士师记

Meditative Reflection
Idol Worship by God’s People?

“…she said, ‘I solemnly consecrate my silver to the Lord for my son to make a carved image and a cast idol'.” (Jdg. 17:3)

The household of Micah in Judges 17 was a very interesting home. It appears that he had a mother who was very devout. She believed in Yahweh, but she was quick to curse anyone who might have stolen her treasured silver. But when the truth was known that it was her son whom she cursed, she quickly tried to negate her curse with consecrating the silver to the Lord, except that it was to be made into a carved image and a cast idol, totally contrary to the Ten Commandments. She actually used two hundred shekels out of the total eleven hundred shekels of silver for that purpose. One wonders what happened to the remaining nine hundred shekels!

To be honest, I thought I was reading one of those folk legends in ancient China. In fact, it also reminds me of the society in which I grew up back in Hong Kong. Many of my friends and neighbors had a shrine at home, consecrated to one of the many gods popular in the Chinese society. There were those who made one of their rooms or backyards into a shrine with very expensive statues of idols. They offered incense to their gods religiously daily, and yes, some of them would not hesitate to curse when they were offended.

But the story in Judges 17 should be different. It is about the people of God who had experienced miraculous deliverance by the Lord time after time, who had the Law of Moses giving clear instructions against idol worship, and who had priests who were supposed to teach and guide them in the ways of the Lord. And yet…

I can see the wisdom of God in prohibiting the carving of even His image “in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below” (Exod. 20:4). Not only because such an action amounts to reducing the Creator God to a creature, it also paved the way for the worship of other idols!

These days, even some Evangelical Christians are leaning towards the acceptance of images of Mary and of other saints, saying that it is okay as long as we do not worship them but use them as a tool for reflection, not knowing that we are following the footsteps of the Israelites in the time of Judges and soon every believer would do as they see fit (Jdg. 17:6).

Meditative Reflection
The Royal Priesthood

“I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah…looking for a place to stay.” (Jdg. 17:9)

The priest who sojourned in Bethlehem was probably called Jonathan (Jdg. 18:30), and when he came to Micah, he introduced himself by saying, “I’m a Levite” (Jdg. 17:9). What does he mean by saying, “I’m a Levite”? It is very different from saying that “I’m a Benjamite or a Danite”.

They belong to the Lord: Unlike the other 11 tribes of Israel, the tribe of Levite was not allotted any land in Canaan because, and the Bible explains, “That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance” (Deut. 10:9).

They are devoted to serving the Lord: While not all Levites are priests, they all have a very special role among the people of God, as Moses explains: “Isn’t it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near himself to do the work at the Lord’s tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself…” (Num. 16:9, 10).

They own no land: And when God, through Moses and Joshua assigned them 46 cities within which they will live (Num. 35 and Jos. 21), the idea is that their houses would be their primary possession, not the land, since “the task of the Levites is to serve the people at the sanctuary and to teach them the law, they are not to be burdened with farming and shepherding” (Hartley, WBC, Leviticus, 440).

Such was the meaning of “I’m a Levite”.

Since we have now become, in the New Testament, a royal priesthood, we do carry a similar meaning as we say to the world, “I’m a Christian”—in that we belong to the Lord, we are totally devoted to serving the Lord and this world is not our home (1 Pet. 2:9).

Meditative Reflection
Invoking the Name of the Lord

“When you get there, you will find an unsuspecting people and a spacious land that God has put into your hands, a land that lacks nothing whatever.” (Jdg. 18:10)

Twice in this passage the name of the Lord was being invoked concerning the capturing of the land of this “unsuspecting people” by the Danites.

The name of the Lord was first invoked by the “priest” when he was asked to inquire of God by the five spies from Dan whether their journey would be successful.

Then, upon returning to Zorah and Eshtaol, the spies encouraged their brethren, like Joshua and Caleb before them, to attack these people and invoked the name of God, presumably because these people were easy prey.

