S5: Day 73: Judges 10–12

Hey, welcome back to a year in the Bible.

We are walking through all the scripture in a year.

Today we're in judges 10 through 12.

Let's get right into God's word for today.

CJ, we've been talking about the four S's a lot in the book of judges.

Do we see those come up in today's chapters?

I think you know the answer, Shelby.

We do see the four S's.

Yes.

Yeah.

So after a bemaleck, we have two more minor judges and they're briefly mentioned, but then

we see the full four S formula or the full four S pattern play out.

So Israel sins by going after false gods.

They suffer at the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites and then they supplicate the

Lord, which again means they just pray out to the Lord and pray for his deliverance.

And it says here that God could bear the misery of Israel no longer, but instead of telling

us that he explicitly raises up a judge, we see the Israelites go in search of a judge.

Okay.

So he's sort of going to play into the theme of judges and we'll see why as we proceed.

So they get to this guy named Jeff, though, and it says that the Lord doesn't raise him

up explicitly, but they select him and the reason why they select Jeff, though, is because

he's known as a mighty warrior.

And he's kind of like a bemaleck in a few ways.

His birth status is questionable.

He's at odds with his own brothers.

They kick him out of town and he lives, you know, somewhere else sort of wandering about.

But Jeff is thirsty for power.

So he sees an opportunity here and he says, yeah, I'll come back and fight for you and

help deliver you from the Ammonites and Philistines.

If you promise that I can be king when all is sudden done and they say, yeah, yeah, sure,

sure, whatever.

So then he starts talking with the Ammonites and trying to broker a deal and the Ammonites

are complaining that Israel stole their land.

And it seems that Jeff, the here is doing the right thing because he appeals to history,

the biblical history.

He says, no, God gave us this land.

So who are you to go against the covenant of God and the land that God has given Israel?

But quickly that, I think that honorable character is going to be thrown into question.

Yeah.

And this is a confusing story.

This is a hard story to understand because we're getting to the more like difficult parts

of it.

So keep, keep walking us through Jeff, though, in how to make sense of this.

Okay.

So it's further complicated because even though Jeff, though, was sort of chosen by his

own people.

He wasn't explicitly chosen by God to give salvation to Israel.

It says here that the spirit of the Lord comes upon Jeff, though.

And I think this reminds us that despite our feeble efforts, despite our own sin, God can

use sinful people in mysterious ways.

And I think that's a theme that we're going to continue to see in these chapters and

chapters going forward, especially with Samson.

But regardless, Jeff is now empowered by God to deliver Israel.

And his true color still come out.

So even though it seems that he's on his way to victory, he still tries to bind God to

a vow.

And the same way that he tried to bind his people to a vow in making him king if he secures

victory.

And he says, God, if you give me victory, I'll give you the first thing that comes out of

my house.

Okay.

Now this might seem like a foolish vow and it is a foolish vow.

But back then, there really was an opportunity for an animal to exit his house based on

the way houses were structured.

So even though it seems a little strange, there was, you know, some honesty in some legitimacy

to his vow, okay?

But moving forward, Jeff, the secures victory for Israel.

And as he returns home, the first thing to exit his house is his daughter.

And this is where we get this famous story of Jeff, this daughter.

It seems like things are just not going to go well for Jeff, and instead of sort of

taking responsibility for this rash vow, he blames his daughter for bringing this poor

situation on him.

And the daughter seems to be committed to the vow.

And she mourns that she's either going to die celibate or that she's actually going

to die by means of a burnt offering from her father who promised this silly vow.

And that's sort of where we're at in the story.

Yeah.

There's some ambiguity.

We don't know exactly the fate of the daughter.

Either way, this was a foolish vow for Jeff to make.

Let's quickly address chapter 12 because that was also part of our reading today.

And then we're going to kind of come back and wrap up this story and like, what our

takeaway is from it.

So if you remember, when we're dealing with Gideon, the Ephraimites were mad that Gideon

didn't invite them to the battle.

And we have something similar here where they're frustrated at Jeff, the for not inviting

them to destroy the people who were harming them.

But as Gideon was able to sort of smooth things over, Jeff, the and Ephraim fight against

each other and bloodish shed brothers against brother.

So again, we see as we trace through the book of judges, the enemy just isn't on the outside

of Israel.

The enemy just isn't the Canaanites, but the enemies within, meaning within the individual,

we see Israelite finding against Israelite.

So that's that would be chapter 12, I guess, at a 30,000 foot view.

Yeah.

Okay.

So where's God in this and what are we taking away from this, these chapters?

Yeah.

So I think here we hinted at it a little bit, but I think what we see here is that God

can make lemons from lemonade.

So even our feeble, sometimes immoral efforts are mixed motives.

God can work into his ultimate plan.

Here we see Jeff, though he's doing this, he's trying to save Israel for himself to

his own benefit to be king and to a crew power.

But God's able to use those motives to secure victory for his people.

And I think that just shows the power of God.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's got to be my takeaway, too.

That's not an excuse for us to say, well, my mixed motives are fine because God can use

them.

May it never be.

That's a testimony of God's sovereignty and power in his mercy toward his people.

So thanks for walking us through a couple of really difficult chapters, CJ.

We're going to keep going through the book of judges.

There's a lot more that's going to happen and a lot more than we can break down for

people.

So we'll start that back tomorrow.

We do.