“Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.” Then he leaves Gaza carrying the city gate with him and goes to the Valley of Sorek where he…guess what? Yep. Samson falls in love with another ungodly woman named Delilah who does not have his best interest at heart. The lords of the Philistines bribe Delilah to find out where Samson’s strength lies. As Delilah attempts to uncover his secret, Samson allows her to do some bondage action on him three times; however, Samson is just toying with her. “And it came to pass, when she pestered him daily with her words and pressed him, so that his soul was vexed to death, that he told her all his heart, and said to her, ‘No razor has ever come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaven, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.’” Once again, Samson caves into the pestering of a woman like he did with the Philistine wife and the honey riddle. God has warned His people over and over since the exodus from Egypt not to commingle with the people around them who are walking outside of the presence of the Lord. Samson’s downfall is due to his disobedience as he is a man who walks by sight making decisions based on the lust of the eye and fleshy emotions instead of walking by faith and trusting in the Lord, in His Word, and in His promises. However, the Lord uses Samson’s disobedience to accomplish His purposes but it results in a tragic life for Samson.

“Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison. However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaven.” At the end of his life, when Samson is brought to the temple of the false god Dagon, he prays for the Lord to give him strength one last time so he may take vengeance on the Philistines for the loss of his eyes. The Lord hears his prayer and Samson knocks down the beams of the temple killing about three thousand Philistines which was more than he had killed his entire life. Although Samson suffered major consequences as a result of being a sinful, fleshly driven man, he was still a man who had faith in the Lord as we see here at the end of his life (Hebrews 11:32-34).

Next we meet a man named Micah, from the tribe of Ephraim, who makes a shrine, ephod, and household idols out of the great fortune that he stole from his mother and then returned to her. When Micah returned the shekels of silver back to his mom, she blessed him and told him to make these items. Then Micah made one of his sons a priest. Basically Micah just created his own religion by his own rules. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” And when a Levite named Jonathan, one of Moses’s grandsons, shows up at Micah’s house looking for a place to stay, Micah welcomes him in and makes him his priest. The Levite Jonathan is an example of a priest who offers to serve for his own personal gain and not for the glory of the Lord.

During this time the tribe of Dan is still trying to acquire land for themselves since they failed to drive out the inhabitants of their allocated land during the conquest. So the tribe of Dan sends five men to spy out the land and the spies go to the mountains of Ephraim where they arrive at the house of Micah. There they recognize the voice of the Levite. So the spies from the rebellious tribe of Dan ask the rebellious Levite priest for God’s blessing which is interesting because clearly no one is obeying the Lord. Then the spies go on their way and find some easy to conquer land, a city called Laish. Before the tribe of Dan conquers the land, the spies go back to Micah’s house and say to the Levite priest – “‘Is it better for you to be a priest to the household of one man, or that you be a priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?’ So the priest’s heart was glad; and he took the ephod, the household idols, and the carved image, and took his place among the people.” 😏 Looks like this priest is moving up with his own personal kingdom building.

“So they took the things Micah had made, and the priest who had belonged to him, and went to Laish, to a people quiet and secure; and they struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire…So they rebuilt the city and dwelt there. And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born to Israel…Then the children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set up for themselves Micah’s carved image which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.”

This just shows how far away from the Lord the Israelites are at this point in the Story. Moses’s own grandson leads an entire tribe into idolatry and away from worshiping the true God in the way and place the Lord told His people to worship Him. We will see during the Divided Kingdom Era that this idolatrous city of Dan will continue to be a central place of false worship for Northern Israel. 

Tomorrow we will see another Levite living a life in complete rebellion against the Lord resulting in a very dark outcome. Keep reading.

(Judges 16:1-18:31)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

“Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, …he advanced toward the people of Ammon. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.’” 🧐 Was this vow necessary for the Lord to work on Israel’s behalf? No. I’m not sure what Jephthah was expecting to run out of that house when he returned home after the Lord gave him victory but it was his daughter, his only child, who was playing music and dancing. Well, we read back in Numbers 30:2 “If a man vows a vow to the Lord…he shall not break his word.” Jephthah does not break his word – “he carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man.” Some commentators debate whether she was offered as a burnt offering since this would go against the Lord’s teaching in Leviticus 20:1-5 about not offering human sacrifices. They say she could have been sent to the tabernacle as a servant of the Lord since she went away two months with her friends to mourn her virginity and not her death. 🤷‍♀️ I’m not sure; but I think we get the point about not making foolish vows. The story of Jephthah’s foolish vow becomes so popular with the Israelites that “it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.”

After the victory over the people of Ammon, the prideful men of Ephriam confront Jephthah similar to how they confronted Gideon. Once again they are upset that they weren’t also asked to fight – “Why did you cross over to fight against the people of Ammon, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you with fire!” This results in a battle between the men of Ephraim and the men of Gilead with Gilead defeating Ephraim. Jephthah judges Israel for six year before he dies.

