would be a contradiction if in verse 8 it said they drove out all the
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Jebusites and the Jebusites never dwelt in the city again. Not a single one. And then in the next chapter it says and the
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Jebusites dwell in the city until this day. See, that would be a contradiction, but it doesn't say that.
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So, that would be how I would answer that. And, yeah, critics do what critics do.
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They criticize. So, that's not a surprise. All right, we're coming to the end. Verse 22, and the house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the
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Lord was with them. Verse 27, however, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants.
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And then it talks about Ephraim and Zebulun and Asher and all the other tribes who they drove out and who they didn't.
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And the author of Judges, who, again, may be Samuel the prophet. We're not exactly sure.
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Or a combination of people. Who knows? Whoever it is, the author of Judges points this out.
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That Israel, when they were strong, that is, even when they had the ability to drive out the
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Canaanites, they often chose not to do it. And I talked about this a while back.
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Sometimes you know the right thing to do, but the right thing to do is really difficult.
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And sometimes we take the path of least resistance, but it's always going to come back to get you.
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So, even when the Israelites had the ability to drive out the heathen, sometimes they chose not to.
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And instead, we see here that in some cases, they actually enslaved the
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Canaanites. They put them under tribute. They made them forced laborers, which
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God definitely did not command them to do that. And so it goes, just as a man reaps, that he will also, or what a man sows, that he will also reap.
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So, that's true with the nation. So, the lesson, the takeaway, is to obey
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God, do things God's way. Because when God's ways are neglected, it never turns out well.
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If God gives a command, and we as his people do the opposite, it's not going to turn out good.
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So, this was the covenant Israel had. Obey God and be blessed, disobey him and receive a curse.
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Israel, during the time of Joshua, they walked by faith, and they took possession of the land.
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But here in Judges, now that they're in the land, they not only fail to do what
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God commanded them, at times they willfully do the opposite. So, I'll close with verse 28.
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It says, And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites under tribute and did not completely drive them out.