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Salvation
The book is also a glorious picture of salvation. Joshua’s name was originally Hoshea, which means ‘salvation’, but Moses changed it to Yeshua, which means ‘God saves’. The Greek version of the Old Testament translates this as ‘Jesus’.
Moses himself means ‘drawn out’, so his name and Joshua’s together describe Israel’s progress towards the Promised Land. Moses brought them out of Egypt, but it was Joshua the saviour who brought them into the Promised Land. Getting out of Egypt did not constitute salvation, but getting into Canaan did.
This illustrates an important truth: Christians are not just saved from something, they are also saved to something. It is all too possible to get out of Egypt but still be in the wilderness; to stop living the lifestyle of a nonbeliever but not enjoy the glory of the Christian life.
Applying the concept
Finally we must ask: How should a Christian apply the concept of the Promised Land?
HEAVEN
Some imagine that the Promised Land depicts ‘heaven’. One hymn, for example, contains the line: ‘When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside’, as if the image of the river is depicting death, with Canaan (heaven) on the other side.
HOLINESS
The Promised Land, however, is not heaven but holiness.
The writer of Hebrews, commenting on Joshua’s conquering of the land, says that the Israelites never entered ‘the rest’ under Joshua, despite entering Canaan. He goes on to say that there still remains ‘a rest’ for the people of God. This ‘rest’ means rest from battle – and the Promised Land is reached when we enjoy what God has for us. So whenever we overcome temptation we have a little foretaste of the rest that God has promised. The victories in Joshua should be replicated in the life of every believer as he or she lives for Christ and battles against sin. The ‘rest’ is that relief when our struggles with enemy forces are successfully behind us and our efforts have been rewarded.
8. (#ulink_2032a4e8-b26a-5d7a-82c4-aee4306e4d77)
JUDGES AND RUTH
Introduction
Judges and Ruth belong to each other, so we will consider them together. The Bible is unique among sacred writings in being mostly history. The Koran, for example, contains little or no history, whereas the Bible displays a historical dimension throughout. Furthermore, it includes history no human being could have written, for it includes the very beginning of our universe in Genesis and a description of its end in Revelation. Either this is human imagination, or God himself has revealed it – there is no other explanation.
When we looked at the book of Joshua, we saw how prophetic history is a special type of history because it records events in terms of what God says and does with his people Israel. What we have in the Bible is no ordinary history book, simply recording what a nation has done and experienced – it is God’s story of his dealings with his people.
There are four possible levels when it comes to studying history:
1 The study of personalities: this approach involves detailed analysis of the individuals who made history – monarchs, military leaders, philosophers, thinkers. Their lives control what is included; they are the reference point for all that happens.
2 The study of peoples: here the focus is on whole nations or people groups. We discover how nations grow stronger and weaker and how this affects the balance of power within the world.
3 The study of patterns: aside from the personalities and peoples, this approach looks for the patterns which exist across time frames, such as the way civilizations rise and fall. It is less concerned with the detail and more with themes.
4 The study of purpose: historians also ask where history is heading. They look for meaning and purpose. Marxist historians believe in dialectical materialism, i.e. the history of peoples includes conflict, especially between the workers and ruling classes. Evolutionary optimists believe in the ascent of man, i.e. humanity is making progress to a better world. Others look at war throughout history and predict doom and gloom.
The study of purpose can be divided into two strands: on the one hand there are those who see history as linear progression – things are moving forward with the present building on the past; on the other hand there are those who see history as a series of cycles where things tend to come full circle – to them there is little forward progression, just aimless and futile activity signifying nothing.
It is no surprise that a divine view of history includes a sense of purpose. It is not the optimism of the evolutionists, for not everything ‘gets better’, but biblical history does have a purpose, for God is in control and will bring things to the ending he intends. History is, indeed, ‘his story’.
These two aspects of history – the linear and the cyclical views – will help us understand Judges and Ruth. The history in Judges is a classic case of a series of cycles: the same cycle is identified on seven occasions and, although the time line is there, it is largely in the background. Ruth, by contrast, is a time-line story with a beginning, a middle and an end, and a clear sense of progress.
The pattern of history in the book of Judges mirrors accurately the sort of lives many people live when they do not know God. They get up, go to work, come home, watch the television and go to bed again, ready to repeat the same cycle the next day. It is life on a large roundabout! You get nowhere and achieve nothing. The pattern seen in Ruth is more in keeping with the way God intends his people to proceed through life. Here there is purpose and meaning, a movement towards a goal.
The most important thing to establish about any book in the Bible is the reason why it was written. Some books reveal their purpose very easily, but Judges and Ruth require rather more investigation. We will need to examine each book in detail before we can come to any conclusions about the purpose behind them.