After several more sin cycles and judges, “again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.” This is when we meet Samson. Israel was being oppressed by the Philistines and the Lord appears to a barren woman, the wife of Manoah, and tells her she is going to have a child and “the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” So Samson grows up into a sinful, fleshy driven man who does not have much regard for the Nazareth lifestyle. However, the Lord will send His spirit upon Samson and use him mightily to accomplish His purposes against the pagan Philistines. 

When Samson goes to Timnah, he sees a Philistine woman that he desires to marry but his parents do not want him to marry a Philistine as this would go against the Lord’s teaching. Samson’s parents are not aware of the fact that the Lord is working behind the scenes to use the union to make a move against the Philistines; and a move He makes! The wedding festivities are crazy! Samson ends up killing thirty men to honor a bet he made with some of the male wedding attendants. Then his wife is given to his companion to marry. So out of anger, Samson burns the Philistines fields with torches tied to fox tails. Then the Philistines burn Samson’s wife and her dad. “So he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam.”

The tribe of Judah hands Samson over to the Philistines to avoid trouble. So they tie Samson up securely with ropes and deliver him over. “Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.” 🤯 The Lord is using Samson to carry out His judgement against the Philistines; however, there are always consequences to living a sinful and flesh driven life as we will see with Samson. 

Keep reading because tomorrow Samson falls for another pagan woman which will lead to his downfall.

(Judges 11:29-15:20)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Abimelech reigns for three years until in judgment the Lord sends a spirit of ill will between Abimelech and the men of Shechem for the murder of Gideon’s sons. The men of Shechem choose a new leader, Gaal, to overthrow Abimelech. However, Abimelech and his troops defeat Gaal and his men. Then Abimelech goes on to seize Shechem and kills the people both outside and inside the city. The remaining people flee to the temple of the god Berith for refuge but Abimelech barricades them inside and sets it on fire killing about a thousand men and women.

After the slaughter of Shechem, Abimelech goes to Thebez in an attempt to do the same to the people there. Once again we see the people of the city take refuge in a strong tower. However, Abimelech does not have the same success with burning down this tower. A woman throws a millstone down and crushes his head. Abimelech tells his armor-bearer to thrust his sword through him so no one will say that a woman killed him. Unfortunately for Abimelech, throughout this Story a woman will continue to get credit for his death (2 Samuel 11:21). “Thus God repaid the wickedness of Abimelech, which he had done to his father by killing his seventy brothers. And all the evil of the men of Shechem God returned on their own heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.”

The people seeking safety and security sought refuge in a tower built by man but they never sought the Lord. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). If we run to the Lord in times of trouble and call upon Him through prayer and reading His Word we will remember His goodness and His sovereignty and we shall find peace and rest for our souls. However, the children of Israel don’t experience this peace for long because they keep seeking fulfillment outside of the Lord.

Again the Israelites return to doing evil and serving other gods. “So the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon. From that year they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel for eighteen years —all the children of Israel who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, in Gilead.” Then the Israelites cry out to God until “His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel.”

The children of Israel gather together and ask who is the man that will fight Ammon? So God raises up a man to lead the people. This is when we meet Jephthah, a mighty man of valor and a son of a harlot. His half brothers drove him away from home but when Ammon makes war against Israel the elders of Gilead, who are now desperate, call Jephthah to come back and save them. Jephthah responds, “If you take me back home to fight against the people of Ammon, and the Lord delivers me, shall I be your head?” The elders of Gilead say yes!

When the Amorites accuse Israel of taking their land, Jephthah says that the land is theirs because the Lord gave it to them. “‘Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May the Lord, the Judge, render judgment this day between the children of Israel and the people of Ammon.’ However, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words which Jephthah sent him.”

Tomorrow Jephthah makes a really foolish vow to the Lord. 🤦‍♀️ Keep reading to find out what happens!

(Judges 9:22-11:28)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Gideon and his men go to camp close to the Midianites in preparation for battle. “And the Lord said to Gideon, ‘The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” So God narrows Gideon’s army of 32,000 men down to 300 men and arms them with unusual weapons of war, trumpets and empty pitchers with torches inside; “and they blew the trumpets and broke the pitchers that were in their hands…they held the torches in their left hands and the trumpets in their right hands for blowing—and they cried, ‘The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!’” At the sound and sight of the army of Gideon, the Lord confuses the Midianites and “the Lord set every man’s sword against his companion throughout the whole camp; and the army fled.” 

After the initial attack, Gideon calls for the rest of the men of Ephriam to join them in pursuing the Midianites. When the prideful men of Ephraim catch up to Gideon they say “‘Why have you done this to us by not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites?’ And they reprimanded him sharply.” 😏 See, these men, who only care about their own recognition and their own agenda, have no clue that this is the Lord’s battle and that He chooses who will fight and how they will fight! However, Gideon responds by giving them the recognition they want and then he continues on with the work that the Lord has for him.  

Once the Lord gives Gideon final victory over the Midianites, the people want Gideon to rule over them but he smartly declines and tells the people that the Lord shall rule over them. However, Gideon’s humble words do not align with his prideful actions as he asks the people to bring him earrings from the plunder. Gideon goes on to make an ephod, a garment worn by the priests, out of the gold which becomes a snare to Israel because anything we elevate other than the Lord always becomes a snare. So Gideon began well with the Lord but success leads him to sin. We see that a now prideful Gideon acquires many wives and has seventy sons. However, the Lord gives the Israelites forty years of peace. 

