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 question and answer part it involved the Urim and Thummim which is interesting because it’s mentioned so many times in the Old Testament and I like that it’s included in the Book of Mormon and Church history as well. The Lord answers that Judah is the next to clear out the Canaanites from their land because “I have delivered the land into his hand.” This narrative says “Judah” and “Simeon” and other personal names and they obviously don’t mean the actual people themselves because they’ve been dead for hundreds of years at this point, but I assume that this means the leadership of each tribe talked to the leadership of the other tribe. Judah asks Simeon to go with him to help clear out the Canaanites from his land, and then promises the same help to clear Simeon’s land. Simeon agrees and they “slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men” because God had delivered them into their hands. Horrifically, one of the kings of the conquered lands was caught and they “cut off his thumb and his great toes.” Mutilation is strictly prohibited against in the Torah but these tribes did it anyway, which is a problem. I bet that they did it because that king is known for having done the same thing to his enemies because he says in verse 7 “Threescore and ten kings, having their thumb and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat unto my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me.” The Complete Jewish Version says something like “I did this same thing to 70 kings so God is giving me what I deserve,” which I thought was very introspective for this guy.
Judah and Simeon have great success clearing out both lands until they get to the valley and it says that they couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of the valley “because they had chariots of iron.” Now, was the real reason why they couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots? Could you imagine God being all powerful, but just couldn’t defeat iron chariots? No, the IM says, “the real reason for their failure, however, was that they had lost the power of the Lord through their lack of faith and by their disobedience.” This just goes to show, that in a God-led military campaign, obedience and personal righteousness is required at all times. Previous success does not promise future victory, it is fluid and disobedience is deadly.
There are some verses about Caleb and a field and a well and a woman, I don’t really know what that is talking about. Benjamin wasn’t able to drive out their Canaanite inhabitants, I’m sure because of disobedience. The house of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) did well getting rid of some of their inhabitants but not all. Interestingly, a generalization was “when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.” Again, they overpowered these enemies enough to make them tributaries but didn’t put forth just the smidge more effort to expel them like God commanded. Zebulon, Asher, and Naphtali didn’t drive out their inhabitants, and interestingly, Dan was defeated by their enemies and were driven back up into the mountains. It would be so interesting to have more information on what exactly happened when these battles took place. Some campaigns were successful, some weren’t, some they were defeated completely, and some were just put into tribute. My guess is that all the analysis in the world would come back to the same conclusion, those who prevailed were obedient to God and those who didn’t, weren’t.
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