I had, of course, been looking forward this this one, since it involved Samson, the very judge that I wrote one-third of a book about. I didn't really know about the other judges though... and I wanted to know about them. Interestingly, all this extra bit of research did for me was prove that the book really was all about Samson to begin with.
That is not to say that the other judges did not have interesting moments. It's more that they sort of came, did their thing, and then promptly died in an orderly manner. With Samson, you had an angel announce him, he had a super power, he had to be born a Nazarite, and he had one of the most epic deaths of anyone in the Bible, save Jesus himself. None of the other judges come anywhere close to this.
The other judges were still interesting. In brief:
1: You had Ehud who stabbed a fat man so hard that the entire knife went in, with the skin closing in around it.
2: Deborah, a prophetess, wrote one hell of a song about the killing of the king of Hazor. Seriously, it was a real knee-slapper!
3: Jephthah swore to God that he would sacrifice the first thing he saw when he came back home if He would help him. Sadly, it ended up being his own daughter. This one was quite sobering. It reminds you of Abraham and Isaac, but this time, God does not intervene.
There were more judges, but the ones I mentioned were the ones that stood out to me the most. The book ends with a whole lot of depressing things, including an internal war within the Israelites themselves, namely verses the Benjamites. There was also the gruesome depiction of a woman being sliced into twelve pieces and shipped off to the different tribes--this happening after she was gangraped as well. The last two parts of Judges really just show how they just keep falling into sin, and it really was awful to read. Even the Levites became corrupted. You can't get much worse than when you lose your priest class.
Despite the ending, which really simply reported what actually happened, I highly recommend the book of "Judges," mainly because of Samson. I do not understand a person who does not enjoy reading through such an amazing moment in history as the advent of such a spectacular person. It made the whole book worthwhile.
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Interesting that Samson was the one judge who outshined all the others. Unlike these others, we know he fell short... yet he somehow outperformed those who did not make any mistakes worth noting. Something about him was loved by God so much, God avenged him even after Samson disappointed him.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Samson definitely got top billing in the book, and for good reason. It seemed like a dry run of what would later happen with Jesus in some respects.
DeleteThe Judges were an interesting bunch indeed, the story of Jephthah's sacrifice was unfortunate but at least he saw it to the end instead of being wishy-washy. Samson was pure unabashed and unthrottled masculinity, of course he was favored by God. He fell short but boy was he entertaining! God did grieve when Samson fell.
ReplyDeleteJephthah was an example of how seriously God took swearing in His name. This is also why a lot of people freak out about swearing, but a lot of it is mired in superstition these days.
DeleteThough provided with leaders, the people were the problem. When their enemies were beaten, they turned on each other. They made sure the suffering would continue.
ReplyDeleteThey needed these judges because they just couldn't take a hint.
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