Alright, my friends, so lesson two is entitled, A New Generation of Covenant Infidelity. And as we talked about in the first lesson, those main themes of generational covenantal infidelity over and over and over again, we're gonna basically be touching upon that theme, most especially in these first couple of chapters in this prologue of the book. So that fact that we're gonna be covering chapters one through five, chapter one, verse one, all the way through, chapter three, verse six is a prologue. It's known by many scholars and commentators as a double prologue, and some people will say there's contradictions or there's repetitions or different sources and things like that, but it actually makes perfect sense, right?
If you understand a proper and makes perfect sense of what's going on, you do have a kind of a part one prologue and a part two prologue, as I've broken this down for you in your notes, prologue part one is chapter one, verse one, all the way through chapter two, verse five. And then you've got part two prologue, there's chapter two, verse five, three, six. And the content of each of these chapters is very different. So right before we jump into this, let me just explain the first part one of the prologue or prologue number one, however you wanna look at that, is really looking at the state of affairs regarding the military and political situation.
What's their status from a military and political point of view? And then you've got this hinge, really, I would argue it's a hinge. Chapter two, verses one through five is now a gonna be a reprimand, God sends a messenger, an angel, a prophet will talk about that in a moment, to reprimand Israel, then you get to the second part of the prologue or prologue number two, and that is the theological status, the theological state affairs of affairs. And what's important is you're gonna see that the second prologue or part two of this prologue, the theological status is going to explain the reasons for the military and political state of affairs, okay?
So it really flows very, very nicely. And what you have to understand, jumping right into this, remember what we said in the first lesson on the introduction is that external battles are still to be fought. The conquest is not over, they made great headway with Joshua, they have a presence in the land, but these were Joshua's final words, to continue to drive out the inhabitants of the land, okay? So in fact, that's one way to look at judges, look at judges as the conquest part two, right?
The conquest part one is the time under Joshua, the conquest part two is really the book of judges, right? How well they succeed and really how mostly they don't succeed, all right? So with that said, let's dive into chapter one here. And to do so, I wanna begin with this quote from one of the major books that I recommended for the introduction of Salvation History course, Judge Haven's and Tim Gray have a great book called Walking with God.
And I've always liked this paragraph, you're introducing judges, you're gonna find the same concept in other commentaries, I put them down in your footnotes for you, but I like the way that they succinctly described chapter one in the literary structure and the theological lesson behind how a chapter one is organized and how it affects the whole rest of the book. So this is what it says, quote, judges chapter one gives a simple summary of the 12 tribes attempts to settle the land, beginning with Judah in the south and moving northward to the northernmost tribe of Dan. So again, you've got, I'm gonna interject here for a second, you've got this flow here, starting, I mentioned this in the last lesson, you have a flow beginning with Judah in the south, moving gradually northward to Dan, and Dan in many respects is kind of like the worst tribe, there's a lot to say about that, but we'll move on in our course and then they'll become more apparent towards the end. So it goes on, the book of judges will follow this progression when it orders the various stories of the 12 judges, beginning with a judge from Judah, that's gonna be Othniel, and ending with a judge from Dan, that's gonna be Samson.
The lesson this geographical ordering in parts is that the further one moves from Judah, the worst Israel sin in idolatry becomes. This ordering also prepares the reader for the next period in which a shepherd boy from Judah will become king, end quote. All right, so there's a lot going on here. So what you find in what you discover is chapter one is going to describe the military political state of affairs as they're trying to conquer the land, beginning with Judah in the south, moving northward towards Dan, and we're gonna see their different failures.
The whole overarching theme of the book follows the same pattern, we're gonna begin with a judge from Judah, that's Othniel, and you're gonna end with Samson, who's from Dan, and what you discover is you're moving from good judges to bad judges to the worst judges, right? So Othniel and Ehuad and Deborah, the three that we're gonna talk about today, those are the ones more in the south, especially Othniel and Judah, they're the best, like they're good judges by and large, okay? But as you move forward, I'd rather I should say, northward is gonna get worse and worse. So they go from best to worse.
