And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. –– Judges 2:10

Judgeship in Israel was a unique office. It differed both from the strong centralized leadership of Moses and Joshua, which preceded the period of the judges and from the kingships which followed.

During the exodus and the period of conquest, there was strong cohesion between the twelve tribes of Israel. Their religious life centered around the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant; they received political leadership from Moses and Joshua, recognizing them as God’s appointees.

One of the first developments after the conquest of Canaan was dividing the promised land into tribal areas (Joshua 13:7). The tribes then became semi- autonomous. Along with the religious laxity mentioned in our text, the tribes gave less and less heed to God’s command to come together three times a year to celebrate the religious feasts. Each tribe began to develop its own government with the nation being a loose amalgam of the tribes. The situation was roughly analogous to the “state’s rights” period in American history that preceded the Civil War.

While each tribe may have appointed its own “elders,” probably by election, God raised up special leaders in answer to Israel’s prayers for deliverance. This office may have combined the functions of tribal “heads” (Numbers 1:4-16) and of the seventy elders appointed to assist Moses (Numbers11:16). This office, unlike that of the kings, was not dynastic or hereditary but appointed or elected; though in the cases of Jair (Judges 10:3,4) and Abdon (Judges 12:13,14) there does appear to be some succession along family lines.

Thus, there may have been many judges sitting simultaneously, perhaps one in each tribe. From time to time, in cases of national crises when Israel “prayed unto the Lord,” Jehovah raised up a “judge” to bring deliverance to the people. These special “judges” form the outline for the biblical book of Judges.

In this book of the Bible (plus the first four chapters of 1 Samuel), we read of the exploits of fourteen of these judges. They came from a variety of tribes. Three of them came from Ephraim, two each from Judah and Gad, and one each from Dan, Naphtali, Zebulon, Issachar, Manasseh, Benjamin, and Levi. Only the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, and Asher did not contribute to these delivering judges.

While these judges represented more of a centralized leadership for the nation, not all tribes always participated in each specific deliverance. For instance, when Deborah and Barak marshaled their troops against King Jabin of Canaan and his general Sisera, they were joined by soldiers from Ephraim, Benjamin, Zebulon, Issachar, Manasseh, and Naphtali. The men of Reuben, Dan, Asher, and Gad gave no support (Judges 5:14-18).

Conditions in Israel

A frequent phrase in the book, appearing seven times, is “the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judges 2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). Their constant idolatry caused the Lord to permit them to become subjugate to surrounding nations on numerous occasions. They were oppressed successively by the Mesopotamians, Moabites, Ammonites, Canaanites, Philistines, and Midianites.

The repetitive lapses into idolatry do not appear to have been deliberate rebellion but rather from weakness and being subject to temptation. The entire experience of this period is summed up in the last verse of Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel: and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” They apparently were able to rationalize their behavior, making it seem “right” in their own eyes.

Temporally, they were in a period of prosperity. The land was fertile. Their flocks and herds were growing. They had accumulated sufficient wealth to be a constant target of surrounding nations seeking tribute. This was in marked contrast to the nomadic life they had in their forty years of wilderness wanderings.

Israel was demonstrating an oft-proved principle, temporal prosperity tends toward spiritual poverty. Seeking to maintain peace with their neighbors rather than expelling them, as God had commanded, they began to imitate them. In the history of the church, the same has been true, especially during the final stage, the period of Laodicea, of whom was written: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see” (Revelation 3:17,18).

One of the strong temptations to the Christian is the twin pull of prosperity and the desire to peacefully co-exist with a community that “knows not God.” It is one thing to “live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18) and quite another to emulate their lifestyle. As the Apostle Paul writes, “ … be not conformed to this world … ” (Romans 12:2). Again, as we read in 1 John 2:15, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

God’s Choices 

Three of the heroes in the book of Judges stand in great prominence — Deborah, Gideon, and Jephthah. The choices in these cases are uniquely God’s; they are not the ones that men would normally select. Deborah was a woman; Gideon, the least-esteemed son of the family esteemed the least in his tribe (6:15); and Jephthah, an illegitimate child (11:1).

