Why Judges Is In The Bible

Jacqui 0:00

Have you ever read a Bible story and thought, wait, why is this in here? The good guys make terrible choices, people get hurt, and God keeps showing up anyway. That's the book of Judges. Judges is hard to read, but it can teach you something you'll use throughout the Bible. When scripture tells you what someone did, that doesn't mean God approved of it. Well, welcome everyone. I'm your host, Jacqui Adewole, and this is the Bible Basics Podcast, where we break down the basics of the Bible into understandable bite-sized chunks. Today we're in the book of Judges. It's the seventh book of the Bible, right after Joshua. Here's the big idea of the whole book in one sentence. Israel turns away from God again and again, facing the consequences and receiving help from the God they keep leaving behind. This season we're talking about reading the Bible with confidence. And Judges is a great place to practice one simple skill. The Bible tells the truth about people, even when the truth is ugly. So a quick heads up. Judges has some of the most violent and disturbing stories in the Bible abuse, idol worship, people in power, hurting people without power. If you've ever read one of those stories and wondered, why is this in there? That's a fair question. The writer included them on purpose. He wants you to see what happened when people walked away from God. The writer doesn't clean it up.

Setting The Stage After Joshua

Jacqui 1:59

So where are we in the big story of the Bible? Well, God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, he led them through the desert, then under a leader named Joshua, they moved into the land God had promised them, a place called Canaan. The people already living there are called the Canaanites. They weren't one nation. Think of them as a patchwork of groups, each with its own towns, its own kings, and its own gods. Some of their worship practices were brutal. The Bible says some of them even sacrificed their children. God told Israel to drive them out of the land, not to live among them, not to have relationships with them, and not to become like them. Now Joshua has died, and there's no king. Israel is twelve tribes, twelve big family groups spread out across the land. Judges covers what happens from Joshua's death to the start of Israel's kings. That's about 400 years. We don't know for sure who wrote it, but the writer is looking back on this whole stretch of time and he keeps coming back to one line. Look at that last line of the book, Judges chapter twenty one, verse twenty five. In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did as they saw fit. Everyone did as they saw fit. Keep that line in mind, we'll come back to it. One more thing before we start. The

The Cycle That Keeps Repeating

Jacqui 3:45

word judge, when you hear judge or judges, you probably picture a courtroom, a robe, a gavel. In this book, a judge is a leader God sends to rescue his people. Picture a rescuer. Now let's talk about how things start to slide. Chapter two gives us the starting point. Judges chapter two verse seven says The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived him. So far so good. Then three verses later, everything changes. Another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he'd done for Israel. Now let's slow down. One generation, that's all it took. The Joshua generation died, and the new generation grew up without knowing the Lord or understanding what he'd done for Israel. The book doesn't tell us exactly how that happened. Think of a family business. Grandad started it with a clear purpose. By the time the grandkids take over, they're running the shop, but they have no idea why it exists. That's Israel. So Israel didn't drive out the Canaanites like God commanded. They settled in next door to them, and little by little they started becoming like them. They marry into their families, they pick up their gods, the people who are supposed to be different start looking like everyone else. And then comes a phrase you'll hear over and over in this book. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. It shows up again and again, almost like a drumbeat. Every time you hear it, a pattern kicks off. Israel turns away from God. Trouble comes usually from a neighboring nation. Israel cries out to God. God sends a rescuer, a judge. There's peace for a while. Then the judge dies and it starts all over again. Now look closely at one part of that pattern. Israel cries out to God. They're suffering and they want help. Sometimes the book tells us a little about what has changed in their hearts. But in chapter 10, the people admit they've sinned, got rid of their foreign gods, and they serve the Lord. So their cries aren't all the same. But one thing keeps happening. After a judge dies, Israel turns away again. And God keeps seeing their suffering. So why did they turn away? The Canaanites worship gods like Baal, B A A L. They believed Baal controlled the rain and the harvest, and Israel was made up of farmers. Rain meant food. Rain meant survival. So you can see the pull. Hmm, maybe we should cover our basis. And the cycle doesn't just repeat, it gets worse. Chapter two says each time a judge died, the people went back to ways even more corrupt than before. It's a spiral and it keeps going down.

Deborah, Gideon, Samson Up Close

Jacqui 7:24

Now let's talk about the rescuers, the judges. The book tells us about more than a dozen of these rescuers. Let's meet three of them. One early, one in the middle, and one near the end of this period. Watch what happens to them. First, Deborah. She's a prophet, someone God speaks through, and she leads Israel. People come to her to settle their disputes while she sits under a palm tree. When an enemy army is crushing Israel, she calls a man named Barak and tells him God wants him to lead the troops. Barak says, He'll go if Deborah goes with him. So she does. At the right moment she tells him to advance, and God gives Israel the victory. Deborah listens to God, gives clear direction, and stays with Barak as he takes that step. Later, the two of them sing about what God had done. The next judge we'll look at is Gideon. His story is in Judges chapters six through eight. When we meet Gideon, he's hiding. He's threshing wheat in a wine press, which is a pit in the ground, so the enemy won't see him. And by the way, threshing wheat means going through a process of separating the wheat from the chaff. So he's doing that in this pit and hiding from the enemy. And an angel shows up and says in chapter six, verse twelve, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Mighty warrior, the guy's hiding in a hole. Gideon pushes back. He says his clan is the weakest and he's the least in his family. God uses him anyway. Gideon starts by tearing down an altar to Baal. Then with just three hundred men, God gives him a huge win. But here's how Gideon's story ends. He takes gold from the battle and makes a religious object out of it, and the whole nation starts worshiping it. The man who tore down an idol at the start of his story leaves one behind at the end. And lastly, we'll look at Samson. You may have heard of him, the strongest man in the Bible, long hair, lions, Delilah, does that ring a bell? Samson was set apart for God before he was even born. And he spends most of his life chasing whatever he wants. He ignores his calling, he fights for personal revenge. He keeps choosing Delilah even as she keeps trying to betray him. Eventually she does. His hair is cut, and Judges chapter 16, verse 20 has one of the saddest lines in the book. Samson did not know that the Lord had left him. The Philistines capture him. They blind him and put him in chains. But that's not the end of his story. The Philistines bring Samson into the temple of their God to entertain them. There Samson prays for strength one more time. He pushes against the pillars holding up the building, and the temple falls on him and the Philistines gathered inside. Judges says Samson killed more people in his death than in his life. God gives Samson strength for that final act, but Samson dies with the people he was called to fight. It's a powerful ending and a tragic one. Now, look at the change. Deborah leads with wisdom and courage. Gideon wins a great victory, but leaves behind an object for the people to worship. Samson has remarkable strength. His choices lead him into captivity, and his final act against the Philistines cost him his life. As the book goes on, even the rescuers show how deeply Israel needs help.

No King And Everything Unravels

Jacqui 12:04

The last five chapters of Judges have no judge at all, and this is where the line we started with keeps showing up. No king, everyone did as they saw fit. First, a man named Micah sets up his own shrine at home with an idol made from stolen silver. He hires his own priest. He's building a religion that fits him. Then it gets much darker. Chapters nineteen through twenty one tell of a woman who is brutally abused and killed. Her death leads to a civil war that nearly wipes out one of Israel's tribes. And the harm doesn't end with the war. When the surviving men need wives, other women are forcibly taken. I'm not going to walk through the details today. They're hard to read. But I don't want to pass over the women in these chapters as if they're just part of the background. The people who should have protected them fail them. Violence leads to more violence. By the end of Judges, Israel is a disaster. And here's something you can't hear in the NIV translation that we're using. That phrase as they saw fit. In the original language, it's right in their own eyes. And some Bible translations say it that way. So the book opens with Israel doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, and it ends with everyone doing what's right in their own eyes. Well, that's the whole book in two lines. Whose eyes decide what's right? And then the book closes with that line one last time. In those days Israel had no king, everyone did as they saw fit.

Longing For A Better Rescuer

Jacqui 14:06

The writer is saying Israel needs a king, a leader who will point them back to God. And Israel does get kings in the books that come next. Some are good, many of them fail too. So judges leaves you longing for a rescuer who won't fall apart, one who won't need rescuing himself. And that longing runs through the whole Bible. It's one unfolding rescue story and it points all the way to Jesus. So why is a book this messy in the Bible? Because the choice at the center of judges is the choice at the center of the whole Bible. Every person and every generation decides whether to follow God or to do what seems right in their own eyes. And most of us know that cycle. We drift, things fall apart, we cry out to God, things get better, and then we drift again. But look at what God does in this book. Again and again Israel cries out and God sees their misery. Chapter two says he responds to their groaning. And here's something that might surprise you. Centuries later, the New Testament book of Hebrews lists heroes of faith, and it names Gideon, Barak, and Samson. Gideon, who was hiding when God called them, Barak, who went into battle only with a Deborah at his side, and Samson, blinded and captive, called on God for strength one last time. Their faith was shaky. God was faithful. That's judges. People who keep failing and a God who keeps coming back for them. So when you read a story in Judges and think, why is this in the Bible? Don't assume the person at the center of the story is someone you're meant to copy. Ask what their choices led to. Ask who was hurt, and ask what the story shows you about God. Judges gives us plenty of human failure to face. It also shows us a God who sees suffering and keeps reaching toward his people. So here's something to think about. Where do you see that cycle in your own life right now? What would it look like to bring your need to God right where you are? Next time we'll turn to Ruth. It's a short story set during the days of the judges. After all the chaos we've seen here, Ruth lets us watch a few people who choose faithfulness in ordinary life. Until then, keep reading, keep seeking, and keep growing in your faith.