In both cases, one has to wonder if God was really in it or gave approval to their cause and action as alleged.

As we know, this priest did not serve the Lord alone, but the gods and idols within the shrine set up by the household of Micah (while the tabernacle with its ark was still in Shiloh). He was not appointed by God nor was he in the prescribed place specified by God. Worse, he was serving idols at the same time as the Lord. There was no doubt that he was not pleasing to God. Then, would God have spoken through him? The Bible does not tell us that this priest did inquire of the Lord; he simply gave almost like an immediate answer to the spies. But he invoked the name of the Lord just the same.

Then, the five spies encouraged their brethren to take the land of these people, obviously aided by the promise of the priest on God’s behalf, but not necessarily so. Their main emphasis seemed to be that it was an “unsuspecting people”. Someone once said, “The task given to us by God is always beyond what we can do.” I do not think that it was necessarily the case. I believe that the difficulty of the task or the lack thereof should not be the criterion to decide if it is of the Lord.

Josiah decided to take on the mighty Pharaoh Necho and was killed as a result (2 Chr. 35:20-27), and the Israelites under Joshua attacked the small city of Ai and were easily defeated (Jos. 7:4).

While the seeking of God’s will is a very personal matter, in most cases the Scriptures have already provided us with plain ethical or biblical principles as our guide. In cases where ethical or biblical principles are not violated, we still should be very careful to invoke the name of the Lord, unless we are clearly guided by the Holy Spirit, or, we will not only bring harm to ourselves, but shame to His name also.

Meditative Reflection
A Priest for Hire

“Isn’t it better that you serve a tribe and clan in Israel as priest rather than just one man’s household?” (Jdg. 18:19)

I was very blessed with being invited to serve at a certain church even before I graduated from the seminary. At the time, I was doing my internship in another church and they had been more than gracious to me, not only in offering an internship to me, but also in offering me a permanent position to me after my graduation. Because of how gracious this existing church had been to me, I indicated to the other church that I would at least serve in the existing church after my graduation for the same duration of my internship in order to repay my debt of love to them, even though in my own prayerful seeking before the Lord, I knew this offer before my graduation would be most helpful in grooming and training a new pastor like me.

At the news of my leaving this church of internship, one of the leaders made a remark to my wife that she understood that it was good for me to serve at the other church quoting a Chinese proverb that it was a case of a person looking for higher ground (of promotion).

I know many Christians abuse “the will of God” as an excuse for doing their own thing, but it is still of utmost importance for the servants of the Lord to seek God’s will and obey it, irrespective of what others may say about them. However, hearing that comment really hurt me, because it amounted to others seeing me, a servant of the Lord, as someone who is looking for opportunities for advancement, treating the gospel ministry like a secular job.

However, such was the attitude of this priest (if we can call him such) who “was glad” to be able to serve a tribe and a clan in Israel, rather than just one man’s household (Jdg. 18:19). In essence, he was a priest for hire! But no true servant of the Lord is for hire! The Apostle Paul sets a very good example in this respect.

On the one hand, Paul insists that there is nothing wrong for those who toil for the gospel to reap material benefits from it (1 Co. 9:11, 13, 14). On the other hand, he would not take a dime from the church in Corinth (1 Co. 9:15), because as a servant of the Lord, he was not for hire.

I hope the churches of Jesus Christ would not look upon their pastors as hired-guns. They are not their employees, but shepherds of their souls. As a result, I would urge churches not to enter into a “contract of employment” with their pastors, but a “Covenant” after the heart of God, to distinguish the body of Christ from secular enterprises and temples of idolatry (which this priest had turned the shrines of Micah and of the Danites into).

Meditative Reflection
Worse than Sodom

“Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” (Jdg. 19:22)

The horrible crime committed by the wicked men in Gibeah immediately reminds us of the wickedness of Sodom, except that this was worse.

