God, Who Raised Up Judges

7The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth. 8Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim eight years. 9When the children of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised up a savior to the children of Israel, who saved them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. 10Yahweh’s Spirit came on him, and he judged Israel; and he went out to war, and Yahweh delivered Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. His hand prevailed against Cushan Rishathaim. 11The land had rest forty years, then Othniel the son of Kenaz died. 12The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight. 13He gathered the children of Ammon and Amalek to himself; and he went and struck Israel, and they possessed the city of palm trees. 14The children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. 15But when the children of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised up a savior for them, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. The children of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab.

With their hearts turned away from God, the Israelites took Canaanite daughters as wives, gave their own daughters to Canaanite sons, and served the idols those people served. That they forgot Yahweh means that they mislaid something precious: instead of keeping God at the center, they cast him out of their hearts. Once in Canaan, Israel lacked nothing. God was therefore no longer anyone special to them; he was a god they did not need. All along he had given them many opportunities and much grace to bring them into the promised land of Canaan, yet they clung to a thoroughly human way of life.

So Yahweh was angry, and when Cushan Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, attacked Israel, he did not hold him back. The name Cushan Rishathaim means “Cushan of double wickedness.” In other words, he was twice as wicked, which tells us how cruel a man he was.

Scripture says that God sold Israel into their hands. This does not mean that he deliberately made them suffer; it means that he did not stop the attack. It belongs with the statement that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh blocked the Exodus and gave in only after the ten plagues, and when Scripture says that God made Pharaoh wicked, it means that God left his wicked nature as it was.

When God’s protection left Israel, the nations attacked; unable to bear the suffering, the people cried out, and God raised up judges to save them. Twelve judges appear in the book of Judges, and they served as a foreshadowing of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. God raised up judges because human beings cannot save themselves; he appointed them to take up the role of the Savior who would come into this land of sin.

Whenever Israel escaped suffering and found peace, they forgot God’s grace, exalted themselves, and kept God at a distance. Having left God, they fell into corruption no different from the people of the world. Yet human beings have no capacity whatever to do good, no strength or ability to keep themselves, and no wisdom to protect their lives. If human beings could do good by themselves and had the power to protect their lives, then the cross of Jesus, who died for sinners, would be utterly in vain.

God had been working all this time to become Israel’s king, but they forsook him and served foreign gods. Perhaps such betrayal is only to be expected of human beings born as children of Satan. Serving Asherah and Baal and having cast off God’s law, Israel sank into pleasure and immorality. Only when we live with God at the center can we come to know what he intends, and so live the life of faith.

The word for idol means “nothing,” “emptiness,” “there is nothing there.” Israel, chosen by the almighty God, the Creator, became the slave of idols that are nothing and that leave a person emptier the more they are trusted. Their spirits, which God had once filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, became as empty as a place the wind has swept through, and their lives bore no fruit. Confident that they could live without God, they sought him only after eight years of slavery and oppression under a foreign power. How could those who had betrayed the God who always gave them peace and rest turn to seek him the moment trouble came? Their shamelessness reaches to the heavens.

It is all the more grievous to see God answer such people again simply because they cry out—people who seek him in trouble and discard him in peace. This is not because human beings are anything remarkable; it is God bearing with them in order to accomplish his plan. He is the Father who had told them again and again not to stray from his embrace, that he loved them, that he was the God who had made them. Those who had coldly cast off such a God cried out once more, and he answered as though he had been waiting for them.

Judges 3:9

9When the children of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised up a savior to the children of Israel, who saved them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.

The name Othniel means “savior” or “God is power.” The judges were not merely magistrates; their duties extended to defeating the enemies who attacked Israel. When Othniel was called as judge and went to war against Cushan Rishathaim, Yahweh’s Spirit came on him. Clothed with the fullness of the Holy Spirit, Othniel defeated the king of Mesopotamia. Like the people, the judges could overcome the enemy only if God helped them. In other words, the judges served to reveal that victory in battle is possible only through God’s sovereign power and work.

Israel, enslaved for eight years, was set free through the devotion of Othniel, empowered by God, and afterward the land had rest for forty years. The years of peace they enjoyed after repenting were far longer than the years they suffered for their sin, and that reveals how deep God’s love is.

But when Othniel died—the judge who for forty years had protected Israel and been a wall around them—Israel began to sin once again. As the peaceful years stretched on, they forgot all the pain they had suffered under Cushan Rishathaim, and forgot even their gratitude to God and to Othniel. Had they engraved more deeply on their hearts, while God was protecting them, both the fear they had felt under the nations’ attacks and their gratitude to the God who acted in the midst of it and to the judge he gave them, they would not have repeated such sin.

