Lessons from Judges: Finding Streams of Blessing When We Fail
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Do you ever feel like the Israelites in the Book of Judges—a monumental task has been set before you and you start with gusto, but then your resolve wains and forward progress dwindles to nothing? While the narratives in Judges are full of fascinating stories, they are also stories of great failure. We must consider then, what the author of Judges wants to teach God’s children today.
In Judges 1:1-2:5 we have a dense account of Israel’s military battles.
The book of Judges wasn’t written just to tickle our ears. How are we to be spiritually encouraged by a book whose content is full of military campaigns and whose characters are ones we can hardly imagine meeting in real life? The stories are also gruesome. The Israelites are commanded by God to wipe out all the wicked people of the land.[1] Is this book pertinent for modern day Christians? Yes, it most certainly is. It is crucial to realize that the book of Judges has much to offer Christians today, as we always need reminders to persevere in faithfulness and look for blessings from our heavenly Father.
In Judges 1:1 - 2:5 we have a dense account of Israel’s military battles, wherein the tribe of Judah is very prominent. Judah fights and is victorious for much of the passage, bringing God’s just judgement to the evil Canaanite peoples. The pagan king even accepts God’s judgement as just in a short speech he gives in verse 7:
“Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me.” (Judg. 1:7)
God’s just judgment is upheld even by the pagan king in defeat.[2] God’s sustaining presence and blessing is indicated throughout the passage[3], notably at the beginning when God says, “Behold, I have given the land into his [Judah’s] hand,” and in two other places where the text tells us that “the LORD was with Judah/them” (vv.19, 22). So why then does such a military campaign that begins on such a positive note descend into defeat and a stark word of judgment from the Lord in chapter two?
Like the Israelites in the book of Judges, we are not fully obedient, or not obedient at all.
The Lord in fact answers this question in his final speech. Evidently, for all the success of the people as recorded in chapter one, defeating enemies and putting them to forced labor, they were not fully faithful and obedient to God.[4] God lists how he has been faithful to the Israelite people, yet he points out that they have been just the opposite with him. While he said, “I will never break my covenant with you,” Israel refused to break down the pagan altars and instead made covenants with the evil people of the land. In short, the Lord declares, “You have not obeyed my voice.” This stern reprimand ends with an open-ended question: “What is this you have done?”
Have we ever been in a place where this question has been applied to our hearts and minds, where we are brought by God’s word preached, or the loving confrontation of a brother or sister in Christ, to see how we have lacked in obedience to our heavenly Father? We know like the Israelites that God is with us; we know what we ought to do, but instead of faithful obedience we are not fully obedient, or even not obedient at all.
Israel responds to the news of God’s assessment and subsequent judgment with weeping. They have no answer of justification for God; they acknowledge that what he has said is true, and sorrow follows. Yet, is this the end of the story for sinners who fail in faithfulness, who do not take full advantage of God’s power, presence, and blessing in their lives? How should we respond when we are confronted with the stark words of “What is this you have done?”
Like the family of Caleb, we also should be expecting God to work on our behalf as we strive against spiritual enemies.
In this section of Judges we find three small stories told in great detail; the fall of a pagan king, the faithfulness of a family, and the unfaithfulness of a tribe. The middle story should be an encouragement for us as it is placed at the center of this passage.
From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir was formerly Kiriath-sepher. And Caleb said, “He who attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter for a wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter for a wife. When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. (Judg. 1:11-15)
Here we find here a faithful father, Caleb, encouraging brave conquest by offering his daughter as the prize in marriage to any faithful hero. We have a faithful daughter asking blessing of her father, and he freely grants it. If only the people of Israel had been like this family. As Keller writes, “The narrator narrows the focus to one spiritually brave family in Israel— the family of faithful Caleb. Here, in miniature, is what all Israel should be like.”[5]
In fact, Caleb’s family exemplifies what we all should be like: trusting in God’s presence and power, attacking our besetting sins with vigor, expecting God to work on our behalf as we strive against spiritual enemies, being willing to fell giants (Judg. 1:20). Yet, like the people of Israel, we make excuses for our lack of faithfulness. Like the people of Judah later in the passage, we say, “God, I know you are with me, but I can’t do that hard thing, there are ‘chariots of iron’ preventing me.”[6]
We need a champion like Caleb or Othniel who can overcome our enemies for us, for we cannot win our own victories in our own strength.
The book of Judges then brings us modern-day Christians to the realization that we are often like the failing Israelites—our faithfulness is not complete. We need a champion like Caleb or Othniel who can overcome our enemies for us, whose victory we can participate in, for we cannot win our own victories in our own strength—we find we constantly fall short.
So where does this leave us? If we recognize we are more like the faltering and disobedient Israelites, tending toward less and less faithfulness, and we recognize that our obedience pales in comparison to Caleb or Othniel, where do we look when our conscience and the Word of God confront us with the words, “What is this you have done?”
We look to be like Achsah, the only woman in this passage. She doesn’t do any fighting, yet she becomes the bride of the great warrior Othniel and receives an inheritance and a blessing from her father. In fact, Achsah is the only individual in this passage who asks for a blessing, and she promptly receives it from her loving father. We need to be wedded to a great warrior, gifted an inheritance earned by another, and receive blessing because we are children, just as Achsah received streams of water from her father Caleb.
Like Achsah did in asking for—and receiving—a blessing, Christians are to humbly come before our heavenly Father in prayer and thanksgiving and receive the blessings he has for us in Christ.
The central story and family of this passage teaches us that we need a hero who is like Othniel, who will conquer a city and obey God fully to gain a bride. We need a father who will graciously give gifts because he is giving them to his children, and we need to be like Achsah, a faithful bride and persistent child, asking for blessing.
If we have Christ, we have our faithful warrior who fulfilled all of God’s commands willingly and with love toward his Father. He is a warrior who never sinned nor fell short of the righteous call of God. He is a warrior who has secured for those who trust in him an eternal inheritance and blessing. He has fought the hard fight to earn a bride, his church, of which we are part if we place our trust in him. And, because Christ has paid the price for our faithlessness and sin, we can be called children of God and come to our heavenly Father with petitions whenever we still sin. We can be blessed with repentance, forgiveness, and renewal from our heavenly Father. Let us praise the Lord, that he has done all that is required to earn heaven on our behalf, and let us humbly come before him and ask for his streams of blessing in Christ.
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Notes:
[1] Timothy Keller in his book, Judges for You (The Good Book Company, 2013), has a very helpful section explaining what this type of warfare was that God commanded, as well as the reason behind it, and how it differs from present day evil atrocities like genocide.
[2] Dale Ralph Davis, Judges, Such a Great Salvation (Christian focus Publications Ltd.: Geanies House, Great Britain) 21.
[3] see Davis, Judges, 18. on “Divine Adequacy.”
[4] Davis, Judges, 26.
[5] Keller, Judges for You, 18.
[6] Keller, writes, “Judah does not trust in God’s strength, so they measure their own strength against their enemies’, and fail to push the chariot-owning plain-dwellers out of the land. Common, but faithless, sense, begins to prevail here. Judah doesn’t trust God; and so they don’t secure their inheritance so that they can worship God without compromise,” 19.