So there's a very, there's a very clear literature here that's quite beautiful, and the theological point is, when you stay close to Judah, namely the future kingdom of Judah, the kingdom of David, then the greater chances of holiness that you have. So far away from Jerusalem, it's gonna become very, very bad. And that's of course the undertones, undercurrents of the divided kingdom, the years of the divided kingdom. Okay, so then with that, we have chapter one verse one.
After the death of Joshua, the sons of Israel, inquired of the Lord, who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? So these opening words here about who's gonna lead us, touches upon that theme in the question of leadership. Because Joshua died as we saw before, Joshua dies in the end of chapter 24, he's 110 years old, he doesn't leave a successor, that was the big cliffhanger of the book of Joshua. Joshua was Moses a successor, but Joshua doesn't appoint a successor for himself.
So what gives, like who's going to lead? And there is gonna be no particular individual. Like every tribe has its own responsibility and its own territory. You certainly have the leadership of the high priest, as well as the priests in the sanctuary, 100% of spiritual leadership is necessary.
But you don't have a leader, I mean the high priest is supposed to do only a leader you could look to. But despite all of that, there still is supposed to be a leading tribe and that's going to be Judah. And that's exactly what the Lord says in verse two. Judah shall go up, behold, I have given the land into his hand.
All right, so why Judah, why is Judah supposed to be the leading tribe? Well, this goes all back all the way to Genesis. You remember, before Jacob dies, he blesses all of his sons. And he goes first, he starts with Joseph, he blesses Ephraim, the secondborn, that's really important by the way.
The tribe of Joseph and the tribe of Judah are very, very important to the rest of salvation history, specifically it's Ephraim or Ephraim, as well as Judah, they're really important. So Jacob blesses Ephraim and the menace of the two sons of Joseph. Then he's gonna go through and bless the rest of his sons. This is all in chapter 49.
He goes through and you may remember this, we talked about it in depth in the Bible study on Genesis. So you go check that out for more. But he blesses, he doesn't bless Reuben, excuse me, because Reuben was an income poop, he slept with his concubine, that was a big, big problems, or he's out, they're in Simeon and Levi, they're out because they're so violent. You might remember that they obliterated all the males of the town of Shechem, out of Deceit, it was a bad situation, so they're violent, they're out, but the next guy in line, Judah, is blessed.
And he receives the Kingly Blessing. So I'm gonna read for you here, Genesis chapter 49 verse 10, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. And to him shall be the obedience of all the peoples, as a really important prophecy about the future king that's gonna come from Judah. So Judah has this blessing, that the first man has a blessing, the Kingly Blessing, that's going to reverberate throughout his lineage and reverberate throughout the tribe, okay?
Naturally, that's gonna lead towards David and ultimately to Jesus. So you already see this in action as well, this responsibility of leadership from the tribe of Judah, when you study the period of the desert wanderings, and I went through this in the Numbers Bible study, but when you study the structure and the order of the camp, you got three tribes in the north, three tribes in the east, three tribes in the south side, west side, all around the tabernacle there, three tribes, they're all in camps, and when they march, they march in unison, but on the east side is Judah. Judah is there leading the charge right alongside Moses and Aaron and the rest of the priests and Levites, okay? So, or at least the priests, the Levites and other clans are spread around the camp as well.
Anyways, you can go back to Numbers for all of that, but Judah is leading the charge throughout the desert. So now it makes total sense here that God is saying, Judah is going to be the one to lead the rest of Israel, to finish the job that Joshua started. And it will say later on, if you read it, going down to verse 19, the Lord was with Judah. Now when the scripture says, the Lord is with so-and-so, that's very powerful, they're gonna be able to succeed in the task precisely because God is with them.
And we saw this with the patriarchs, with Moses, Joseph specifically, right? Remember God is with Joseph all over the place and he succeeds in whatever he does, God is with Moses, God is with Joshua. And so now that theme continues with the tribe of Judah. The Lord is with Judah and so Judah is able to go forth and succeed.