God does not send suffering to those who walk by his word. To those who give themselves with a good heart to God’s Kingdom and to his people, he has always given peace. People take advantage of God’s mercy: as soon as they escape a difficult moment, they go straight back to the sinful life they had before. But people must understand that their lives are in God’s hands. We cannot make even one hair white or black. Yet they will not allow the word of the almighty God into their lives at all.

Keeping God at the center means living by his word, so wicked people seek God only when they need him and shut him out completely, so that he cannot meddle in their lives. Yet when God gives his people a footing in the world, it is not to give them the world but to give them eternal life. And the reason he keeps raising up judges for Israel now is that Jesus Christ the Savior must come; he is protecting them for that.

When God solves the problems of this world for us, it is a request that we expand his Kingdom by faith, a charge to bring the gospel to more souls. Yet people judge whether God exists, and argue about their own blessing, by how much or how little they own in this world. To the God who gave his Son to the world for us and made him bear the cross, they boldly demand more wealth and honor, and complain that he has not raised them high in the world. Because the people did not know the depth of God’s love, the civilization and culture of Canaan held Israel captive with greater force.

When Israel cried out earnestly to God, he once again raised up a judge for them: Ehud, the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a left-handed man.

Judges 3:12

12The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight.

Verse 12 holds a remarkable secret: it tells us what God plans when Israel forgets to be grateful.

After eight years of slavery Israel cried out in anguish, and God raised up Othniel as judge and made the land peaceful for forty years. But they mingled with the Canaanites again and fell into corruption, until at last Israel, having forgotten gratitude, forsook God.

At that point God did not merely watch Israel fall away; he strengthened Moab to serve as his rod. Whether Israel drew near to God or kept away from him was their choice, but God was acting differently according to their faith. In other words, both disaster and blessing were Israel’s to decide.

Moab was the people descended from Abraham’s nephew Lot and his daughter. They lived on the high plateau east of the Dead Sea, and when Israel, on its way out of Egypt, asked to pass through Moab, they flatly refused. King Balak once bribed Balaam to curse Israel, and Moab also lured Israel into immorality. Seeing Moab’s sin, God was greatly angered and commanded that no Ammonite or Moabite was to enter the assembly of Israel. That God strengthened Moab, a people under his curse, as an instrument to discipline Israel must have grieved God’s heart.

From this we can see that if Israel had obeyed the word, God would have protected them to the end, whatever their circumstances; but Israel merely used God as a tool for worldly blessing. They sought him when life was hard and painful and discarded him once they were rich and comfortable, and in the end they lost the blessing of the gospel to the Gentiles.

Eglon king of Moab lived up to his name, which means young bull: he was a man of great strength. He called the Ammonites to his side, struck Israel, and took the city of Jericho. Their capture of Jericho meant that they had attacked the tribe of Reuben, which lay just north of Moab, and that they had the strength to take the land west of the Jordan where Israel lived as well.

Eglon king of Moab occupied part of Israel and ruled it for eighteen years. But Israel always bore its guilt together as one people, so the fact that some of Israel’s tribes were ruled by the king of Moab shows that the whole community had sinned against God.

God heard Israel’s cry and once again raised up a judge, the left-handed Ehud. Today we do not discriminate between left-handed and right-handed people, but in those days left-handedness was treated as a disability. That God set a left-handed man, whom no one thought much of, over the right-handed as their judge carries a great deal of meaning.

Psalms 18:35

35You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand sustains me. Your gentleness has made me great.

In Psalm 18:35 the psalmist records that the Lord has given him the shield of his salvation and that God’s right hand sustains him. Scripture also records that when Jesus ascended, he sat down at the right hand of God. Throughout the Bible, the right side stands for God’s power. So Ehud, being left-handed, would have found it hard to win trust as a judge, and the right-handed people would not have served him wholeheartedly. Perhaps they treated him with contempt, not knowing he was the one who would help them, and mocked him: what can a left-handed man do? It is like God sending Jesus, who had no beauty that we should desire him, to an Israel waiting for a mighty king like David, and telling them to follow him as the King of the Jews. However full of faith Lazarus the beggar may be, the rich man does not follow or honor the Lazarus who begs at his gate. That is because the power he holds is something Lazarus could never have, however hard he tried. This is the world’s yardstick, which judges and esteems only what can be seen.

Isn’t that true of you? You trust someone with a good education more than someone without one, and you will think more highly of the abilities of the wealthy than of the poor. But when the rich man and Lazarus the beggar left this world, put off the flesh, and stood on equal ground, only then did it become clear how precious the word of truth is, and what astonishing power lies in living by faith, whatever one owns. The God who works toward all of this set the left-handed Ehud before them and made Israel obey him.

