The God Who Raised Up Judges

When Israel cast God out of their hearts, he sold them into the hand of the king of Mesopotamia. After eight years of servitude the people cried out, and God raised up Othniel as judge to deliver them, giving them forty years of peace.

God gave Israel judges because human beings cannot save themselves. Whenever peace lasted long, Israel forgot to give thanks and fell back into sin, again and again, and each time God took up a rod such as Moab or the Philistines to turn them back. In calling those the world overlooks, like the left-handed Ehud and Shamgar, who drove back the Philistines with nothing more than an ox goad, God shows that he works not by human qualifications but by his own power.

To seek God only in times of need and cast him aside once satisfied is no different from the Israel we see here. Even so, God heard their cry and answered. Faith must be recognized not by how much or how little one owns, nor by worldly standing, but by a life lived according to the Word.