And so they do succeed in a lot of ways. Most importantly, I guess not most importantly, but one thing to note that is of importance is that they do capture Jerusalem here in chapter one verse eight. Remember Jerusalem, I've said this before, is also known as Jebus because the Jebusites, which is kind of a people of the Canaanites, they lived in the town. Unfortunately, they're not able to keep Jerusalem, it falls back into Jebusite hands and power.
And you can, I have the references here for you as well, but Jerusalem kind of is captured and then lost again. So that's kind of a disappointing situation there. Judah is the one in charge, okay? Now, later on in the book of Judges, we're gonna see Judah is still in charge when civil war erupts, this is not gonna be until chapter 20.
So we'll cross that bridge when we get there where Judah is going to leave the charge against their own countrymen, specifically against the Benjaminites. And that's gonna be a dark chapter in their history. And it was a dark chapter literally in the book of Judges. Okay, so the rest of chapter one, so Judah is the leader.
As you can read it, it's kind of a longest chapter, very, very specific as to what's going on. Remember, this is the medical and political state of affairs, which tribe is going to conquer and attack which people of the Canaanites. But what you discover is that there's a big echo of Joshua chapters 13 through 17. And Judges one has the same kind of red flag warning, which is they're not completing the task of removing idolatry, of driving out the Canaanites, of obliterating the people, so that way they can eliminate all sources of sin, on your occasion of sin from the land.
And we talked about here on warfare in previous Bible studies, I don't have the time to get into it right now as to why Moses commanded this and do it on on chapter 20. You can go back and reference that if you like, as well as your Joshua commentary. But nevertheless, they don't finish the job. Why don't they finish the job?
Well, there's a number of reasons that seem pretty clear here as you read this chapter. There's fearfulness, faithlessness, greed, laziness. There's a whole bunch of reasons. I'll give you some examples here as to what I'm talking about.
Let's go to verse 19 again. It says, the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. So at first glance, this is very confusing because it starts off saying the Lord is with Judah. You know what, the Lord is with Judah, and let's go, let charge ahead.
I mean, we're gonna take care of this, right? But then it immediately says, well, they couldn't do it because they had chariots of iron. The Canaanites did. I don't get it, it's God is with you.
Who cares if they have chariots of iron, right? You shouldn't care because God is gonna give them victory. Well, that's precisely the point. God told them back in Joshua chapter 17, let me flip there right now.
In Joshua 17, 18, this is very interesting. Check this out. It says, the hill country shall be yours. For though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its foresters.
For you shall, here's the point, you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong. Okay? So what gives here in Judges? Sounds like they were faithless.
Sounds like they were fearful. They just wouldn't charge ahead. God promised them that though they have chariots of iron, though they are strong, I am with you, and yet they fail here. Another instance, he read this, something that's repeated a lot is that the tribes, though they are strong, submit the Canaanites to force labor and do not drive them out.
For example, in verse 28, still in chapter one here, 128 says, when Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to force labor, but they did not utterly drive them out. And that's repeated with multiple tribes, Zebulun, Naftali, the Danites, and over and over again, they're strong, God is with them, and yet they don't drive them out. They just make them slaves. And that could be laziness, like why are you gonna do all the hard work when you can just take the Canaanites and make them be slaves?
Maybe it's, you know, they're attracted to the Canaanites' lifestyle. I'm like, well, we don't want to ultimately drive them out because we're kind of curious, you know, it could be all of those things, right? It's like letter D, all of the above. So this is a pretty big deal here, all these red flags.
Chapter one is making it clear they're not completing the task. Now, one little side point here that I'd like to clarify, not clarify, but point out to you, this is really, really interesting, is that so far as I can see it, it only says twice that the Lord was with the tribe. It says the Lord is with Judah in verse 19, which is significant because like I said, Judah is the leading tribe based on the blessing that Jacob gave to the individual Judah back in Genesis 49. But it also says here that the Lord was with the house of Joseph in verse 22.
