Days 74&75: Judges 6-13

The spiritual ups and downs of the book of Judges continues.

I've been impressed throughout this reading of the OT with how often the history of the Israelite people is recounted. Whenever God, through a prophet or a judge, challenges His people to live in obedience to His law he bases it on His performance in the past. For example:

When the Israelites cried out to the LORD because of Midian, he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.” (6:7-10)

God has proven Himself powerful and trustworthy. Not only does He have the right to demand our allegiance by His very nature, He has also earned that right by demonstrating for generations His incomparable power and faithfulness.

But that faithfulness has not been reciprocated by His people:

No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side. They also failed to show any loyalty to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) in spite of all the good things he had done for them. (8:33-35)

Amazing. It looks like they would learn, doesn't it? But this seems to be the pattern in the book of Judges.

Gideon makes a point in 6:31 when he says: "If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”  But for some reason, even though these false gods have demonstrated absolutely NO power or life whatsoever, the Israelites are constantly drawn to them. Jephthah now makes the same point in 11:24 when he says: "Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the LORD our God has given us, we will possess." If God is God, He has no need for us to defend Him...yet we have every need to remain in His camp.

I wonder if we spend too much of our time and energy trying to "defend" God...to try to make Him look good? I sometimes get the feeling that some people are trying to be God's PR agent. What do I mean by that? Well, what I DON"T mean is that Christ-followers should just live their lives and be quiet about their faith. I think our faith should be the topic of WAY more conversations than it usually is. But I'm uncomfortable with the attempt to make following Jesus "cool." It's not. If God has power in our lives it will be noticed...and we can talk about it. If He doesn't have power in our lives that, too, will be noticed...no matter how much we talk about it. (I don't think I've done a good job of clearly expressing my thought here but I'm going to leave it for now.)

There's one more troubling event in today's reading.

And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.” (11:30-31)

As it turns out, Jephthah does return in triumph and the first thing he meets coming out of the door of his house is his daughter.

When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break.” (11:35)

He ends up following through on his vow to God to sacrifice his daughter as a burnt offering. Human sacrifice is a completely pagan practice that was not uncommon with the people that the Israelites were driving out of Canaan...and one of the reasons that God is using them to destroy these people. Does God now accept Jephthah's sacrifice? What would God have done if Jephthah had not followed through on his vow? What if Jephthah had reasoned that God doesn't ask for human sacrifices so when I said "the first thing coming out the door" it automatically eliminates people and therefore he sacrificed the goat, say, that was following his daughter out the door?

These are questions that have no answers. But I still find this episode extremely troubling.