Immediately as we enter Judges we get the sense that Israel's spread throughout Canaan comes from within, rather than without. There is this back and forth between the Hebrews and the other Canaanites. Slowly the landscape changes, with periods of Israelite subjugation and periods of Israelite ascendency.
The back-and-forth among the Israelites, constantly falling back into polytheism, followed by the advent of a Judge and the re-assertion of Prophetic Yahwism is almost disorienting in the way it goes down. Highs then lows, the same story over and over again with slightly different actors. One wonders if this is the result of editing, or if it just reflects the fact that the Yahweh Alone Party (the group that believed Yahweh alone should be worshiped by the Hebrews) are just in the minority. Many scholars believe that the Yahweh Alone party almost always found themselves to be the minority, and that people paid lip service to them only in times of crisis. For most everyday Hebrews, polytheism was the 'norm' and monotheism the invention. Worship of Yahweh alone disseminated slowly through the population, only gaining ascendancy during the Exile. This makes a lot of sense, to me.
Some think Ehud was left handed, and this is how he was able to sneak in to kill Eglon. People only checked for weapons on the left side of the body, as most people were right-handed. There is something very believable about the whole story.
The whole Deborah-Sisera pericope is very intersting. Deborah is onethe most prominent women in the Bible, bar none. She is a Judge and so has political power, and she is a religious leader as well.
The whole idea that Barak wants to use Deborah as some kind of token in battle, some kind of good luck charm, and is punisehd for it, is very interesting. It shows how the Hebraic religion was trying to push beyond the superstitious and into the rationally religious. The Deborah story is mostly positive towards women, but there is something like a backhanded compliment going on as well. Sisera's defeat by a woman is like a slap in the face, like it was some kind of insult to be beaten in battle by a woman.
The Canticle of Deborah is ancient and beautiful. It is perhaps one of the oldest writings in the Bible.
It is strange that the Isrelites have conflict with the Midianites, given Moses' connection to the latter. Moses married a Midianite and Miriam was injured by God for criticizing the marriage. What's more many historians believe the name YAHWEH comes from the Midianites. Gideon's reluctant acceptance of God's call is interesting indeed. It mirrors similar stories for Moses, Joshua, and Jeremiah. Being called by God is not something everyone wants to embrace, nor does everyone feel worthy of the call. It is as if God chooses to call those who will not feel worthy, for that humility is key to good leadership.God constantly calls the weakest and lowest. Perhaps this says something profound about the nature of God. I think it does.
The way Gideon 'tests' God is one of the most comical exchanges in scripture. What a strange way to see if God is telling the truth. Gideon refuses to become king. That refusal is both a Biblical commentary on kingship (it is an offense to God), and shows the character of the man. Again Gideon accepts his place as lowest, and refuses high honor.
The ascendancy of a partial king, Gideon's son Abimelech, is probably historical. The son is not as humble as the father. The people are clamoring for a king and a stable political order. Yet the Bible clearly denounces the move. God alone is to be king, according to most of the writers of Judges.
The story of Jephthah's daughter is hard to take. Jephthah is neither chided nor punished for engaging in child sacrifice. Some think that the early Hebrews practiced such sacrifice, and that the stories have been mostly purged from the Bible by later editors. I don't agree with this theory, but the story of Jephthah's daughter certainly gives one pause. The only positive moral lesson is that one should be careful what one promises to God. But certainly God would not be okay with keeping a promise that necessitated killing one's own daughter.
The Shibboleth story is evidence of inter-tribal fighting among the Israelites. There is some dark humor going on here, also. The story of the Birth of Samson sounds much like the story of the birth of Samuel. The consistent theme of barrenness in the Bible, of people being unable to have children, is very telling. Some believe that El-Shaddai, the first official name of God in the Bible, is the name of a fertility God. That the Hebrew religion began as a fertility religion is given some credence by the persistent theme of barren women giving birth throughout the texts. This has huge implications for scriptural interpretation.
People often think that Samson's power was somehow contained in his hair. This is false. Samson was dedicated as a Nazirite, a semi-priestly class that had to undertake certain vows, among them taking no drink and never cutting their hair. Samson broke everyone of these vows, but until he broke them all, his great strength remained. When his hair was cut, the last vow was broken, and his strength left him.
The Spirit of the Lord comes on Samson at strange times. He uses it and its power to exact revenge. It is as if the Spirit of the Lord, whatever that meant at the time, was something Samson could summon. This is a stark contrast to the way Deborah tries to distance herself from a superstitious understanding of God's presence.
Chapter 17 of Judges reveals a shift. It is a shift away from dicouragin a monarchy to encouraging a monarchy. People are doing terrible things and undertaking God's worship in strange ways, and this is attributed to the fact that there is no king to lead the people. The civil war that erupts among the Israelites is no doubt one reason why the monarchy did, in fact, develop.
Micah and his mother engage in an idolatry of Yahweh. They start their own Jewish sect with Micah's house at the center. It is an interesting, if disturbint tale. No doubt this is an ancient story, with roots in history. The editorial additions that attribute this activity to the fact 'that there was no king to guide people' is no doubt a later addition.
The Micah sect spreads to the entire Danites. The Danites are not punished for this idolatry. It is still Yahweh they worship, though in and through this idol. For the Biblcal writer, this is at worst a gentle and forgivable apostasy. Not so for the later prophets. This would have been an exilable offense.
It is fairly clear to me that that Judges chapter 19 is an earlier, more historical version of what we have come to know as the Sodom and Gamorah story. The words used are almost identical. This version is far worse than the Genesis recounting. It is extremely disturbing. This led to the Civil War that sparked the desire for monarchy. Is it any wonder it eventually got associated with the book that deals with more cosmic matters, and the origins of the world?
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