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Lawrence Boadt continues his summary of the book
of Judges….
The editors who recorded these traditions saw that the
period of the judges represented a spirit of compromise with the pagan culture
of the land. It was the greatest sin of the tribes and one which would be
repeated again and again in Israel’s later history. For this reason, the
editors repeatedly used a pattern to describe the period: the people sin, bring down Yahweh’s wrath upon themselves, later
repent, are delivered by a judge sent by God, and finally gain peace while the
judge lives. Naturally the real history of the times was much more complex,
with many ups and downs that are not recorded in this book. It seems that most
of the stories we do have involved only a few tribes and came from local
memories rather than from wars waged by Israel as a whole. These were passed on
orally at first among the tribes, and some have developed into full-blown hero
legends in which the judge is bigger and more glorious than any normal person.
Such is the case with the story of Gideon in Judges 6-8 and of Samson in Judges
13-16.
The picture that ermerges shows an Israelite
confederation of twelve tribes still struggling to find unity among themselves
at the same time they fought for footholds in different parts of the Canaanite
territory. It was a time of small local wars and defensive fighting against
desert nomads. The Song of Deborah in Judges 5 reveals that often one or more
of the tribes would not come to the aid of others.[1]
In the story of Gideon, in Judges 6, we have the
well-known account of laying out the fleece to discern God’s guidance. I am
sure countless people since the time of Gideon have used this same method in
one form or another. In order to discern whether it was God’s will for him to
start a radio program called The Hour of
Decision in the early 1950s, Billy Graham “laid out the fleece” of money.
If a certain amount of money was raised by a certain time, he would move ahead.
If not, then he would not. The money was raised and The Hour of Decision went ahead.
In Judges 7, we have another example of YHWH
conducting war in a manner very unlike human methods. The Lord actually has
Gideon limit the number of men he takes to war against the Midianites. In fact
the number is so small (300) that there is seemingly no way they can be
successful without God’s help. And this is just the point, the Lord wants the
Israelites to learn once again to depend upon him and him alone, not their own
resources.
Gideon, like most biblical characters, has his
good points and his bad points. After he is victorious in battle, the
Israelites want to make him king, but in humility, he refuses. He says that the
Lord alone will rule over Israel. However, this moment of proper God-focus does
not prevent Gideon from later making an idol out of a golden ephod and the
Israelites end up worshipping it.
I think this is one reason why so many people
have found so much help in the Bible for so many centuries: the Bible shows us
humanity in all of its reality, “warts and all,” not an idealized picture. The
Bible shows us that human beings submitted to God can do great things, but
apart from God humans can do disastrous things.
The question is: are we submitting ourselves to
God and seeking his will as Gideon did early in his life, or are we going our
own way as Gideon did toward the end?
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