31st August
Read Psalm 124
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
In this song of ascents on the way to the Temple in Jerusalem the people think of past deliverances from enemies that God worked for them. The Scottish Psalter has it, “Now Israel may say and that truly, if that the Lord had not been on our side …”. Horatius Bonar retells the story of this Psalm being sung in the High Street of Edinburgh as a crowd met and joined John Durie, an imprisoned minister, on his release. God has always been in the events of our past and well worthy of praise for that. Remember and give praise to God for the things in your past that show his hand.
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Sometimes those who at first appear to be for us turn out to be acting against us and this is what Abimelek found out three years later when the citizens of Shechem began to rebel against him. They rebelled against him because of his murder of his half-brothers but there was also a coming realisation of their own guilt in the matter which they wanted to get away from. They could not, of course, and neither can any of us who ally ourselves with others in doing dark deeds. Every one will be held accountable before God for all their actions.
The tale takes another turn with a man called Gaal and his clan who moved into Shechem. The people put their trust in him and eventually he turned the people of Shechem against Abimelech but his scheming was heard by Zebul the city governor who arranged that his plans became told to Abimelech who arranged an ambush that eventually overturned Gaal and the people. The city tower was put to the torch by Abimelech leading to the death of the people of Shechem but also to Abimelech, dying under the millstone thrown from the top of the tower by a woman. As the last two verses (56,57) tell, God made the wickedness of the people pay. Evil may seem to prosper for a time but it will never last forever.
Chapter 10 begins with short mentions of two men who judged (i.e. led) Israel for a number of years, Tola and Jair. It’s worth remembering that some men and women never rise to great prominence but nevertheless fulfil important roles in God’s plans for his people. Let their names be remembered though their deeds are not particularly noted.
In v6 we hear again the continuing sad story of Israel “doing evil in the eyes of the Lord”. We should remember that evil is not what we describe it as but what the Lord sees it as. Some people live in ways which they see and define as right but which is not the verdict of God and it is his vision and judgement that counts. The people worshipped the gods of the nations around them, in other words they lived as their neighbours, and this is always the danger of the believer to step out of Church, having listened to God’s Word, even agreeing with what they have heard, and then moving straight into a lifestyle patterned by the social norms of society around. God allows such behaviour to carry on for a time but not for ever. Verse 7 tells us that because they wouldn’t serve him, God sold the people into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites who oppressed all the Israelites on the East side of the Jordan for 18 years but then the Ammonites crossed over to the West side of the Jordan and began oppressing the tribes there. One wonders why those on the West side of the Jordan did nothing to help their brothers on the East side who spent 18 hard years under the heel of their oppressors. Eventually they cried out to God for help acknowledging that they had sinned by forsaking him and worshipping the Baals of the land.
The writer tells us that when the people cried out to God, he told them that he had saved them in the past from many oppressing peoples when they cried out for help but now he is not going to do that, telling them to go and plead with the gods of these other people instead. On hearing this the people began to panic and started to confess their sins telling the Lord to deal with them in whatever way he felt fit but to please rescue them. They began to get rid of their idols and the writer says, “the Lord could bear Israel’s misery no longer” (v16) and we will find rescue coming through another Judge that he is going to raise up.
Sometimes God does not answer us in the way we want when we are in trouble but will leave us to stew in our own juice for a while when we have turned away from him imagining that all will be well. God is strong enough to resist pity for a long time though his care for us never dies.
Thursday Judges 10:17-11:11
The Ammonites were called to arms in Gilead and the citizens of Gilead were gathered together in defence but did not know who would lead them. At this point they turned to a man called Jephthah who was a son of Gilead but through a prostitute so was not considered highly in the family. He was told to leave the area by his brothers because he wasn’t going to get any of the inheritance being the son of another woman. He left to stay elsewhere and became the leader of a rough and ready gang of outlaws (v3). Despite their past history with him, the Gileadites asked him to come and lead them against the enemy offering to make him their head in changed circumstances.
Jephthah is doubtful of their trustworthiness and suggests that they might only stay true to their word whilst he wins against the Ammonites but they now call God to witness against them if they do not keep their word.
Keeping a word is important to God because it is what He does. The commandments stress this. Our words and our actions need to be firmly connected in all that we do, when we say something, we need to keep it.
Friday Judges 11:12-27
Jephthah sought to negotiate with the Ammonites first of all asking why they are attacking the Israelites on the Eastern side of the Jordan between the rivers of the Arnon and Jabbok. This land had been conquered and settled by the Israelites about 300 years before when they had asked the Amorites who lived there for access to cross through the land to get to the Jordan and into the promised land to the West of the Jordan. The Amorites refused and fought with the Israelites but were defeated. The Ammonites who were not living there wanted to make a claim to the land. Jephthah retold the history which can be seen in the book of Numbers 21 but the Ammonites wouldn’t accept this and so it came to war. Jephthah told the to seek the help of their own gods if they thought they could win however he said that The Lord, the Judge would decide.
In the Christian life there are times when the Devil will want to claim parts of our lives that don’t belong to him. Christ has conquered and all of our lives are his; no area of our lives are to be handed over.
This part of the story is one of one of the saddest. It shows the devotion of Jephthah mixed with confusion. The King of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah’s arguments and the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah as he headed to engage the Ammonites. He makes a vow that if the Lord will give the Ammonites into his hand he will devote whatever comes out of his house on returning from victory.
Was Jephthah trying to bargain with God here, it is difficult to say and vow taking was not uncommon but it was considered a serious commitment not to be broken. At any rate it would appear that God was going to test him about his vow. Although some might see a similarity with Abram’s offering of Isaac it should be known that God commanded Abraham in the Isaac story whereas that was not the case with Jephthah on top of which, with the coming of the law, it was known that the sacrifice of children was banned (Leviticus 18:21 & 20:3 and Deuterenomy 12:30-31,,,, 18:10). However Jephthah’s vow was made and kept with the acceptance of his daughter. What a grief at the conclusion of the victory. Both father and daughter were wrong in the deed but righteous in the intent. Sometimes wrong things can be done but with good intentions.