Ehud deceived Eglon king of Moab by pretending to bring him tribute, and when the two were alone he killed the very fat king and saved Israel. The weakness of God put strong men to shame. Ehud, whom the Israelites had mocked and dismissed as abnormal, was empowered by God to kill the mighty king of Moab and save Israel. If we who believe forget our gratitude to God, we will at once face discipline like that of the right-handed men who suffered under the king of Moab. Friends, I hope you will never forget that to stay within God’s embrace and live by his word is a blessing.

1 Corinthians 1:27-29

27but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; 28and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are: 29that no flesh should boast before God.

God chose the weak things of the world for a particular purpose. He did so to show that outward conditions are temporary and meaningless, and to make known that outward things have nothing to do with salvation. When the apostle Paul proclaimed this to the church in Corinth, which had many slaves among its members, his point was that God chose the poor and the weak to make it plain that even those who hold power in the world can do nothing for their own salvation. Whether one owns much or little in this world makes no difference to God. That is why we who belong to him ought to give thanks that God has redeemed us.

Because God works in ways entirely unlike the currents of the world, only by receiving his wisdom can we live a spiritually mature life. God’s wisdom cannot be learned through the knowledge of this world. God’s power cannot be gained with the world’s riches. So the invisible wisdom and power of God can overthrow and rule over visible knowledge and worldly might.

The trouble is that people who prize what can be seen will not listen to the counsel of those who have the unseen wisdom and power. They will not take advice from someone less educated than themselves, and they dismiss the words of those who own nothing. So it was that the Pharisees, who held worldly power, despised Jesus, who looked weak, and killed the Savior, the Lord of eternal life. Since the people of the world do not believe in the eternal world and value the present over what comes later, they feel dread about what follows death only when they come face to face with it. Like the rich man, they will regret it only when they see Lazarus held at Abraham’s side. Into such a world God raised up the left-handed Ehud as judge and brought down mighty Moab and Ammon; in doing so he was warning how great the invisible power and might of God are, and giving Israel a chance to turn back.

You have Jesus Christ. The world still disregards Jesus, who bore the cross, but the day will come when you will see people so ashamed they cannot lift their faces. If you seek God only in times of trouble, you are no different from Israel, suffering now under Moab.

Even so, God will answer your prayers, and knowing that once answered you will leave him again, he will prepare yet another rod. Will you waste your life in this cycle? God longs to make you shine like a jewel; will you instead fall into the mud and hide your beauty?

Through the judge Ehud, Israel lived in peace for eighty years. Although their eighteen years of suffering had come through their own sin, when they repented God had compassion on them and kept them in peace for eighty years.

Judges 5:6

6“In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travelers walked through byways.

After Ehud died, this Shamgar was raised up as the deliverer of a fallen Israel. Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon are known as the six minor judges. Their accounts are so brief that we cannot know in detail what conditions were like in the times when they served.

We do not know under what circumstances he was called, but because Deborah sings of Shamgar, we can tell that he was a judge full of faith. Scripture says that Shamgar killed six hundred Philistines with an ox goad. The Philistines harassed Israel without end—when Israel entered Canaan, in David’s time, and in the days of the divided kingdom. In the end they disappeared after being defeated by Alexander the Great, as Zechariah had prophesied, but to Israel they were always a fearsome foe.

If Shamgar drove back the Philistines with an ox goad, we can see that God was using the Philistines as an instrument to discipline a fallen Israel. Israel could hardly have trusted Shamgar as he went out to battle with nothing but an ox goad, but God does his work through the lowly means and the handicaps the world disregards. And so no one can boast before God.

God does not tell you to bring impressive credentials before you can do his work. Even if your hands are empty, if you have a faith as full as that of Lazarus the beggar, that is enough for God’s work, and you can fulfill your calling. What do you have right now? Do you too divide the strong from the weak by what can be seen? Or are you weighing God’s grace by what you own?

When God uses his people, he does not look at their circumstances or possessions. If you are left-handed, poor like Lazarus the beggar, or so lacking in worldly power that all you hold is an ox goad, I hope you will come to him just as you are, because God does not work through the strength and ability you take pride in; he fills you with what is his and works through that. The wisdom you gain from reading and understanding the word is not something God needs; you need it for your own reward and your salvation.

Like Jesus, who gave himself without any conditions, who did not seek people’s praise or service, who accomplished God’s will and lived by the word, may you also become a faithful servant and fulfill your calling. When you live as believers who do not boast in what you own but are clothed with God’s power, grace, and wisdom, God will expand his Kingdom through you.