Introduction
Scholars tend to see the judgeship of Gideon as the beginning of the second half of the period of the Judges. Although it was only three short chapters ago that we had recounted for us the story of Othniel, the first Judge of Israel, around two centuries have passed since that time as we begin chapter six. Conditions in Israel have changed greatly over that time. Various Canaanite kings have come and gone. Israelite territories have expanded and contracted. The Priesthood of Israel was moving steadily towards irrelevance. Simeon's absorption into Judah was underway. Dan was on the move north; they were abandoning their God-given territory on the Mediterranean Sea for an easier life near Syria and Lebanon. The two and a half Israelite tribes who had chosen a life on the east side of the Jordan River were slowly disassociating themselves from the rest of their Hebrew brethren.
Gideon represents the fifth cycle of rebellion, apostasy, oppression by a foreign nation as a divine punishment, then Israel crying out for salvation and God responding by sending them a Deliverer, who would lead them to victory. After defeating their oppressors, Israel would for a short time step back from their idolatry, worship God with sincerity and obey Torah.
However, in no time backsliding would begin, and the cycle would start all over again. The damage had been done: Israel had allowed the Canaanites to remain and thrive all over the Promised Land. Without realizing it, Israel had embraced many of the philosophies and standard cultural practices of the Canaanites. Therefore, it was tempting and easy for the Israelites to compromise and reintroduce those pagan ways back into their worship and lifestyles.
There is a saying in the South that I enjoy, and I think it is some of the better folk wisdom that we ought to remember at all times: "When you are up to your neck in alligators, sometimes it is easy to forget that the original idea was to drain the swamp."
This was Israel's condition. God had instructed Joshua to completely drain the swamp of Canaanites, and they set about doing it. The problem is that as they engaged the enemy and time passed, they found several good reasons to allow many of those alligators to remain rather than staying true to the goal of total eradication. The unintended consequence was that the remaining alligators gained confidence, thrived and became a bigger pest than before the Holy War process had begun under Joshua.
Over the next three chapters, we are going to see the history of Gideon, and then later his family, fully discussed. We will see God's grace and His holy righteousness and justice on display during this time. It also contains rich treasures of instruction and warnings for the church and for the reborn modern state of Israel. It seems as though no matter how many cycles of foolhardy efforts that Israel makes to attempt peace with the world (or for the church to compromise God's truth so that we might fill vacant pews, and those who want only a mirage of godliness to soothe the emptiness of their souls), we will try again and again claiming that the earlier generation who failed did so because hey did not try hard enough.
Every one of the four cycles of apostasy up to this point in the Book of Judges ends with the words: Then the land had rest for (usually) 40 years. However, the next cycle begins with the words: But the people of Israel did what was evil in eyes of the LORD. The cycle of Gideon was the same. The cycle of the people of God in modern times is running on parallel tracks. Do we have eyes to see, and ears to hear?
THE CALL OF GIDEON
A. Apostasy, servitude and supplication
1. (Judges 6:1) Israel's apostasy bring them into servitude
Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD gave them into the hands of Midian seven years.
The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD: Verse one begins with those ominous words that Israel turned away from God. This means that previously, Israel enjoyed faithfulness to the LORD, and the fruits of divine blessings that resulted. But soon, they gave it all away so that they could do what was right in their own eyes. The text does NOT literally say that Israel did what was right in their own eyes; rather, it says they did what was evil in God's eyes. Doing what is right in our own eyes IS doing what is evil in God's eyes.
Evil is deceptive. Evil almost always looks beautiful before it turns ugly. Evil seems right in our humanness before it all goes wrong. Are we to think in these cycles of the Judges that the people of God awoke one morning and said, "Let's offend God"? Did the leaders of Israel get together and make a pact to be wicked? I guarantee you that they would have protested greatly if accused of sin and idolatry. They would have denied it and been aroused to anger at the indictment. I can make a guarantee because we read of it not only here but in the Prophets as well. The Prophets of God chosen to warn God's people were not anxious to deliver God's message because they knew it would be rejected, and they would suffer for their efforts. The leaders and citizens were incredulous that someone would point a finger at them and say that they were behaving as heathens before the LORD.
Nevertheless, that is what Israel during the era of the Judges did, and that is what is happening today. God never changes; the pattern never changes. God turned Israel over to their enemies to be oppressed. In this case, the enemy was Midian.
The LORD gave them into the hands of Midian: The Midian mentioned is the same Midian where Moses fled from Egypt, found a wife and lived as a shepherd for 40 years. Moses was then summoned to the burning bush.
Midian was the name of the semi-nomadic tribe that shared a blood kinship with Israel because it was descended from Keturah, Abraham's concubine. Territories were named after the dominating tribe that lived there. By now, Midian had grown in size. Various clans that formed the tribe claimed territories ranging from the northwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula to the border with Edom on the northernmost part of the Sinai Peninsula. Recall that in the story of Deborah (Judges chapters four and five) that the gentile woman Jael, who pinned Sisera's skull to the tent floor with a hammer and peg, was part of the tribe of Midian. She was of the Kenite clan--a small breakaway clan of the Midinaite tribe that moved into the northern part of Canaan and formed a friendship with the King of Hazor.
2. (Judges 6:2-6) The details of Israel's bondage to Midian
The power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For it was when Israel had sown, that the Midianites would come up with the Amalekites and the sons of the east and go against them. So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth, as far as Gaza, and leave no substance in Israel as well as no sheep, ox, or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, they would come in like locusts for number, both they and their camels were innumerable; and they came into the land to devastate it. So Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried to the LORD.