Judges
Most people have a Sunday school knowledge of the book of Judges – they only know the ‘bowdlerized’ version. Thomas Bowdler did not approve of certain parts of William Shakespeare’s plays, so he revised them, omitting what he regarded as the ‘naughty bits’, and now his name has gone down in history. In the same way Sunday school stories from Judges omit some of the less palatable elements – concubines, prostitutes being cut up into pieces, rape, murder, phallic symbols, and so on. As a result many people are familiar with particular personalities within the book, such as Samson, Delilah, Deborah and Gideon, but have no knowledge of the rest of it, let alone its overall theme and purpose.
Individual stories
The stories within the book are certainly gripping. There is an economy of words, but interesting detail is provided in vivid descriptions which make the characters live for the reader.
The amount of space given to each character is surprisingly varied. Samson has four chapters all to himself, Gideon has three, Deborah and Barak have two, but some have just a short paragraph. It almost seems that the more sensational they were, the more space they were given. Clearly the author’s purpose is not to give a balanced account of each hero. It is easy, however, to get the impression that the book is about a series of folk heroes who saved the day in whatever situation they faced (and the book contains a selection of quite bizarre events), rather like Nelson or Wellington in British history.
We read early in the book of Caleb’s younger brother Othniel. All we are really told is that he brought peace to his people for 40 years.
We read of Ehud, the left-handed leader who concealed his 18-inch swordblade by strapping it to his right leg. Since most people were right handed, it was customary to check the left leg for weapons. He was thus able to take his weapon into a private meeting with the King of Moab and plunge it into the King’s belly!
We read of Shamgar, who killed 600 Philistines with an ox-goad.
We read of Deborah and Barak. Deborah was a prophetess, married to Lappidoth. Her name means ‘Busy bee’ and Lappidoth means ‘Flash’ in Hebrew! Deborah would settle disputes by hearing the answer from the Lord, and on an occasion recorded in Judges she told Barak to lead the people into battle. Barak refused to go into battle without her. Senior officers in Israel, then and today, always lead the troops into battle. God was angry with Barak’s refusal and told him that the enemy Sisera would fall to the hand of a woman in order to humiliate him. And so it proved.
The next story concerns Gideon, one of the most fearful men in the Bible. He put some meat on an altar and fire from heaven burned up the meat. Then he asked the Lord for a sign from heaven, as if the fire was not enough! God graciously provided a further sign through a fleece which was dry one day and wet the next. Gideon had to learn that it is by God’s strength and strategy that battles are won. God reduced his army from 300,000 to 300 so that Gideon would learn not to put his trust in human resources.
The next character we read of is Abimelech (more of him later); then comes Tola, who receives only the brief comment that he led Israel for 23 years. After him Jair led Israel for 22 years and had 30 sons who, we are told, rode 30 donkeys and controlled 30 towns. A little interesting detail, but nothing more!
There is a longer section recounting the story of Jephthah, the head of Gilead. He made the rash vow that he would sacrifice to the Lord whatever came to meet him when he returned from battle and ended up having to sacrifice his only daughter.
Ibzan of Bethlehem had 30 daughters and 30 sons who all married outside the clan of Judah. Elon led Israel for 10 years. Abdon, who came after him, had 40 sons, 30 grandsons and 70 donkeys! Again no more details are given.
When we come to Samson, however, we learn far more. His name literally means ‘sunshine’. He was brought up as a Nazarene, which meant that he was not allowed to take alcohol or cut his hair. It is an extraordinary tale of a man who had trouble with women. He married, but his marriage broke up before the honeymoon. He moved on to a nameless prostitute before finally joining with a mistress called Delilah. Although having great physical strength, Samson was actually a weak man. His weakness was not primarily his relationships, but stemmed from a weakness of character. His charismatic anointing enabled him to accomplish many amazing feats of strength, but then the Spirit of the Lord departed from him. He was captured by the Philistines, blinded and put on a tread-mill, the laughing stock of the Philistines.
Many years ago I preached a sermon called ‘Samson’s hair is growing again’. It became well known and one young woman who heard it wrote a poem about the blind Samson being led by the little boy to the pillars of the temple, where he pulled the whole temple down.
The boy who held his hand
They gouged them out,
At first
I could not bear to look:
Empty and raw and cruel.
I would not look:
The shock of emptiness,
Knowing that he would not see.
I watched the shaven head bowed low
Rocking with the rhythm of the grindstone.
Round. Round. Round.
I watched the needless shackles:
Heavy and hard,
Biting the flesh that needs no binding.
Now
It does not matter that his eyes are gone:
I am his eyes,
He sees through me.
He has to see through me, there is no other way.
And I have wept the tears he cannot weep,
For all those careless years.
And I have learned to love this broken man,
While he has learned at last to fear his God.
So
I am not afraid to die:
Happy to be his eyes this one last time.
Taking his hand,
Leading with practised care,
Step by guided step
Into the place where he can pray,
‘Lord,
O Sovereign Lord.’
And as the pillars fall, I cry
‘Amen.’
In his last five minutes Samson did more for his people than he had done in all the years of his life.
HUMAN WEAKNESS
The Bible is always honest about the failings and weaknesses of the individuals it describes and Judges is no exception. The characters in the book reveal a number of flaws: Barak was not manly; Gideon was fearful, constantly asking for signs, and towards the end of his life made a gold ephod, a priestly ‘pullover’, which later proved to be a ‘snare’ to Israel, a relic which had become an object of devotion. Jephthah was the son of a prostitute who made a reckless vow; Samson treated his wife poorly, slept with a prostitute and took a mistress. They were not strong characters, nor were they holy people, yet God used them!
DIVINE STRENGTH
How did these less than perfect people manage to achieve so much? It was not through their own power. Their secret was that the Holy Spirit came on them – they were all ‘charismatic’ people.
Judges gives us vivid examples of divine strength working through weak people, as we read how these individuals were able to perform supernatural feats. Samson was perhaps the most graphic example of this, but there are many amazing stories. This is an especially important point to note, because the anointing of the Holy Spirit only comes on a few in the Old Testament. In Judges such anointing was experienced by just 12 people out of the 2 million who populated Israel at that time. We note too that the Holy Spirit comes on them temporarily, not permanently: for example, the text states that the Holy Spirit left Samson. In the Old Testament it was an anointing Spirit that touched them for a time rather than an indwelling Spirit who stayed with them.
WHAT WERE THE JUDGES?
Our consideration of some of the individual stories of the judges has omitted an important question. What exactly were the judges? Who were they and what did they do?
In English they are called ‘judges’, but this expression does not really capture the essence of the word originally used to describe them. When we read that Samson ‘judged’ Israel, or that Gideon ‘judged’ Israel, the idea behind the Hebrew expression is that they were ‘troubleshooters’ who saved the people of God from themselves and others. They are never given a title as such, but are described in terms of what they did. Indeed, the only person to whom the noun is applied in the book of Judges is God. He is the Judge, sorting out their problems. It would therefore be more correct to say that God is the rescuer or troubleshooter who operates through these heroes, by his Spirit, for the benefit of the people.
They are concerned with justice within the nation, but mainly with external problems, since the people are surrounded by hostile nations who attack them at various times: the Ammonites (three times), the Amalekites (twice), the Moabites (once), the Midianites (once) and the Philistines (three times). There is also specific mention of the Kings of Jericho, Moab and Hazor.
The people of God had come into a highly populated area, to peoples largely hostile to their presence. They were perceived as invaders. The only justification for them being in that land at all was that God had given it to them, and they were to exact punishment on the resident population by wiping them out. Thus the book is not just about individual heroes – or the study of personalities, the first level of history described at the beginning of this chapter – but whole peoples too – the second level of history.
National history
If you add together all the years that the 12 people mentioned above judged Israel, they come to 400, but the book of Judges actually covers only 200 years. How can this be so?
GEOGRAPHICAL
This problem is easily resolved when we realize what the judges are actually doing. When we read about Gideon and Samson we tend to think that they were delivering the whole nation, but Israel was now divided into groups of tribes, spread over a wide area roughly the size of Wales. Therefore, when we read that a judge ruled for 40 years, it may only apply to tribes in the north. Another judge may have been saving a situation in the south at the same time. Samson, for example, delivered the southern tribes and Gideon the northern ones.
POLITICAL
At this time there was a leadership vacuum within Israel. Moses had led them out of Egypt, Joshua had led them into the Promised Land, but with both these great men dead, there was no figurehead for the nation – bearing in mind that this was before the days of the monarchy. Thus the judges were local leaders, commanding the loyalty of groups of tribes, but not uniting the whole nation.
MORAL
There was a moral reason why the tribes were continually facing opposition from other nations and people groups, and this is the heart of the book’s message. The structure of the book makes this clear, as we shall see if we look at a brief outline of it. It divides very clearly into three parts.
1. Inexcusable compromise (1–2)
(i) Allowances
(ii) Alliances
2. Incorrigible conduct (3–16)
(i) Sedition by the people
(ii) Subjection by an enemy
