Tribe after tribe doesn't drive the Canaanites out. Megiddo, Gezer, Acco, Sidon and more. Some get put to forced labour. They all stay. Keep an eye on that.
The book of Judges
@judges.book · 25 posts
In those days Israel had no king.
Nobody knows who wrote Judges. An old Jewish tradition says Samuel did; the honest answer is we don’t know. Whoever it was wrote after Israel had kings, looking back on the three hundred or so years between Joshua and the kings. It isn’t a flattering story. The same thing happens again and again, and it gets worse each time. I tell it anyway.
Written in Israel, some time after the kings beganFirst seen Judges 1:1
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Joshua's generation dies. A new one grows up that doesn't know the LORD, or anything he did for Israel.
From here on, on repeat: 1. Forget the LORD. 2. Get raided. 3. Groan. 4. The LORD sends a judge to rescue them. 5. The judge dies. 6. Worse than before.
Judge number one: Othniel, Caleb's nephew. Forty years of peace.
Then eighteen years under Eglon, king of Moab. Israel cries out, and the LORD sends them a rescuer: Ehud, a left-handed man from Benjamin. He's the one they send with the yearly tribute.
Replying to @ehud
Moab is beaten that day. The land has peace for eighty years.
Shamgar killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad, a stick for driving cattle. That's all we're told. It's enough.
Then the land had peace. Forty years.
Then Gideon makes a gold ephod out of the plunder. All Israel ends up worshipping it. It becomes a trap for him and his family.
Gideon dies. Israel goes straight back to the Baals.
Replying to @woman.of.thebez
His last words, to his armour-bearer: kill me, so nobody says a woman killed me. God repaid him for his brothers.
Jair judged Israel. He had thirty sons who rode thirty donkeys and had thirty towns.
Israel cries out again. This time the LORD tells them to go and cry to the gods they chose, and let those gods save them. They admit they've sinned. They throw out the foreign gods and serve the LORD. And he can't bear Israel's misery any longer.
While we're counting: Ibzan had thirty sons and thirty daughters. Abdon had forty sons, thirty grandsons, seventy donkeys.
The book of Judges@judges.bookJair judged Israel. He had thirty sons who rode thirty donkeys and had thirty towns.What his parents don't know: this is from the LORD. He's looking for a way to take on the Philistines.
Samson@samson · TimnahSaw a Philistine girl down in Timnah. Told Mum and Dad: get her for me. She's the one.On the way down to Timnah, a young lion comes roaring at Samson in the vineyards. The Spirit of the LORD comes on him and he tears it apart with his bare hands. He doesn't tell his parents.
Next time he passes, bees have made honey in the lion's carcass. He scoops some out, eats it as he walks, and gives some to his mum and dad. He doesn't say where it came from.
The Spirit of the LORD comes on Samson. He kills thirty men in Ashkelon to pay off the bet, then storms home angry. His wife is given to one of his groomsmen.
She keeps on at him, day after day, until he's sick to death of it. So he tells her everything: he's been set apart to God since before he was born, and no razor has ever touched his head. She sends for the Philistine lords. They come with the money.
Someone in Gaza@gaza.local · Valley of SorekNo because our lords have actually been to see Delilah, the woman in the Sorek valley Samson's in love with. Eleven hundred pieces of silver each if she finds out where his strength comes from.He doesn't know the LORD has left him. They seize him, blind him, and set him grinding grain in a Gaza prison.
But the hair on his head begins to grow again.
Samson prays. Asks the Lord GOD to remember him and give him strength one more time. He braces himself between the two middle pillars. “Let me die with the Philistines.” He pushes. The temple falls. He kills more in his death than in his life.
Back then Israel had no king. Everyone just did whatever seemed right to them.
The priest with Dan's idol: Jonathan son of Gershom, son of Moses. Moses' own grandson.
Same line. It's how the book ends.
The book of Judges@judges.bookBack then Israel had no king. Everyone just did whatever seemed right to them.