The power of Midian prevailed against Israel: Israel would suffer at the hand of Midian and several other foreign nations for seven years before God acted. The oppression was unusually severe. It was so severe, many of the Hebrews took to living in caves and hiding in the mountains of Canaan. Part of the problem was that (as it says in verse three), the Midians teamed up with the dreaded Amalekites and also with a number of smaller unnamed groups of people simply called "the sons of the east". Together, they would descend like locust upon several of the Israelites tribes at harvest time.
So they would camp against them and destroy the produce of the earth: Apparently, they were not interested in conquest; rather, they simply stole Israel's food supply. This is a characteristic of nomads of both ancient and modern times that is often misunderstood. By definition, nomads had no interest in holding land. They merely wanted the fruit of the land. Nomads had no interest in empire. They only wanted to take what others toiled to produce. Much of the reason that the Middle East and eastern Asia continue today as backward so-called third world nations is that even now they live the lifestyles of nomads, even though they are more settled. Islamic law is a law of nomads, a law of predators.
As Jews began to return to their ancient homeland in the 1800's, they returned to a land populated primarily by Arab nomads. The land was deserts and swamps because nomads do not farm, produce goods or build buildings. The land was used up and left dead. Shepherds moved their flocks and herds from pasture to pasture on land they did not own. They stayed until there was nothing left. Then they would wander to another pasture that could be used. Marauding nomads plundered passing caravans.
Verse four begins the story of a particular time (around the eighth year since the seasonal invasions had started) that finally led Israel to cry out to God for help. The nomads attacked starting in the north-central part of Canaan and then worked their way to the south near Gaza.
They would come in like locust for number: They came in countless numbers and setup tent camps as they determined to extract every last morsel of food that Israel had produced over the last agricultural season. When they left, there was no fruit, no grain and no animals.
Both they and their camels were innumerable: It should be noted that these invaders came on camels. Camels were primarily used by the descendants of Ishamel who mostly dwelled upon the desert sands. The Canaanites and those nations coming from the direction of Mesopotamia preferred horses. While not as formidable as chariots, camels were a fearsome weapon. Camels gave the Midianites the military advantage of speed and a long-range fighting force of large animals that certainly must have struck far into the hearts of Israel.
The sons of Israel cried to the LORD: It took seven straight years of these human locust descending upon Israel before they sought the LORD for His help ought to be familiar to us. It is the general pattern seen in the time of the Judges. Moreover, to this very day, God's people seem to seek God only after matters have become extreme and as a last resort. Israel was brought very low. They existed in the most primitive ways, cowering in fear, eating disgusting things to survive and living in crevices in the rocks for shelter.
It is often our evil inclination that we see turning to God as something we must do only when all our human efforts have been exhausted. It seems God is trying to teach Israel that the best course of action is to obey Him at all times.When we wander off or bad things happen to us, our FIRST and best action ought to be to repent, seek mercy and to lay it as His feet.
3. (Judges 6:7-10) In response to Israel's cry to the LORD, God sends a prophet
Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the LORD on account of Midian, that the LORD sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land, and I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed Me."'"
The LORD sent a prophet to the sons of Israel: Israel was in a bad state. Whatever the Midianites and Amalekites could not carry away with them, they destroyed. Starvation was a distinct possibility for God's people. When Israel finally called out to God, He answered through an unnamed prophet. Sadly this generation did not know God very well, and God was acutely aware of this fact. God reminds Israel that He, the God of Israel, was their God. Their god was NOT Ba'al. It was the God of Israel who brought them out of the land of Egypt, not some other god. It was God who redeemed them from slavery, drove out the Canaanites before Joshua and gave Israel the very land that is now under invasion. Once again, Israel's God would deliver them from a predicament of their own making.
The people well understood that when a prophet was sent from God that is was invariably a message of warning or rebuke. This one was no different. The LORD wanted His people to think long and hard about why they were oppressed. In fact, the LORD had PROMISED this oppression and it was He who CAUSED it. He wanted them to understand that this oppression of eastern nomads was not some kind of test; it was a judgment against them for the idolatry and rebellion. It was repentance that the LORD wanted accompanied with real change.
You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites: God also reminds the Israelites in verse ten that they should not be afraid of the gods of the Amorites. The LORD is saying that at the core of their problem is fear. They were fearful of the gods of their enemies. So they capitulated to them. Israel, as with all the other known people of the ancient world, accepted that it was the gods of any particular nation which provided the nation with its power. So it was the gods that they feared primarily and only the army of the people secondarily. If you appease the gods, chances are you would be spared. That is what fear usually does--it causes us to compromise and appeasement. What that compromise amounted to was that Israel openly worshiped the other gods in hopes that their enemies would not be so harsh. Yet, in no way did Israel think they were abandoning God in favor of other gods. Rather, they are simply giving in to their fears.
It has been a long time since fear has gripped the world as it has today with the rise of Islam. Secular nations especially many found in Europe have no hope other than their government Bodie. Since they have long ago abandoned the LORD, they have taken up the way of compromise and appeasement to deal with their enemies. Leaders scramble to find nice things to say about Islam. Prime Ministers and Presidents work hard to rationalize that Islam is actually a good religion of peace and love because they are so fearful of Islam's violence. They find it necessary to show tolerance to Muslims and respect Allah to avoid developing enemies.
Many in the church from the Archbishop of Canterbury to hundreds of denominational leaders have decided that declaring Islam and their god as on par with the God of Israel and the Bible is the correct course of action. Some of the Jewish leadership of Israel has determined basically the same thing. This has occurred because despite their denials, they are acting out of fear. Fear is so much more than an emotion of fight or flight. It is a vehicle of Satan designed to pull us away from the LORD. In verse ten, the LORD is telling Israel that trusting in Him is the antidote for fear.
No comments:
Post a Comment