“So it was, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-Berith their god. Thus the children of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side; nor did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (Gideon) in accordance with the good he had done for Israel.” So Gideon’s son from his concubine in Shechem, Abimelech, kills sixty eight of Gideon’s seventy sons so he can rule over Israel. Then the men of Shechem crown Abimelech as king.

Jotham, Gideon’s youngest son who escaped the slaughter, runs to the top of Mount Gerizim where he shouts down a parable to the people warning them of their new king. Jotham tells of worthy trees bearing good fruit who did not want to be king but the unworthy bramble did. This unworthy bramble will not provide any good shelter or protection for the people. Jotham says that the city of Shechem will be repaid for foolishly choosing such an unworthy leader.

Tomorrow we see Jotham’s warning come true as the Lord sends a spirit of ill will between Abimelech and the men of Shechem. Keep reading.

(Judges 7:1-9:21)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Today we begin another sin cycle – “When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth Hagoyim. And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and for twenty years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel.” 

“Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time. And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.” Deborah calls for Barak, a commander of the Israelites, and asks him why he hasn’t attacked Sisera’s army as the Lord commanded. Barak responds, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!” So Deborah tells Barak, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”

The Lord gives Barak and the Israelites great victory over Sisera’s army. “However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite.” Jael welcomes Sisera into her tent, covers him with a blanket, gives him warm milk, and…“Then Jael, took a tent peg and a hammer in her hand and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” Wow! ⛺️ 🔨 😱 Peg in the head kills Sisera and Jael, a woman, gets the glory as Deborah predicted. Then Deborah and Barak sing, “Most blessed among women is Jael…At her feet he sank, he fell; Where he sank, there he fell dead.” “So the land has rest for forty years.”

“Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel…So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.” Then the Angel of the Lord appears to Gideon who is hiding from the Midianites in the wine press. I love how God says to this fearful man in hiding, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” God sees Gideon for the man he will be because the Lord will be with him! But Gideon reminds me of Moses and how Moses first responded to the Lord at the burning bush by saying who was he to go and deliver the children of Israel from Egypt (Exodus 3:11). Gideon too questions God saying, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” Well you can’t Gideon. That’s the whole point. But the One who can save Israel will be with you just like He was with Moses! So God responds to Gideon saying, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.”

Gideon, like Moses, receives a sign from the Lord to help build his faith. An Angel of the Lord touches with His staff the offering that Gideon prepared “and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread.” Gideon goes on to obey the Lord by tearing down the altar of Baal that his father has, cutting down the wooden image beside it, and building an altar to the Lord in its place. When the men of the city discover what Gideon did they want to kill him but Joash intervenes and says about Baal – “‘If he is a god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down!’ Therefore on that day he called him [Gideon] Jerubbaal, saying, ‘Let Baal plead against him, because he has torn down his altar.’”

However Gideon is still uncertain about his calling to save Israel so he asks the Lord for more signs to help build his faith. And the Lord responds by graciously wetting and drying the fleece for Gideon. Now Gideon is ready for battle. Keep reading because tomorrow Gideon goes to war against the Midianites!

(Judges 3:31-6:40)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

The Israelites’ failure to drive the Canaanites out of the land is going to impact the children of Israel for generations. The Lord says to Israel, “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’” 

We sadly learn that after Joshua and his generation died, “another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.” Welcome to the Judges Era which is defined by everyone doing what is right in their own sight (Judges 17:6, 21:25). This never goes well! The children of Israel are intermarrying with the nations around them, worshiping their gods, and doing all kinds of evil in the sight of the Lord. Therefore, the Lord allows their enemies to overtake them. When the people cry out to the Lord, He raises up a judge or military leader to rescue them. This is called the sin cycle: Israel serves the Lord and experiences peace – Israel does evil – Israel is oppressed by their enemies – Israel cries out – God raises up a judge – Israel is delivered – and repeat. This cycle happens seven times over about a three hundred and fifty year period with twelve different judges, some serving during overlapping periods, in the book of Judges. We will meet two more judges, Eli and Samuel, when we get to the Kingdom Era.

However, we see that the Lord is always in control and He is using the Israelites disobedience to test them, teach them, and train them – “Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan (this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it), namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. And they were left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.” 

The Lord was training His children to fight and stand firm in obedience to Him and His Word; however, the children of Israel disobeyed the Lord. Because of the people’s disobedience, the Lord sells them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, for eight years. Othniel, Caleb’s son-in-law, delivers them and they have peace for forty years. After Othniel dies, the children of Israel are back to doing evil. And here we go… The Lord delivers them to Elgon, king of Moab for eighteen years. When the Israelites cry out, He raises up Ehud to deliver them. Ehud shoves a dagger in fat Elgon’s belly killing him and Israel has peace for eighty years. 

Tomorrow we will meet the only female judge. Keep reading!

(Judges 1:1-3:30)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching