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Deborah the Prophetess - Judges 4:1-10

When I was a kid, we had an activity in my primary class where we had to dress up like a prophet and I didn’t want to dress up like a boy prophet but I was told that girls can’t be prophets, so I had to pick a boy. Well, I persisted and finally someone came up with a girl prophet that I could dress up as, Deborah. I wore a bath robe and most of the old primary teachers clutched their pearls because girls cannot be prophets, and I was being rebellious. Anyway, I always wanted to learn more about Deborah and today is my chance so I’m excited. After Ehud died, Israel quickly turned again to wickedness and became indentured to “Jabin the king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera,” for 20 years. Jabin had 900 iron chariots which Israel was scared of and used those chariots as a reason why they couldn’t deliver themselves. Deborah, “A prophetess… judged Israel at that time.” The IM asks, “How was it that a woman, Deborah, led Israel?” The initial reason give...
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3 Judges - Judges 3

Chapter 3 covers 3 of the Judges that delivered Israel from captivity. Israel did not obey God and instead married among their Canaanite neighbors and worshipped their gods, “and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves.” The IM notes “the groves were local worship centers for heathen gods and included a tree of pole and altars, often among groves of trees.” Because Israel turned away from God, God delivered them into the hands of their enemies and they “served” other kingdoms I assume this means some type of servant status or like a tributary type arrangement. Part of Israel became indentured to “Chusham-rishathaim” for 8 years and then they “cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.” There isn’t really a big account of what happened, just that Othniel “judged Israel, and went out to war: and t...
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The Cycle Starts - Judges 2

Israel is struggling to defeat the Canaanite inhabitants of the land that the Lord commanded them to remove, and many didn’t even try to remove them at all. Many tribes defeated them enough to make them indentured to Israel but wouldn’t finish the job, and some other tribes didn’t even bother trying. After Joshua died, and all that generation, the people began to worship the gods of the Canaanites instead, or at minimum, in addition to Jehovah, and He is not pleased. God sends an angel “up from Gilgal to Bochim,” to condemn the people. TB notes that it’s possible that instead of an actual supernatural angel, this could just be an unidentified prophet of some sort, that’s why he’s described as coming from Gilgal to Bochim because an angel could just arrive there. Anyway, this angel reminds Israel that God delivered them from Egypt and gave them this promised land, and promised “I will never break my covenant with you.” But if Israel breaks their covenant with God by worshipping other go...
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Some Defeat, Some Victory - Judges 1

Now that Joshua has died and most of the leaders in that generation, Israel pretty quickly turns away from God and more into tribal identities. The IM gives a synopsis of the book of Judges, saying, “In Judges we learn that because the children of Israel failed to remove wicked influences from the promised land, they became entangled in sin and were then afflicted and often conquered by their enemies. After they cried unto the Lord for help, He sent judges to deliver them. However, the Israelites soon returned to their sins. This pattern is repeated multiple times throughout the book.” TB says that the book of Judges spans about 400 years from the death of Joshua until the reign of king Saul. What happens immediately after Joshua’s death, “the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?” I’m not exactly sure who they asked specifically, probably the high priest at the time because TB says that anytime there’s a...
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Choose - Joshua 24 :14-33

I can’t believe that I got through Joshua that fast, it feels like after all that time in the Torah, this was just really fast. Joshua recounts all the ways and different places that God has delivered Israel and now tells them to “fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth.” And here comes the super famous statement that Joshua makes but the popular saying is not the whole verse, but I think the whole thing together is more powerful and I think it needs to be taken in the context of the previous verse as well. Joshua says, “And therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and I truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the (river), and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seems evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the (river), or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serv...
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Joshua's and My Thoughts - Joshua 24: 1-13

Joshua knows that he’s about to die, so after talking to “all the people of Israel” he calls just the elders of the tribes to him and tells them what God told him to say. He reminds them that their ancestors worshipped “other gods” on the other side of the Euphrates. TB makes an interesting note on the term “other gods” which is sometimes translated as “false gods,” he says that the literal translation is “non-gods” meaning, “non-entities.” This means that they don’t exist, so for a world where everyone believes in a bunch of gods and they have their main “boss” god, for Him to say “none of those other gods are real,” would have been a big blow to the understanding of the people. TB says that the main problem with ancient Israel accepting the almighty God at that time was because the prevailing belief among all people was that there were tons of gods that had very specific natural elements and that were contained to one specific geographic region. That’s why Jacob and Joseph died, they...
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Joshua's Farewell - Joshua 23

The weirdest thing just happened. I’ve been using the Institute Manual as a reference for the last 13 years and suddenly when I was reading the entry for Joshua 23, the screen refreshed and I was rerouted to the home page and now the IM is gone and replaced by some very vague “Scripture Helps.” This is unfortunate and I hope is just a glitch because I really want that content back. Here’s to hoping. Anyway. Joshua is now very old and he knows he’s about to die so he calls “all Israel” together to give him his final departing address. Joshua reminds the people that they have seen God do many great things for them and that He promises to continue to drive out their enemies from the land. He tells them to keep the law of Moses and to not fall into idolatry by associating with the people around them by marriage, breeding, or to worship any of their pagan gods. If Israel does choose to associate with them, instead of becoming friends, “they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges ...
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