As always, God chooses not as man chooses. As the Lord said to Samuel in the selection of David to be king, “ … the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). This is also an important lesson for the Christian. Where man’s priorities lie in selecting men who are aggressive and charismatic leaders, the Lord seeks those of a quiet spirit and a humble disposition, ones whom God can mold into the pattern fit for the task that lies ahead.

Another illustration from this period demonstrating a distinction between man’s judgments and God’s is found in the account of Samson. In the fourteenth chapter of Judges, Samson desires to take a Philistine wife from Timnath. The reaction of his parents was in line with God’s commands against intermarriage (Ezra 10:2; Nehemiah 13:27). They said to Samson, “Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well” (Judges 14:3).

We are prone naturally to concur with Samson’s parents. However, the next verse shows the plan of the Lord behind the entire matter: “But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel” (v. 4).

Samson’s exploits, which appear so sensual and earthy to us, do not seem to reflect God’s judgments on the matter, nor those of the Apostle Paul, for he is given a specific place in the list of heroes of faith in Hebrews 11:32. We, too, should be slow to judge the actions of others which may appear to us as being out of accord with the Lord’s directions. As each stone in the temple was carved for its particular niche, and as each bone in the human body is shaped to suit its functions, so God’s dealings with each Christian are unique in preparing them for a specific place in his future plans. Truly, their final character will be “a new name, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Revelation 2:17).

Idolatry

Idolatry was not limited in this period to the service of pagan gods. We find two related accounts of idolatry — one personal and one tribal — in Judges 17 and 18. The first deals with Micah, a young man whose mother made for him a graven and a molten image. With these he established a “house of gods” (17:5). The Chaldaic Targum here reads “an house of error,” and error it truly was. He then seeks to legitimize his idolatry by hiring a Levite as his priest (vs. 10-13).

Even today establishing “houses of error” and seeking to legitimize them by establishing a priesthood around them is easy. Both the hireling shepherd and his employers are equally guilty of hypocrisy and breaking the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). In the following chapter, we find a group of renegade Danites, seeking additional territory around Laish to the north of Ephraim. They stop at the house of Micah and seek to emulate his ways by establishing their own priesthood in the northern city of Dan (Judges18:18-31). By this they would dilute the worship at Jerusalem and separate their area from the rest of the nation. Later, Jeroboam, the first king of the breakaway kingdom of Israel, follows a similar tactic (1 Kings 12:27-33).

The priest hired by the tribe of Dan is identified as “Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh” in Judges 18:30. However the NIV, RSV, and ASV, among others, indicate that he is the grandson of Moses, not Manasseh. If this is true, it leaves yet another lesson from this period of Israel’s history: the descendants of righteous men do not necessarily follow in their ancestor’s footsteps. This was a recurring problem in the next period of history, of the kings, when the father was succeeded by his son. As a result, we find frequent relapses during that period because of the unfaithfulness of the man selected for kingship.

The Third Generation

In any event, the new “generation” of our theme text was the third generation from the Exodus. In this, there is a recurring pattern throughout the scriptural record — a pattern that non-biblical history repeats as well.

When great reformers rise on the scene, they show the mighty purifying power of their vision. After their death, however, there is frequently a power struggle to see who will carry on filling their shoes. The bitterness of this struggle, along with the time lapse from the heroics of the first generation, leaves a disillusioned third generation. Well has the wise man said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).

This lesson seems especially appropriate to many today who are in the third (and even fourth) generation from the visions that inspired the Bible Student movement in the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries. We are a generation who have witnessed the divisiveness of power struggles. We are a generation who, by and large, “knew not [by personal experience] the works which [the Lord] hath done for (spiritual) Israel.” It is as essential now as ever before that we do not merely do “that which is right in our own eyes,” but recognize that “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Keep searching the scriptures to see what is right in the eyes of our God and follow therein.

–– The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom
1996/3