Judges

Many people are familiar with classic opening lines to classic literature. "Call me Ishmael." "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." But it's important to not only begin a story well, it's important to end well, too. So World Magazine is currently asking its readership to identify the best closing lines from the written word. Judges flashed into my mind.

No, Judges isn't a novel. It's history. It's part of the Bible. It is arguably the darkest, most grisly section in all the Bible. Many are familiar with some of its narratives. Therein you'll find Samson, the Bible's strong man. Gideon is in there, too. You know, the guy with the trumpet. There are parts of these guys' lives that I would have left out of the story because they don't make them sound very "spiritual." Samson had a thing for ladies. Not just any ladies. Ladies from nations God forbade the people of Israel to be messing with. He was overly cocky. Brash, even. Gideon was a bit of a coward. Hiding in a winepress to thresh the grain. Didn't trust God when God spoke to him directly. Asked for not one but two signs as confirmation that God really meant what he said.

Judges gets worse from there, but the fact that God saw fit to include horrifying and ugly histories of His people points like a spotlight to the truthfulness, the veracity, of His word to us. If a bunch of men were getting together and trying to make stuff up about God, they sure wouldn't have included the stories we find in Judges.

I finished Judges this morning. It concludes with a verse the writer of Judges includes four other times. As ancient Hebrew didn't have exclamation points or boldface or italics, repetition was used to emphasize a point. The author used this statement to bracket stories where the story itself turned up the volume to get the point across. The statement?

"Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."

As I closed the book this morning to head out the door, my heart ached for my nation because that sounds like America, 2009. This is my people. Without an absolute standard from a sovereign God, everyone will do what was right in their own eyes because who then are you to tell me what to do?

Here's an excerpt from Judges 2.

¹¹ And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. ¹² And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger. ¹³They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals... ¹⁴ So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. ¹⁵Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

¹⁶ Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. ¹⁷Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD, and they did not do so. ¹⁸Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from 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 afflicted and oppressed them. ¹⁹But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. ²⁰ So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel...

An ominous way to end a book.