Day 77 of the podcast, reading Judges 1-3 NET, read along at:
https://netbible.org/bible/Judges+1-3/
This is day 77 of our journey.
The book of Judges begins with a recap of the conquest of the Promised land. Once the major battles were complete, the individual tribes went to their allotted territories to take possession of them. Unfortunately, every single tribe failed to completely drive the indigenous people out as God had called them to do. Instead, they lived amongst them, began to intermarry with them, and even started to worship their gods. As a result, God removed his blessing from their conquest. We then get a summary of what is to come, a cycle of trouble: the Israelites turn away from God, God allows them to be overrun and enslaved for a time, the Israelites call out for help, God raises a judge to deliver them, Israel rejoices in God for a time, and then, sadly, the cycle repeats. The rest of judges will introduce us to 12 passes through that cycle and 12 judges that delivered Israel.
The first 2 of these judges are Othniel (the brother of Caleb) and Ehud (a left-handed man). The story of Ehud is one of my favorites, listen carefully to the details given!
Join me in Judges 1-3 as Israel begins their long descending cycle of apostasy.
Key verses:
Judges 1:19
The Lord was with the men of Judah. They conquered the hill country, but they could not conquer the people living in the coastal plain, because they had chariots with iron-rimmed wheels.
Judges 2:20-21
The Lord was furious with Israel. He said, “This nation has violated the terms of the covenant I made with their ancestors by disobeying me. 21 So I will no longer remove before them any of the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died,
Judges 3:6
They took the Canaanites’ daughters as wives and gave their daughters to the Canaanites; they worshiped their gods as well.
All Scriptures are from the NET.
