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Judges 2:16 - 23
Today we are going to look at another character in this story in the book of Judges, and that is the person of the judge. What does the judge do, who do they represent?
But before we do, remember that Israel is in the Promised Land. However, they didn’t do what they were told. They didn’t drive out the other nations, and instead they enslaved people - which we know is not God’s plan. They worshiped other gods, incorporating the religions of the surrounding nations. But then there’s something interesting the Bible tells us here…
Judges 2;16-23 (NIV) Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as their ancestors did.” The Lord had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
We may spend a day or two in this passage. First is that you will notice that God raises up each judge. Hmmm, wait, what does that mean?
Well – the judge wasn’t an elected official. This wasn’t someone who was out to establish themselves as a leader for God’s people – they didn’t rise to power on their own strengths. The judges were not people of political intelligence or violence, but someone who God brought up or chose, to lead His people.
And their leadership was different from the leadership of a king or priest. The judge would lead God’s people spiritually, politically, and militarily. God worked through the judges who would lead armies to deliver the Israelites from the oppression of neighboring nations. They would lead then from the apostacy of worshiping other gods or idols, and back to worshiping the One true God.
And there was one thing that the people of Israel simply needed to do, and that was obey. It all comes back to simple obedience. It was the People’s job to listen and obey the judge – simple obedience.
It’s not that difficult, and today I’m convinced we have a leg up on the Israelites in that we have the Holy Spirit living in us and through us. But we still need to listen to and choose to obey the Holy Spirit for all of this to work.