Your friend is retiring and you want to honor him for his excellent life of diligence. You plan carefully, calling his adult sons and daughters to know his preferences. You contract for a pleasant venue that is close to his home. You arrange for a local band, and give them the titles of music from his era. The caterer is the best in the area. You work hard because you really love this man and want him to bask in the affection of others who also love him. The occasion has great potential.
Keep this in your mind, we will return to it.
DOWNWARD PROGRESSION God being the King did not work (see Judges 12 as Samuel bowed out and yielded to the demand of the people for a king). Instead, God gave the Israelites judges who were temporary leaders. When that did not work, He gave them kings (Saul, David, Solomon). Continuing their downward course, the warring factions divided the Hebrew people into two nations
(Israel in the north and Judah in the south).
JUDGES PERIOD What was the rationale for this period (approximately 1390-1050 B.C.) in Israel’s history? What was the goal? What was the potential?
Judges were “emergency people.” Israel fell into sin and prayed and repented and God raised up a judge to deliver them and guide them. Judges were pinch hitters. Basic purpose for this period was so God could directly be their King. He wanted a period of Theocratic Government. This era was not to be a democracy, in which people rule; or a monarchy in which one man (the king) rules.
But a theocracy in which God was to rule. God would use a period of Judges because it was the closest form of government to theocracy. It would be the ideal government. No corruption. No waiting for a term of office to expire. The judge did not have to die. No vote of the people.
No administrative machinery to dismantle when Republican judges were “out” and the Democratic judges were “in.” No cabinet to dissolve. No heads of departments to pack up as a new administration came in. After a period of service, they returned to civilian life. Judges could just fade away quietly and people return to a theocratic model as God Himself picked up the reigns.
Judgeships not continuous. There were periods of time when there were no judges. Gaps in judgeships. Some judges served at the same time as other Judges (Samuel was working to build up the nation spiritually in the east while Samson occupied the Philistine on the western frontier).
Even after God ended the theocracy of the Judges Period, a modified theocracy was in place because kings were to rule for God.
ADVANTAGES What were the advantages of such a theocracy? No King. No
parliament or congress. No expensive courts. No central government to support. No high taxes necessary to support a monarchy. No conscripting of sons and daughters required for a standing army, a normal feature of kings.
No middle men–God would be the King of every individual person. In this way, God Himself would be the center of a person’s life–the highest object of their attention.
Was there to be some peace-keeping force? Police? No. Why? Because God wanted the voluntary obedience of His people–so the highest form of government could not employ force to gain this obedience, or it would cease to be an ideal relationship (God is an idealist).
Priests were the only people employed by God prior to the Judges Period. Priests were religious in nature–not military, not political, not civil. If people obeyed God, there would be no need for military, civil or political authority. Instead of detracting from the idea of God being the only ruler, the priests would have added to it by breaking down false duality of “secular” and “sacred.”
Today, we tend to divide the secular world from the sacred world. This is wrong because all life comes from God and is accountable to God. The division in peoples’ minds between secular and sacred implies that man’s life can be other than God-oriented. God wanted Israel to find their center of reference completely in Him.
RETIREMENT CELEBRATION Imagine a retirement celebration. Some of the guests came at 8:00, having misunderstood the start time. The caterer had a flat tired on the way and was late. The band was terrible. It rained and the guest of honor was sick for two days before the big night and his attendance was uncertain. Miserable!
ADVERTISING VALUE LOST The Judges period was as bad as the retirement celebration. Israel was dominated by six different neighborhood nations. The advertising value of Israel as a model of the one True God was lost when they insisted on having a king like the other nations.
How is our advertising value? Israel’s slipped totally off the spiritual stock exchange. How’s ours? If the angels lean over the guard rail of Heaven, do they look down and say, “Opps, there goes so-and-so messing up again,” or do they say, “Oh, that was good. He / she is making God look good.”
Credit: What you have read in these two articles is from Leon Wood’s book
The Distressing Days of the Judges; published by Zondervan’s in 1975.
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