Judges 2-4, 6-8, 13-16
“The Lord Raised Up a Deliverer”
May 25 - May 31
scriptures
quotes
Feasting On What We Have
<p>Just as there will be many more Church members, families, wards, stakes, and temples—later on, there will also be many more nourishing and inspiring scriptures. However, we must first feast worthily upon that which we already have!</p> <p>Without this precious, spiritual perspective, the human family is seldom more than one generation away from deep doubt and even disbelief. Laman and Lemuel doubted and murmured because, wrote Nephi, “they knew not the dealings of that God who had created them” (1 Ne. 2:12); they were provincial, just like forgetful Israel: “and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel” (Judg. 2:10).</p>
Neal A. Maxwell, “‘God Will Yet Reveal’”, October 1986 General Conference
Generations Falling Away
<p>The book of Judges records that after Joshua died, “there arose another generation … which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10)</p> <p>Despite the astonishing heavenly interventions, visitations, rescues, and miraculous victories the children of Israel witnessed during the lifetimes of Moses and Joshua, within a generation the people had abandoned the Way and began walking according to their own desires. And, of course, it did not take long before they paid the price for that behavior.</p> <p>Sometimes this falling away takes generations. Sometimes it happens in a matter of years or even months.</p> <p>But we are all susceptible. No matter how strong our spiritual experiences have been in the past, as human beings we tend to wander. That has been the pattern from the days of Adam until now.</p> <p>But all is not lost. Unlike the wandering test subjects, we have reliable, visible landmarks that we can use to evaluate our course.</p>
Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Daily Restoration,” October 2021 General Conference
commentaries
Judges 2. The Test of Israel’s Faith
<p>The second chapter of Judges opens with the angel of the Lord delivering a message to the children of Israel at Gilgal, where the Israelites had previously crossed the Jordan River and encamped in the early stages of the conquest of Canaan.<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> The message contained both positive and negative pronouncements. On the one hand, the messenger assured the people that the Lord was still with Israel, but he also affirmed that the Canaanite threat had not yet passed (Judges 2:1–3). In response, the children of Israel wept (<em>bakhah</em>), hence the name given to the site where they received the message: Bochim (“weepers”).</p> <p>The narrative progression of Judges is suddenly interrupted at verses 6–10 with a sort of flashback to Joshua’s death, narrated previously at Joshua 24:29–33. The disjunction here suggests that Judges 1:1–2:5 was a later insertion and that perhaps Judges 2:6 was meant to pick up where Joshua 24 ended. In any case, the recap serves to mark a temporal transition from Joshua’s generation to the new generation now in the land of Canaan (Judges 2:10). As the narrator depicts it, the situation went from bad to worse with almost immediate apostasy after Joshua’s death. Verses 11–23 of chapter 2 articulate the central formula of the test of Israel’s faith in the book of Judges that frames the book’s narrative cycle. The formula goes like this:</p> <ol> <li>The children of Israel serve false gods and break their covenant with Jehovah (verses 11–13).</li> <li>This provokes God’s anger, and God allows the Israelites to fall into captivity (verses 14–15).</li> <li>Out of His abundant covenant love and mercy, God raises up judges (<em>shoftim</em>) who deliver Israel from its enemies (verse 16).</li> <li>However, Israel relapses into sin and apostasy, thus perpetuating the cycle and necessitating the calling of a new judge (verses 17–21).</li> </ol> <p>The purpose of this cycle was explicitly said to have been to test Israel’s faith: “That through them [the Canaanites] I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not” (verse 22). According to the compiler or author of Judges, it was also a way to explain the Israelites’ apparent failure to subdue the Canaanites (verse 23). The formula of the test of Israel’s faith in the book of Judges was not unlike the so-called pride cycle depicted in the Book of Mormon,<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> and it is indeed tempting to consider whether Nephite chroniclers consciously modeled their own cyclical history of apostasy and deliverance after that of their forebears.</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Judges 2:1–5; compare Joshua 4:19–20; 5:10.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> For more on the pride cycle, see Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did the ‘Pride Cycle’ Destroy the Nephite Nation? (3 Nephi 6:10),” <em>KnoWhy</em> #195 (September 26, 2016), available online at <a href="https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-did-the-pride-cycle-destroy-the-nephite-nation">https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-did-the-pride-cycle-destroy-the-nephite-nation</a>.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author:</strong> Stephen O. Smoot<br /><strong>General Editor:</strong> Taylor Halverson<br /><strong>Associate Editor:</strong> Morgan Tanner<br /><strong>Senior Editor:</strong> Sarah Whitney Johnson<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Sam Lofgran<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Verlanne Johnson</p>
Old Testament Minute: Judges by BMC
Judges 3:1–11. Othniel, the First Judge
<p>After establishing the pattern for its narrative as a whole (in Judges 2:11–23), the book of Judges describes the first incident that required a judge to save Israel: remaining Canaanite peoples enticed Israel to worship false gods (3:1–6). This act of “evil in the sight of the Lord” prompted divine retribution in the form of subjugation (verses 7–8). Thereafter, the Lord raised Othniel to be Israel’s deliverer. Othniel’s name probably means something like “God is my strength” or “God is my protection,”<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> which appropriately captures Othniel’s role as judge (see verses 9–11). Othniel belonged to the tribe of Judah (see verse 9), once again reinforcing the primacy of Judah in the eyes of the narrator or compiler of the book of Judges (and giving further evidence of the book’s being a Judean production). Crucially, the text specifies how “the Spirit of the Lord came upon” Othniel, giving him the power or ability to judge Israel and lead them in war (verse 10).</p> <p>The report of Othniel’s tenure as judge is brief, spanning only a few short verses. Nevertheless, these verses give a prototypical example of how the cycle described in Judges 2:11–23 plays out in the rest of the narrative with subsequent judges such as Ehud, Deborah, and Gideon.<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Scholars are unsure of the precise meaning of the name, but either of these renderings seems likely. See Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, <em>The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament</em>, vol. 2 of 5 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1994), 904.</p> <p><a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> See Judges 3:12–30; 4–5; and 6–8, respectively.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author:</strong> Stephen O. Smoot<br /><strong>General Editor:</strong> Taylor Halverson<br /><strong>Associate Editor:</strong> Morgan Tanner<br /><strong>Senior Editor:</strong> Sarah Whitney Johnson<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Sam Lofgran<br /><strong>Assistant Editor:</strong> Verlanne Johnson</p>
Old Testament Minute: Judges by BMC
