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Samson 3 - Judges 14

There is a lot going on here in chapter 14 and we’ll be using a lot of cultural context here to understand what’s really going on. According to TB, Samson lived up in the foothills at about 800 feet elevation in a town named Tzorah. Below them was a Philistine city called Timnah and one day while Samson was down in the Philistine city, he saw a woman and saw one of the “daughters of the Philistines” and wanted her to be his wife. Interestingly, TB suggests that the phrase “saw a woman” “means more than to notice her existence; it means he saw her unveiled face, meaning from typical Middle Eastern cultural norms this was an immodest girl.” I’m not the expert on these matters, and he clearly knows more than me, and I put this out there because I thought that it was interesting because it possibly speaks to her character, but I’m going to take it with a grain of salt. I’m always wary of a man condemning a woman as being immodest, regardless of who either party is, it could be true or it c...
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Samson 2 - Judges 13

Samson’s story starts like many in the Bible, but he is the only judge who starts this way, and that is with an angelic announcement to his barren mother of his miraculous birth. An angel appears to an unnamed woman who is barren and she is promised that she will bear a son and that that son will bear a Nazarite vow for his entire life which consists of not consuming any grape products, not cutting his hair, and to never touch a dead body. We’ve talked about Nazarite vows before when they were prescribed in the Torah, but the IM summarizes it saying, “The primary meaning of the Hebrew verb nazar is to separate. Hence the nazir (Nazarite) is ‘the separated,’ ‘consecrated’ ‘devoted’. A Nazarite, therefore, was one who was separated from others by a special vow of self-dedication to Jehovah. The term ‘set apart’ is used to mean that one has been given a special calling or position and is thus separated from others.” If I recall correctly, the Nazarites often worked in the temple assisting...
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Samson 1 - Judges 13 - An Introduction

Now we come to one of the most well known stories in the Bible, that of Samson, and it is a very different and unique story with lots of life lessons. There are a few important points to make here before getting too far into this. First is that when they talk about the judges in Israel, it’s not one collective Israel, these are different areas, very small geographical regions that deal only with a certain number of people and tribes. This means that while one judge is “saving Israel” and ruling in one area, another judge that is talked about in this book could be operating contemporaneously. Second, the Old Testament is not put together in chronological order, similar to the Book of Mormon. It follows a general path of increasing time but there are many deviations where side plots are discussed. In the Book of Mormon this happens with the people of Zeniff, king Noah, Alma, etc. and the story of Samson is another example, because this also happens around the same time as the prophet Sam...
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Riberty - Judges 12

After Jeph’s victory over the Ammonites, Ephraim is up to their old tricks and approaches Jeph demanding to know why he didn’t call them to go fight. This of course is a ruse because they don’t want to fight but they do want to be the first in line for honors and the spoils of war. They did this same thing to Gideon in chapter 8 and Gideon handled it masterfully with lots of diplomacy. This time however, they added a threat “we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.” They threatened the wrong man because he Jeph was not a diplomat and answered that he did in fact call for Ephraim to come fight and they didn’t send anyone so not only were they NOT going to be rewarded or praised, Jeph was going to fight them. He also interestingly cites God and being the reason why they won that victory. Another difference this time versus what they did to Gideon was that they apparently sent a huge army to come intimidate Jeph and his men, at least 42,000 men which will be important later. Addition...
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Jephthah - Judges 11

Last we heard, Israel was ready to fight the Midianites and Ammonites because they were encroaching on their land and had formed an army against them, and Israel was looking for a general to lead the into battle. Apparently, some time earlier, there was a man named Gilead who had many sons with his wife but also had an illegitimate son with a prostitute as well. TB makes a couple of notes here, first that some scholars argue that this woman wasn’t a prostitute but it is mistranslated to mean concubine. TB disagrees with that and says that this is just them reaching and that the Hebrew word used to describe this woman is ever only used to mean “prostitute” in any other place in the Bible. Second, this just demonstrates how far Israel has fallen because not only was prostitution popular among Israelite men, but that Gilead recognized this prostitute’s son as his own showed that even high ranking men committed constant adultery. But it was unusual that Gilead recognized this kid as his ow...
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Flipped the Script - Judges 10

Chapter 10 covers 3 judges really quickly and is a pretty short chapter. The first comes after Abimelech who’s name is Tola. He’s from Isaachar, judges Israel for 23 years and he dies. The second is Jair from Gilead, not sure which tribe that is, I think Gad, and he judges Israel for 22 years. He has at least 30 sons all who rule the 30 cities that he judged and he died. The Israelites were quick to turn around to evil as soon as Jair died and they started worshipping these other gods. It’s important to note that these other gods did not replace worshipping the God of Israel, but instead they just incorporated them into his worship too, which is a problem. It’s also interesting to note that the people turn to wickedness after these righteous judges die which is a demonstration to just how important righteous leadership is. It’s also an interesting commentary on how easily persuaded human beings are, which begs the question, if all it takes for a whole group of people to be relatively r...
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Abimelech - Judges 9

There is a lot going on in chapter 9 and it is the story of Abimelech, who is NOT a judge and was mentioned at the end of chapter 8 as being a son of Gideon but the only one born to a non-Israelite concubine from Shechem. He’s part Canaanite and part Hebrew but is seems implied that he knows that he’s the son of the Israelite ruler, but he’s at odds with his full Hebrew brothers and apparently not being given the respect and status that he felt that he deserved. Abimelech goes to his mother’s family in Shechem and convinces them to make him king over the land. I don’t know why these people would agree to this, but Abimelech must have been super charismatic or something. For some reason, Abimelech’s brother’s being alive is part of the problem so his family takes 10 pieces of silver out of the temple of Ba’al and hires some assassins and they all go over and kill 69 of Abimelech’s 70 brothers, with only the youngest son escaping, named Jotham. He goes and hides himself in the mountain...
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