I find that interesting, I think that's worth pointing out because you begin to see the seeds of what's gonna bear fruit or come to fruition later on in salvation history that I said earlier in this lesson that the two tribes of Joseph and Judah are like the most important, specifically Ephraim, the second born of Joseph and Judah. So the Lord is with both of them. For the most significant tribes, the most powerful, largest tribes, and later on they're gonna be the two tribes that comprise the divided kingdom, Ephraim in the north and Judah in the south. So you can see God's blessing on Joseph and Judah.
And the reasons for that is because back in Genesis, Jacob is seen, there's a lot of debate about this, but to my mind it seems clear that Jacob splits the blessing and the birthright. And so he gives the birthright to Joseph and he gives the blessing of kingship ultimately to Judah. And that's why these two tribes become very powerful, very prosperous. So I think that's really interesting and related to that one more cool little point here.
Since we have time, right? One more cool little point is that when Joseph, the house of Joseph goes up against Bethel in verse 22, the Lord is with them. And it says that the house of Joseph sent to spy out Bethel. So they sent spies to the city and the spies find a man coming out of the city and they say to him in verse 24, show us the way into the city and we'll deal kindly with you.
We will show you, he said, right? We will show you mercy. So the man shows him in the way in the city and they took the city, the city follows, but the man goes off and founds his own city. Now that should sound really familiar because it echoes the story of Rahab and Jericho.
Remember that Joshua sends in spies, they go to Rahab's house, she helps the spies and then ultimately they take Jericho and then she converts. Almost the same thing happens here. Spies go into the city of Bethel. They're given assistance by this man, they capture the city, but the difference now lies in the fact that the man doesn't convert, he just goes on his merry old way doing his own thing.
And that I think in my personal reflection is really interesting because there's a strong parallel about how Rahab and this unnamed dude here at Bethel, they see what God is doing through Israel and yet they respond completely differently, right? Rahab has a conversion experience, she gethas, she knows that there's the one true God of Israel of heaven above and earth below. And this guy doesn't. So that could happen to us.
Like we could see God's actions and effects in the world and we can see God's glory in various ways. We can either be like Rahab and convert or we could be like this unnamed dude. And by the way, why is he unnamed? Well, my reflection is kind of like, it's the same reason why Pharaoh is unnamed because his name isn't really in the book of life, right?
And it's the kind of subtle theme going on underneath there. Pharaoh's not named because he's kind of forgotten, so to speak. There's this unnamed Pharaoh who is wicked and hard-hearted and rebelled against God and his people. Kind of like this guy here.
He had the chance to repent and he didn't. So he's unnamed. I find that very, very fascinating to reflect upon. All right, so Chloe's parentheses about that.
I think let's just tidy up here. Chapter one with this point that they keep failing for submitting the Israelites and the forced labor, not following through all these different things. All right, so that is the military and political state of affairs. Fine.
Now let's get into these transitional verses in chapter two, verses one through five, when God chastises the people for their covenant and fidelity, and this is what he says, or the scripture says. Chapter two verse one, Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gil-Gah to Bohim and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land which I swore to give to your fathers. I said, I will never break my covenant with you and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land. You shall break down their altars but you have not obeyed my command.
What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you but they shall become adversaries to you and their God shall be a snare to you. When the angel of the Lord spoke these words, all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept and they called the name of that place, Bohim, which literally means weavers and they sacrificed there to the Lord. All right, so God sends this angel, this literally is messenger.
So depending on what commentary you're reading, that could be angel, it could be a prophet. You know, it's one of those two, basically an angel or a prophet, a human being. You take your pick, I don't really have an opinion on the matter. The Hebrew and the Greek is just messenger.
So it could be a problem later on, it's an actual prophet as well. But it could be an angel, I have no problem with that. But just wanted to point that out. So he comes to rep-remend the Israelites because Israel failed to complete the task.
They are compromising every which way. They're not driving out the inhabitants. They're submitting to the forced labor or they're having fear or whatever it might be. So they're not removing the idolatry which they swore that they would do.
