March
18: Judges 10 – 13
Today’s reading covers more than 134 years! At least 58
of those years the Israelites were oppressed by others.
The terminology used when God is frustrated with the
disobedience of the people is often the word ‘mkr’, which means to sell or
betray to others. Almost all derivatives of the word related to trade. If indeed
this was a trade of sorts, I wonder what the conquerors got out of the deal.
Several of the judges mentioned had a LOT of children!
Twice we see that they rode on donkeys, which were considered a symbol of
royalty at the time. Perhaps God chose these men because they were already
successful leaders, unlike Gideon.
A few things that really stuck out to me today:
1) Why did the Israelites wait so long (18 – 40 years) to
cry out to God?
2) Verse 10:16 says that God “could bear Israel’s misery
no more”. Our God is patient and caring. He waits for us to learn our lesson,
but at some point our pain hurts him more than it does us.
3) Jephthah made a horrible vow! But he honored God
enough to follow through. Did he really provide his daughter as a burnt sacrifice?
Who or what did he truly expect to walk out the door? Because the Law of Moses
prohibited human sacrifice, most scholars believe that Jephthah was able to
instead dedicate her to service at the tabernacle as a perpetual virgin.
Because of this vow, regardless of the way it was fulfilled, Jephthah would
have no more descendants.
4) Wow, the people of Ephraim must have really liked
fighting! Just like they did with Gideon, they were angry that Jephthah didn’t
invite them to participate in the action. However this time they apparently got
the fight they wanted and suffered because of it. This is the first time we see
Israelites fighting against each other.
5) I love that Manoah and his wife wanted advice on
raising their son. I do wish the author had told us his wife’s name, though.
TOMORROW’S TEXT: Judges 14-16
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