Judges V

The times of the “Judges” is roughly 350 years. We are not sure who the author of the Book was, perhaps Samuel wrote at least part of it. The nation had become a fragmented group, no central government, no strong leader, and not much held them together tightly. God used this period of time to test Israel even as he had tested them in the wilderness. He wanted to see if they would be faithful to Him. They did not do well in this testing. They had not cleansed the land of evil or enemies. The past generation had not done well at teaching their children fear and reverence of God or knowledge and obedience to His Word. (Speak to us?) We are reminded multiple times in the Book “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” It is a bit like our saying, “There was no king — everyone did his own thing.” This included worship. Since Israel had not purged out the enemy or the evils from the Land, there were many forms of idol worship and many idols with various forms of worship and none of them good. When we speak of judges, there were multiple judges (16 we have record of, if you count Samuel and you probably should.) Also rather than one that was considered able to lead all of Israel. Most of these judges were influential in only a part and usually a small part of the nation. Judges 2:11ff sums up the dilemma well: “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt, they followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger because they forsook Him…” We will look as three judges: 1. Othniel We have met him already. He is Caleb’s son-in-law, a bold, brave, and strong man. God allowed the king of Aram, named Cushan-Rishathaim to overcome this region. It only took eight years of living under his cruelty for the people to beg God for forgiveness and mercy. God called on Othneil. He led the attack and overpowered this enemy. With victory, this people lived in peace and obedience for forty years, until Othneil died. 2. Ehud. His distinctive characteristic was, he was left-handed. It was the Moabites and their king Eglon, who dominated Israel in their disobedience and desertion of the worship of God. When they came to their time of repentance Ehud led the delegation to present their bribe-tribute to king Eglon. He strapped an eighteen inch long dagger to his right thigh. The tribute was given, and the delegation turned and left. Ehud turned back, apparently shook right hands with the king. While their right hands gripped, Ehud drew the dagger from its hidden sheath and stabbed the king all the way through his body. He left, locking the door behind him and escaped. This precipitated a war in which 10,000 Moabites were killed and Israel was free from Moabite domination for eighty years. 3. Shamgar. We have only one verse 3:31 to tell this story. The Philistines, who were several hundred-year-long enemies of Israel now held the upper hand. We presume Israel cried out to God for help and God called upon Shamgar. He had no weapons of war, only a cattle prod. Likely this was a rod, perhaps eight feet long with an iron/steel but he was able to kill 600 Philistines and it brought about a deliverance.

Scriptures to Read

Judges 2:16-19

Judges 2:20-23

Judges 3:1-6

Judges 3:7-11

Judges 3:12-17

Judges 3:18-23

Judges 3:24-31