The faith remains high immediately after Joshua's death and the people ask God which tribe should be first into the next fight, to which God replies "Judah".
The rest of the events of Judges 1 seem to be a summary of the battles of the conquest and it is not entirely clear if these events actually took place in Joshua. Joshua actually gets (re)buried in chapter 2, so maybe some of these events took place in the preceding book.
Regardless, the text sets up the pattern that many of the local inhabitants remained throughout the land.
God is mad that they did not drive out the inhabitants, so God sends an angel to tell them that God will no longer help drive out the local inhabitants, but they will be thorns to them and their gods will be temptation. Uh oh.
From our perspective, it is hard to see how idols of Baal can be temptation, but I suppose if you were married to someone who did that (as an example), then I guess the mindset would creep in.
The next generation does not follow God like the generation that Joshua led to battle. The people get oppressed, they cry out, and God raises up a judge to free. That's the pattern and it is spelled out in chapter 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment