JUDGES 1

After Joshua’s death the children of Israel asked the Lord saying, “Who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?”  The Lord said, “Judah shall go up.  I have delivered the land into his hand.”

Judah asked Simeon, his brother, “come up with me to my allotted territory, that we may fight against the Canaanites and I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory.”, and Simeon with him.  They went up and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand and they killed ten thousand men.  They found Adoni-Bezek at Bezek and fought against him and they defeated the Canaanites and Perizzites and Adoni-Bezek fled and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.

Adoni-Bezek said seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather the scraps under my table; as I have done God has done to me.  Then they brought him to Jerusalem and there he died.

The children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it , they struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.  Judah fought the Canaanites that lived in the mountains, the south and in the lowland.  Then Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron.  Then they went against the inhabitants of Debir and Caleb said, “Whoever goes against Debir and takes it to him I will give my daughter, Achsah, as wife.  The children the Kenite, Moses’ father in law, went up from the City of Palms with the children of Judah and they went and dwelt among the people; :1-16. 

Judah and Simeon, his brother, attacked the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and utterly destroyed it and changed the name of the city to Hormah.  Judah also took Gaza with its territories, Askelon and Ekron with their territories.  The Lord was with Judah, and they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland because they had chariots of iron.  They gave Hebron to Caleb as Moses had said.  They he expelled from there three sons of Anak.  But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites, who inhabited Jerusalem, so the Jebusites dwelt with the Children of Benjamin in Jerusalem.

The house of Joseph went up against Bethel, which was formerly Luz, and the Lord with them.  They saw a man coming out the city and asked him to show them the entrance to the city and they would show him mercy, so he did and they struck the city with the sword but let the man and all his family go.  The man went to the land of the Hittites, built a city and called it Luz;  :17-26.

Manasseh did not drive out the Canaanites, and when it came to pass that Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites under tribute, and did not completely drive them out.  Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; so they dwelt among them.  Nor did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or Nahalol; the Canaanites dwelt among them and were put under tribute.  Nord did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco; Sidon; Ahlab;  Achzib; Helbah; Aphik or Rehab, so they dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out.  Nor did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants, but they dwelt among the Canaanites and put them under tribute.  The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountains and would not allow them to come down to the valley; and the Amorites were determined to dwell in Mount Heres, in Aijalon and in Shaalbim; but when the strength of Joseph became greater they were put under tribute.

SIDEBAR:  The only people who obeyed the God were Caleb’s clan.  Israel was and still is hard-headed.

 

JUDGES  2

The  Angel of the Lord came from Gilgal to Bochim and said, (speaking the words of God in the first person), “I led you up from Egypt… ‘I said; I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall  make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land, you shall tear down their altars’.  But you have not obeyed MY voice.  Why have you done this?  Therefore, I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns in your side and their gods shall be a snare to you’.”

When the Angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept.  They called that place Bochim and they sacrificed there to the Lord.  The People served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, which had seen all the great works which He had done for Israel.  Joshua died when he was one hundred and ten years old.  They buried him within the border of his territory, in the mountains of Ephraim.

When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them that did not know the Lord nor the work He had done for Israel;  :1-10.

SIDEBAR:  Why didn’t they “know the Lord and all He had done for their fathers”?  It is evident that their fathers did not pass the knowledge of God on to their descendents.

Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals; and they forsook the God of their fathers and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people around them, and they bowed down to them and provoked the Lord to anger.  They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtorehs.  The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.  So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could not stand before their enemies.  Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn to them and they were greatly distressed. 

Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.  Even so, they would not listen to their judges but played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them.  They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do so.

The Lord raised up judges for them to deliver them out of the hand of their enemies, all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning, because of those who oppressed them and harassed them.  And when the judge died they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods, to serve them.  They did not cease from their doings, nor from their stubborn way. 

Then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant and not heeded My voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, so that through these nations I will test Israel; whether they will keep the ways of the Lord to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not.

Therefore, the Lord left those nations, without driving them out immediately; nor did He deliver them into the hand of Joshua;  :11-23.

 

JUDGES  3

These are the nations that the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.  The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and the Jebusites.   And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to their sons and Israel served their gods. 

The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.  They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Ashtorehs.  Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia; and they served Cushan-Rishathaim for eight years.  When they cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel, who delivered them:  Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.  The Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel.  He went out to war and the Lord delivered Cushan-Rishathaim into his hand.  So the land had rest for forty years.  Then Othniel, the son of Kenaz died.  And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. 

So the Lord strengthened Eglon, king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.  Then he gathered to himself the people of Ammon and Amalek; went and defeated Israel and took possession of the city of palms.  The children of Israel served Eglon, king of Moab, for eighteen years;  :1-14.

But when Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them:  Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man.  By him the children of Israel sent tribute to Eglon, king of Moab.  Ehud made himself a dagger, doubled edged, a cubit in length and fastened it under his clothes, on his right thigh.  So he brought the tribute to Eglon, who was a very fat man.  And when he had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute, but he himself turned back from the stone images that were at Gilgal and said, “I have a secret message for you o king”. 

He said, “Keep silence”, and all who attended him went out from him.  Ehud came up to him and said, “I have a message for you from God”, so he arose from his seat. Then Ehud reached with his left hand took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly.  Even the hilt went in after the blade and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the dagger out of his belly; and his entrails came out. 

Then Ehud went out through the porch and shut the doors of the upper room and locked them.  When he had gone out, Eglon’s servants came to look and to their surprise the doors were locked.  So they said, “He is probably attending to his needs in the cool chamber”. 

So they waited until they were embarrassed and still he had not opened the doors.  So they took the key and opened them.  There was their master fallen dead on the floor;  :1-25

Ehud, and the men of Israel killed, ten thousand men of Moab, all stout men of valor; not a man escaped.  Moab was subdued and the land had rest for eighty years.  After Ehud came Shamgar, who killed six hundred men of the Philistines with an ox goad and he also delivered Israel;  :26-31

 

JUDGES  4

When Ehud was dead the children of Israel, again, did evil in the sight of the Lord.  So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor.  The commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.  And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron and for twenty years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel. 

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.  And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel, in the mountains of Ephraim.  And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.  Then she sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; and against you I will deploy Sisera, the connamder of Jabin’s army with his chariots and his multitude, at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?”

Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!”  She said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”  Then she arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.  Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh and went up with ten thousand men under his command and Deborah went with him. 

Heber the Kenite, of the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites and pitched his tent beside Kedesh.  They reported to Sisera that Barak had gone up to Mt Tabor.  So Sisera gathered together all his chariots nine hundred of iron, and all the people who were with him;  :1-13.

Then Deborah said to Barak, “Up!  For this is the day in which the Lord had delivered Sisera into your hands.  Has not the Lord gone out before you?”  So Barak went down from Mount Tabor wit ten thousand following him and the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera lighted from his chariot and fled on foot.  But Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth of the Gentiles, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.  However, Sisera has fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was a place between Jabin, king of Hazor, and Heber the Kenite.  Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; do not fear.”  And when he had turned aside with her into the tent she covered him.  He said to her, “Please give me a little water, I am thirsty.”  So she opened a jug of milk and gave him a drink and covered him.  He said to her, “Stand at the door of the tent and if any man comes and inquired of you saying, ‘Is there a man here?’ , you shall say ‘No!’.”

Then Jael, Heber’s wife took a tent peg and a hammer in her hand and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary.  So he died.  Then as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said, “Come I will show you the man you seek.”  And when he went into her tent, there lay Sisera, dead with the peg in his temple.  \

So on that day, God subdued Jabin, King of Canaan, in the presence of the children of Israel.  And the hand of the children of Israel grew stronger against Jabin until they destroyed him;  :14-24.

 

JUDGES  5

Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, sang on that day all the words of this chapter.  So the land hand rest for forty years.

 

JUDGES  6

The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord.  So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven ears and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel.  Because of Midian the children of Israel made for themselves the dens and the and the caves and the strongholds which are in the mountains.  Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites and when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of them the Lord sent a prophet to them saying, “thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘I said to you, I am the Lord you God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; But you have not obeyed My voice.

And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites.    And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor.  And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, “Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?”,  but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.   The LORD looked upon him, and said, “Go in this thy might, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?”

Gideon said, “Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”   And the LORD said unto him, “Surely I will be with thee, and you shall destroy the Midianites as one man.

Gideon said unto him, “If now I have found grace in thy sight, then show me a sign that you talk with me.  Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present, and set it before thee.” And he said, “I will tarry until thou come again.”  Gideon went in and made ready a kid and unleavened cakes.  And the angel of God said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so.;  :1-19

Then the angel of the LORD put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the LORD departed out of his sight.  And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, “Alas, O LORD God, because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face.”  The LORD said unto him, “Peace be unto thee; fear not: you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovah-shalom:

Now it came to pass that same night that the Lord said to him, “take a young bull , the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal, that your father has and cut down the wooden image beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on top of this rock in the proper arrangement and take the second bull and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the image which you shall cut down.” 

So Gideon took ten men from among his servants with him and did as the Lord had said to him.  But because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night.  And when the men of the city arose early in the morning, there was the altar of Baal torn down, the wooden image cut down; and the second bull was being offered on the altar which had been built.

The said to one another, “Who had done this thing?” And they inquired and asked and they told them, “Gideon the son of Joash had done this thing.”  Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, so that he may die.”  But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Would you plead for Baal?  Would you save him?  Let the one who would plead for him be put to death by morning!  If he is god, let him plead for himself, because his altar has been torn down!”  Therefore on that day he call his son Jerubbaal, saying “Let Baal plead against him, because he has torn down his altar.” 

Then all the Midianites and Amalakites, the people of the east gathered together; and crossed over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel.  But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon; then he blew the trumpet and the Abiezrites gathered behind him.

He sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, who also gathered behind him.  He also sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they came up to meet them.  So Gideon said to God, “If You will save Israel by my hand as You have said—look, I shall put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on the ground, then I shall know that You will save Israel by my hand, as You have said.”  And so it was.

When he arose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece together, he wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowlful of water.  Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me, but let me speak just once more; let me test, I pray, just once more with the fleece; let it now be dry only on the fleece but on all the ground let there be dew.”  And God did so that night, it was dry on the fleece only, but there was dew on all the ground;  : -40

 

JUDGES  7

Then Jerubbaal/Gideon and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the came of the Midianites was to the north of them.  And the Lord said, “The people with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itselt against Me, saying, “My own hand has saved me.”

Now proclaim in the hearing of all the people, “Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once.”  And twenty two thousand left and ten thousand remained.  The Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many, bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there.  Then the one I say shall go with you the same shall go with you; and whomsoever I say shall not go the same shall not go.

So Gideon brought them down to the water and the Lord said, “Everyone that laps from the water with his longue as a dog does you shall set apart to himself, likewise everyone that get down on his knees to drink water, but the number of those who lapped, pulling their hand to their mouth was three hundred, but all the rest got down on their knees to drink water.  The Lord said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hands.  Let all the other people go, every man to his place;  :1-7.

It came to pass the same night, that the Lord said to him, “Arise, get down to the hose; for I have delivered it into your hand.  But if you fear take Phurah your servant down to the host:  And you shall hear what they say; afterward, your hand shall be strengthened to go down.  The Midianites and the Amalakites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for the multitude; their camels were without number, as the sand by the seaside for multitude.

When Gideon had come, behold, there was a man that told a dream to his companion, and said, “Behold I dreamed a dream and lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian and came upon a tent and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.  His companion said, “This is nothing else except the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel:  for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all, its host. 

So it was when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and its interpretation, that he worshipped, and returned to the host of Israel.  He divided the three hundred men into three companies and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand, with empty pitchers and lamps with pitchers.  He said to them, “Look on me and do likewise, when I come to the outside of the camp, do as I do. 

So Gideon and the hundred with him blew the trumpets and break the pitchers that were in their hands.  The three companies blew the trumpets, break the pitchers, and held lamps in their left hands, and the trumpet in their right hands to blow withal:  and they cried, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.  They stood every man in his place around the camp; and all the host ran, and cried and fled. 

The three hundred blew the trumpets and the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow throughout, all, the host.  The men of Israel gathered themselves together out of Naphtali and Asher and all Manasseh, and pursued the Midianites.  Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim saying, “Come down against the Midianites”.  And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb, and they slew Oreb upon the rock of Oreb and Zeeb they slew at the winepress of Zeeb and pursued Midian and brought the head of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan;  :9-25.