If you go back to the end of Joshua, they swore they would do this and they did not do it. And now they're beginning to make covenants with the peoples that they left dwelling among them. And that means they're intermarrying with the Canaanites, which that'll become very clear in just a little while here. And so God says, look, without your cooperation, find that I'm gonna let the Canaanites remain.
Remember that God is doing the heavy lifting. Victory really belongs to God. But he still wants the Israelites to cooperate with him, right? And if they're failing to cooperate with him, then why should he do anything?
You know, this is such a powerful, powerful lesson for us. And typologically speaking, the moral sense of scripture, we must put forth our own effort, our own free will to cooperate with God's grace to remove sin from our lives. And what often happens if we choose not to cooperate with God, then he's gonna say, fine, I'm not gonna give you the grace. If you don't will it, if you don't want it, then I'm not gonna give it to you.
And that's what's happening here. The people don't will it, they don't want it. He says, all right, fine. I'm just, I'm not gonna drive them out because you're not doing your side of the bargain, okay?
In response, they begin to weep, which is why it's called boheme weavers. They're weeping because they're getting chastised. But it really seems that this repentance is very superficial and short-lived because as we're gonna see, the cycle goes round and round and round. It's not like, it's not a powerful, deep interior resolution and contrition of the, contrition for their sins and a resolution to do good.
It's like a child, I always think like this, it's like a child. You know, sometimes you catch a child in the act of, let's say stealing cookies or whatever it might be, pick up a nine example. They're stealing cookies and they get in trouble and they're really sorry, but they're mostly sorry for having gotten caught. You know, they don't really have this firm resolution.
I'm not gonna steal cookies ever again, right? That's kind of what's going on. They're very immature is really what they are. Now boheme means weavers, but a lot of commentators will point out and speculate that this probably is the same place as Bethel.
Now why is Bethel, why is that important? Oh, first off, why do they think it's Bethel because if you go to the end of the book, chapter 20 or 26 and 21 verse two, I have the references in your notes for you. It seems they're weeping a lot again. They're weeping at Bethel.
They do it twice. So it's kind of like a book in concept here. At the beginning of judges, they're weeping because they're in trouble. At the end of judges, they're weeping because they're in trouble and it's at Bethel in both cases and that makes a lot of sense.
But why is Bethel so important, especially at the beginning of the book here, where they're reprimanded in a specific place? Remember, geography is really enlightening. So why is Bethel important? We gotta go back to Genesis.
In Genesis, there's a Bethel pops up all the time, but it pops up especially in Jacob's story. Bethel is the place where Jacob had his dream, his vision, whatever it was of the ladder, the staircase going up the heaven, right? Inspiring, lead Zeppelin. So the staircase that goes to heaven and angels descend and ascend upon it, that's exactly where he had the dream where God appeared to him saying, I'm gonna bless you.
So fast forward 20 years later, Jacob comes back to Bethel with his whole entourage, all of his catalysts, four women and all of his sons and at least one daughter, Diana. And this is where he renews the covenant where he puts away a dollar dream, although that particular part happens in Shekum, but let's not get distracted. He goes to Bethel to renew that vow that he had made to God. So Bethel is this great place of covenant, well, relationship of encounter with God as a commitment to follow God and follow God alone.
So it's very fitting therefore that here at Bethel, the angel or the messenger or the prophet, whatever, is reprimanding Israel saying, you fail to do this, right? So it's a echo back, it's a looking back to Jacob's great moment of profession of faith, and it's tying their lack of faith and their infidelity and their worship of God to that same event. So basically saying, look how far you fall in from your great ancestor, Jacob or Israel. So it's a very, very fitting place here.
All right, so that's the transition now into the second prologue or part two of the prologue, which describes the theological state of affairs. And these fibers that we just went through, this angel of the Lord reprimanding them, that's really the hinge. I think that's what makes everything flow so much better. Because chapter two, the theological situation now is going to explain why the military and political situation is so bad.