The anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the sons of Ammon. They afflicted and crushed the sons of Israel that year; for eighteen years they afflicted all the sons of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in Gilead in the land of the Amorites. The sons of Ammon crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah, Benjamin and the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was greatly distressed.
The anger of the LORD burned against Israel: The consequence of Israel's mixed worship rituals was God's anger blazing up. He turned the Hebrews, who lived on the west side of the Jordan (in Canaan) over to the Philistines to be oppressed. The Hebrews on the east side of the river (in the Trans-Jordan) were put under the oppression of the Ammonites. Furthermore, the Ammonites crossed over the Jordan and fought against the southern Israelite tribes of Judah and Benjamin and the northern tribe of Ephraim. In other words, this cycle of sin and apostasy led to the most widespread simultaneous oppression at the hands of gentile nations thus far.
3. (Judges 10:10-14) Israel calls to the LORD; God's response to Israel
Then the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, "We have sinned against You, for indeed, we have forsaken our God and served the Baals." The LORD said to the sons of Israel, "Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the sons of Ammon, and the Philistines? Also, when the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, you cried to Me, and I delivered you from their hands. Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods; therefore I will no longer deliver you. Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress."
Then the sons of Israel cried out to the LORD: The people of Israel may have had short-term memory loss, but they were not dumb. In their misery, they decide as a last resort to cry out to God to save them from their misery. But, God knows the heart condition of every man. He tells the Israelites He is not going to save them.
This period of intense tribulation upon Israel had gone on for 18 years before Israel began to look to the God of Israel for help. Even when God's people finally looked to Him for help, He saw they were not sincere. It is common among humans that we do not really want change. We only want our circumstances to be different and more to our liking. God says since they enjoyed serving the gods of their neighbors, then they should go to them and ask to be rescued.
A lesson for us
We have an excellent teaching point here for every Believer, if we are willing to accept it. The lesson is on the nature of confession and repentance. Crying out to God for help and mercy, by itself, has utterly no merit. God will not pay attention. Our relationship with Him must be on firm footing, or He closes His ears to our pleadings. If our relationship with Him has been severely compromised, then action on our part (real change) is required. God will not yield to our prayers if we pray with pitiful emotions or pious words.
The first action is to be confession--sincere confession.
(Side note: the word sincere comes from the conjunction sin (meaning without) and cera (meaning wax). In ancient times, when folks went to a pottery shop to buy a piece of pottery, the shop would often hide blemishes to the piece by filling in the gaps with wax. When the buyer brought home the pottery and and heated it up, the wax would melt, and the pot would be useless. To test if a piece of pottery would have wax, the buyer would place the pottery in the hot sun. If the piece showed no signs of melting wax, they knew the pottery was not flawed.) This is how God wants us to be--to be without wax. We are to be truthful and genuine. There should be no wax to fill in the gaps to our repentance.
But what is confession?
Confession is agreeing with the LORD that you have broken His commandments; thus, you have sinned against Him. Confession is humbly admitting God is right and you are wrong. Confession is telling God what He already knows about you. But confession by itself is not sufficient. It must be followed by repentance. Repentance is not a promise or intent to do better. Repentance is active change, but the change must be in accordance with God's laws. It should not be in accordance with our sense of goodness or morality. Repentance is ceasing to do what is wrong in God's eyes. It is to do what is right in God's eyes. How do we know which is which? Read His instruction manual. Read the ENTIRE BIBLE!
4. (Judges 10:15-16) Repentance from Israel, mercy from God
The sons of Israel said to the LORD, "We have sinned, do to us whatever seems good to You; only please deliver us this day." So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD; and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer.
The sons of Israel said to the LORD: Israel's response to God's refusal to help them is actually kind of funny, if it were not so sad. "Do whatever seems good to You; only please deliver us today." This statement is the biblical version of, "I will gladly pay you Thursday for a hamburger today." It is as though Israel is asking God for Him to save them today and accepting an "I owe you" in return. They will start doing right at a later and more convenient time.
But God is a God of tough love. He was not going to save them until they turned back from their wicked ways, discontinue their love affair with the Canaanite gods and turn back to Him in full devotion. The sad reality is when we abandon God, we live a life compromised by evil. They will come a day when we will need Him. The God-principle and pattern we see demonstrated here is that even after we confess our sin to Him, and even after we begin the painful process of letting of the evil in our lives, we will live with its earthly consequences for a long time.
So they put away their foreign gods from among them: Only AFTER Israel confessed, demonstrated true repentance by getting rid of their foreign gods AND returning to proper worship of God did the LORD now look down upon His people in pity and respond. We cannot continue to wallow in the same sin whose consequence we want to be rescued from and expect God to act.
Do you think it was a simple matter for Israel to divest iteself of those foreign gods?
It would have created all sorts of serious societal problems and family divisions. Not every Israelite would have agreed to this plan of action. Not everyone would have approached this new path to the same degree or with the same enthusiasm. Not every person in a family would have been willing to change their theology. How do you supposed it went when a Hebrew man told his Canaanite business partner that he would no longer acknowledge his gods? What do you think happened when the Israelites who lived in the mostly mixed ethnic villages that formed the land of Canaan announced they would no longer participate in the celebrations to the god which were so much a part of their Canaanite friends' lives? Once we have wandered down the path of tolerance to evil, it is difficult to turn around and climb back up to holy ground. We will be accused or hypocrisy, intolerance, unkindness, ignorance and even heresy.
5. (Judges 10:17-18) Israel gathers, but without a leader
Then the sons of Ammon were summoned and they camped in Gilead. And the sons of Israel gathered together and camped in Mizpah. The people, the leaders of Gilead, said to one another, "Who is the man who will begin to fight against the sons of Ammon? He shall become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead."
Then the sons of Ammon were summoned: Verse 17 changes course and describes two armies. One was Ammon's army who assembled in Gilead in the Trans-Jordan. The other army was Israel's which was more of a militia. They assembled at Mizpah on the west side of the Jordan River. The time for confrontation between Israel and its eastern oppressor was at hand. But something was missing. Israel did not have a field general.
Who is the man who will begin to fight against the sons of Ammon: Israel's chiefs sat in council trying to decide who would lead them into battle. They decided in order to get a military general capable of achieving victory, they would have to offer him something valuable. That something of value was that if this general succeeded, he would become the head over all the Israelites who lived in Gilead.
Notice these council chiefs did not have in mind a Judge, who would be raised up by God. A Judge ruled by divine guidance and not by human agreement. Second, Gilead was not an allotted tribal territory. In other words, Gilead was not one of the 12 well-defined districts which had been assigned by Moses and Joshua to one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Rather, this was a political region set up by men. These men who formed the military general search committee could use the term "head" or "chief" when describing the position which this candidate would assume (if he was victorious), but in reality they all knew this person would be a king.
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