Losing their religion

Judges continues the history of the Israelites after Joshua.

It tells of the early period in their history when they were governed by rulers called judges.

And starts off with a fairly gruesome mutilation by the dismemberment of the thumbs and big toes of the Canaanite king Adoni-bezek.

It goes downhill from there.

I must not have read Judges in the past.

Because I sure don’t remember the carnage that is reflected in it.

Sure, I remember the story of Samson.

But I either wasn’t aware of or didn’t appreciate some of the details.

I had a vague recollection that Samson was a nazirite (meaning “one consecrated"), who from birth was to refrain from all things unclean and was not to cut his hair.

But I didn’t realize that killing the lion (and eating honey from its carcass) and touching the jawbone of an ass was unclean.


Now that I've actually read the Pentateuch, I can make the connection.



Samson touching unclean things

And that symbolized the ruler of the Israelites’ natural tendency to violate God’s rules.


Which seems to me to be the point of the book of Judges.

It depicts the loss of morality and faith of the Israelites in a downward spiral of cyclical relapse to the worship of other gods.

Local gods of the indigenous peoples displaced by Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land, in addition to the gods of the neighboring peoples of the Trans-Jordan.

Peoples including the local Philistines, Canaanites, Sidonians, Hivites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, and Jebusites.

And the neighboring Aramites, Amalekites, Ammonites, Midianites, Maonites, and Moabites.

Many different peoples, with many different gods (including Baal, Astarte, Moloch, Chemosh, and Dagon).

Astarte, concubine of Baal

God (that is Yahweh, the Israelites’ God) determined to preserve those peoples (and their gods) so as to test the faith of the Israelites.

To see whether or not the Chosen People would take care to walk in the way of the LORD.

Unfortunately, the Chosen People’s track record as reflected in Judges is not so good.

As a matter of fact, it’s terrible.

Judges tells the story of repetitive cycles of apostasy and transgression, leading to defeat and subjugation, causing the Israelites to seek repentence and atonement, where God provides a deliverer from those who plundered the Chosen People.

And of how those deliverers are increasingly flawed.

The early judges appear to have been fairly righteous in delivering the Chosen People.

Although a little violent.

Suffice it to say, as shown by the story of Ehud, if a judge comes up and says: “I’ve got a message from God for you,” you might want to start looking for the exit.

And, as shown in the Song of Deborah (viewed by some as the oldest portion of the Bible) celebrating the exploits of Jael wife of Heber the Kenite and the assassination of Sisera, camping with a judge’s messenger can also be a hazardous activity.

Deborah singing her song

A tent peg to the head is a hard way to go.

Jael and Sisera

Integrity with the law begins to slip in the later judges.

Such as the creation of an idol by Gideon/Jerubbaal from Ishmaelite gold to which the people prostituted themselves.

(And, if you’ve been following what has been said about some present day wanna-be leaders and what they say about being called by God to do His work, the tests and signs sought by Gideon weren’t for the fleece to be wet twice, but wet once and dry the second time.

Oh well, right? Big deal.

So what if they got the story wrong. Who cares?

Other than perhaps God.)

Or in the making of oaths by Jephthah, which ends up causing him to sacrifice his virgin daughter.

Jephthah's daughter

Highly ironic since he was delivering the Israelites from the Ammonites, who worshipped Moloch.

And Moloch demanded sacrifice of human children.

Internal conflicts begin to develop within the Chosen People.

Herem (“utter destruction”) moves from application in external wars against foreign peoples and starts to occur in an internal domestic civil war amongst the Israelites.

Which is where the word “Shibboleth” comes from.

Because the Ephraimites couldn’t pronounce the secret word, dropping the initial “h.”

Which gave them away, and they ended up on the edge of the sword from the Gileadites.

Civil disturbance continues with Micah creating an idol from the silver he stole from his mother, which is subsequently stolen and used for worship by the tribe of Dan.

Which, if the second “word” had been considered (that being the second commandment not to make graven idols), would have instead been destroyed.

But the Israelites have gone astray.

All the people did instead what was right in their own eyes.

Which culminates with the story of the wayfaring Levite’s concubine and the tribe of Benjamin.

One of the weirder bible stories of which I had previously been ignorant. 

And it’s a real doozey.

Almost has an “A Rabbi, a Hindu, and a Catholic Priest walk into a bar…” joke ring to it.

But without a funny punch line.

The tribe of Benjamin had become “a perverse lot,” degenerating to the point of roving bands seeking sexual gratification with strangers to their territory, and set upon the house of an old man who had provided hospitality and shelter to a wandering Levite who had been passing through with his concubine in Gibeah.

As did Lot in Sodom, the old man offers his virgin daughter to satisfy the unruly crowd, but to no avail.

So the wayfaring Levite throws his concubine to the mob outside.

Where she is wantonly raped throughout the night by the men of the Tribe of Benjamin, and left to die on the old man’s doorstep the following morning.

The wayfaring Levite and his concubine

And is subsequently dismembered by the wayfaring Levite.

Sending a message

Who thereafter sends the pieces throughout Israel to the Twelve Tribes with this message:

Has such a thing ever happened since the day that the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until this day?

Consider it, take counsel, and speak out.

An out roar ensues, and several more cycles of internal herem are implemented, where most of the house of Benjamin is put to the edge of the sword.

The survivors are cursed by the sworn oath of the remaining tribes never to give their daughters in marriage to a Benjaminite.

They must have forgotten about Jephthah and the problems that can happen with oaths.

Of course, the people immediately regret cutting off one of their own tribes, and try to figure out a way around their oath made in the heat of the moment.

They determine to provide wives for the surviving Benjaminites by devoting to destruction all of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead (who had sat out the herem against the house of Benjamin, and thus had not made any oath) except young virgins, and through the rape of the young women of Shiloh (ironically, the location of prior unity in the initial distribution of the Promised Land to the Twelve Tribes).

The Benjaminites and the virgins of Jabesh-gilead

Clearly, the system of judges to maintain law and order (so to speak) among the Israelites (let alone their holiness) isn’t working.

Maybe they need a king.