It was worse because Sodom was a city that did not know God, but Gibeah, being a city within the land of the Benjamites, was a city that belonged to the people of Israel. Even though this period was coined a period where everyone did as they saw fit, such a blatant violation of God’s command and human decency by the people of God was simply beyond imagination and understanding. One wonders what happened to the people of God, given the fact that the ark of the covenant of God was still there (20:27), meaning that as bad as they were, they still had a high priest in Phinehas, and the Law of Moses was still being read in worship.

I agree with many of the commentaries on this issue, and that is their spiritual and moral decadence had to do with the fact that they failed to drive out the Canaanites from their midst, and so we learn earlier on that the Benjamites failed “to dislodge the Jebusites who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live here with the Benjamites” (Jdg. 1:21).

It is clear from subsequent events that these wicked men were not Jebusites, but Benjamites. They could not blame the Jebusites but themselves in that they had followed their gods and their immoral culture, and in fact, had far-exceeded them in their wickedness.

The Apostle Paul is correct: “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Co. 15:33).

Meditative Reflection
A Different Time, A Different Culture?

“When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.” (Jdg. 19:29)

When I was younger, one of my relatives (the husband of one of the sisters of my mum) was murdered and they found his body cut up into pieces, wrapped in a plastic bag. It was considered such a wicked crime that it shocked the entire city at the time. It was so horrific that it left a lasting impression on me.

Therefore, as I read this story of the gang-rape of the concubine of the Levite, I was as horrified just as you were, I am sure. However, the cutting up of the body of the dead concubine by the Levite seemed to have horrified me even more.

Of course, the horrors of the two events are different.

On the one hand, I was horrified by the wickedness of such a gang-rape and murder committed by these men of Gibeah who were supposed to be the people of God. On the other hand, I was horrified by the barbaric nature of the action of this Levite which in itself was not necessarily wicked.

Given the “wild-wild-west” nature and the prevalent Canaanite culture of the time, perhaps, the more barbaric the action of the Levite (who was the victim) was, the more horrific the nature of the crime of the gang-rape and murder was portrayed! This appears to be exactly how the entire people of Israel perceived when they saw the body parts delivered before them.

Putting his barbaric action aside, I could see the good nature of this Levite who was able to forgive the unfaithfulness of his concubine, and the cutting up of her body into parts, perhaps, revealed the deepest level of his grief over the wickedness that befell the one he dearly loved.

Well, it was a different time in history and in culture!

Meditative Reflection
Unity at Last?

“So all the men of Israel got together and united as one man against the city.” (Jdg. 20:11)

From the beginning of the book of Judges, we learn that basically all the tribes of Israel had failed to drive away their enemies: Some were even driven back to the mountains, some were forced to co-exist with the Canaanites and the more successful ones could only force the Canaanites into forced labor (Jdg. 1). True, at times, two tribes joined together to help one another (Jdg. 1:3), and the 2½ tribes east of Jordan were supposed to assist the rest to capture their land before they returned to their own families (Jos. 1:12-18). But from the accounts in the rest of the book of Joshua and the book of Judges, it is obvious that for the most part, each of the tribes had to fight on their own, and their success was very limited. In other words, they were one people under God by name, but in essence, they were a divided people. That was until this horrific crime committed by the Benjamites in the city of Gibeah. 400,000 soldiers armed with swords (Jdg. 20:2) were instantly gathered to punish the Benjamites.

Of course, it was absolutely right that they should be united to seek justice for such a horrific crime not only committed by the men of Gibeah, but given protection by the tribe of Benjamites. One wonders why the Benjamites would choose to protect such criminals in their midst. But, irrespective of their reason, the rest of the people of Israel were fully justified to seek justice and they did so by first asking for the surrender of the criminals. It was only when the request was refused that they resorted to the use of violence.

However, I cannot help but wonder what if they exhibited the same unity in capturing the entire land of Canaan.

I find the same is true of the churches today, sadly. It appears that we are far more zealous in fighting against one another within the church than confronting the world at large. If we apply the same passion in church fights to reaching the lost, the time that “the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world” (Matt. 24:14) will come much sooner!