Judges 1:1-36
The book of Judges highlights God's magnanimous nature and human's spiritually-adulterous nature. This book begins where the Book of Joshua left off: Joshua has recently died and the children of Israel are meant to continue pushing forward and thereby pushing out evil. However, instead of making spiritual progress, the children of Israel grow lazy. The children of Israel disobey God, allow evil to reside among them, and begin to adopt the evil practices of those who live in opposition to God.
God can only lead if we will follow. The children of Israel discontinue following God and therefore allow themselves to live stagnant in the festering evil around them. Despite having broken their end of the covenant with God, by Him they are continually forgiven and rescued. God sends rescue through men and women appointed as judges. These judges are meant to realign the repentant children of Israel with the will of God.
Throughout the book, there is a cry: God is our Parent, Provision, Protection and Power. Every time we abandon Him, we found ourselves orphans in desolate places. Every time we abandon Him, we found ourselves slaves to corrupt people and institutions. "Judges" is expressly indicative of the chaos which ensues when God is subtracted from the equation. As He is the entity which prepares, strengthens and leads us through adversity, life without Him is adversity. He is our thruway; without Him we are landlocked. Generation after generation of Israelites forget and then relearn that lesson. Individually, we can break the cycle.
1:1-3 The children of Israel are without a human intermediary. Previously, they had Moses and then Joshua as the hinge between God and themselves. Now, in the request for a leader, Judah is appointed by God to lead, foreshadowed in Genesis 49:8-12. Judah recruits its ancestral brother Simeon (remember that these are tribes but the original brothers were children of Leah and Jacob in Genesis 29:33, 35).
1:4-11 Because Judah is faithfully following God's will, God's will is faithfully delivering blessings on their behalf. Judah is pushing their enemies out and dethroning their kings forever.
1:12-15 Caleb promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the man who overtakes a place called Kirjath. A man named Othniel is able to overtake Kirjath. Caleb's daughter asks for land further souoth containing a spring of water. Land without water is useless.
The metaphor in this is that the inheritance is good but without our Living Water, God, the land is useless. Without our eternal source of life, our land is desolate. Our land becomes a desert rather than a fruitful home and resting place. To have the inheritance and the blessing of the eternal spring, we must overtake evil. Our effort in life, in every moment, should be in opposition to evil, hate, selfishness, greed, impatience and other spawn of evil.
1:16-20 So the Lord was with Judah. The Lord was with Judah because Judah was with the Lord. Judah did not walk away from God; the tribe of Judah remained in range to hear God's direction and rest in His protection.
2:21 But the tribe of Benjamin is not faithful to God, they do not drive out the evil among them.
1:22-26 The Lord was with the tribe of Joseph because Joseph, like Judah, remain with God.
1:27-28 The trouble begins when the tribes discontinue eliminating the evil among them. First the tribe of Manasseh does not drive out the corrupt nations, people and practices. This is important because God understands humans: we are fickle and manipulable. We, symbolized through the children of Israel, are largely unable to separate ourselves and our conduct from outside influences.
Because God knows that they will be tempted, persuaded and manipulated by practices of others (and those all around were corrupt) He order the complete removal of them. God did not order the removal of anyone in the children of Israel's path, only the evil. But because the children of Israel stop following His will, they begin adopting and participating in practices which oppose God's philosophy and will.
1:29 Ephraim does not drive out the corrupt nations, people and practices.
1:30 Zebulun does not drive out the corrupt nations, people, and practices.
1:31-32 Asher does not drive out the corrupt nations, people, and practices.
1:33 Naphtali does not drive out the corrupt nations, people, and practices.
1:34-36 The children of Israel do not remove their enemies and therefore leave themselves vulnerable to their enemies. Because they have abandoned God, they have also abandoned His protect, power and guidance. They are left alone to defend themselves... and are incapable of doing so. They are quickly pushed back, pushed down, and pushed out by the Amorites. The tribes which abandoned God... found themselves abandoned. But God is not the one Who left, they are.
It's easy to tut-tut and disapprove of these tribes behavior but this happens on the individual scale as well. Each of us at times neglects God. We sometimes put out trust in money, luck and coincidence. We make idols of fame, wealth and vanity. We choose hate and violence over love and peace... because sometimes those choices are difficult. But God, through this book, wants us to understand the He is the way through. He will send the figurative judge we need to expertly, fully, finally escape from evil (of our own doing and others').
