When Everyone Defines Right for Themselves - Judges 20:1 – 21:25 (Session 18)

Judges 20-21 brings the Book of Judges to its tragic conclusion. After learning of the horrific crime committed at Gibeah, the tribes of Israel unite and demand that Benjamin surrender the guilty men. Benjamin refuses and chooses tribal loyalty over justice.

Civil war follows.

Israel seeks God’s direction before battle, yet loses twenty-two thousand men on the first day and eighteen thousand on the second. This raises a difficult question: What should believers do when they are following God’s direction, opposing evil, and still appear to be losing?

Rather than abandoning God, Israel continues to seek Him. The people weep, fast, offer sacrifices, and return for guidance. God eventually promises victory and delivers Benjamin into their hands.

The victory, however, creates another crisis. Israel had made an emotional vow not to give its daughters in marriage to the men of Benjamin. After nearly destroying the tribe, the people regret what they have done and begin searching for ways around their own vow.

Their solutions reveal how distorted their sense of justice has become. They destroy Jabesh-gilead and take its surviving young women. When that does not provide enough wives, they permit the remaining Benjamites to kidnap women from a feast at Shiloh.

Israel attempts to correct one evil by committing additional wrongs.

The book closes with its defining statement: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Judges warns that when people reject God’s Word as the standard of truth, sincerity, emotion, technical rules, and human reasoning cannot produce righteousness.

Scripture: Judges 19:30-21:25
Series: The Book of Judges — An RTTB Study

• Is there a limit to how depraved humans can get? 
• What should you do when you’re doing what the Lord wants but still failing?
• Can God allow pain for a purpose? 
• Can we deal with God as with a shady businessman?  

Transcript

The Book of Judges

Speaker 1 0:19

Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible , our podcast here , where we go verse by verse through the Word of God . And before we get into today's study , I'd like to just remind our listeners to go to our website , ReasoningThroughTheBiblecom , and there we have a resources page where we offer materials that correspond with all of our lessons . We have free lesson plans where if somebody wanted to teach these things similar to what we're teaching here , then they can get the lesson plans in advance , follow along with us and then take those lessons plans to your Bible study group or your church and teach a fairly good lesson . At least . We view this as a way to try to help teachers and try to provide materials to churches to help Bible teaching .

Speaker 2 1:03

One other thing too , glenn . We also have an email address . It's info at ReasoningThroughTheBiblecom . So info , like an information info at ReasoningThroughTheBiblecom . If you have questions or comments or if you want to be added to our newsletter . We send a newsletter out . It's got good information in regards to what's coming up . You can write at that address and say add me to your newsletter or pose your question or give us a comment , whatever you might do . Again , that's info at ReasoningThroughTheBiblecom .

Speaker 1 1:35

And we welcome your questions and your comments . We really do want to hear from you to find out your impressions of what we're doing , so please let us know your thoughts . We're working our way through the book of Judges . We're going to pick up the last verse in chapter 19 and then through chapter 20 . What has just happened is a horrible crime . There was this poor woman who was raped to death . Then her husband sliced her in pieces and scattered the pieces , one piece , through each of the 12 regions of Israel , and it causes a shock , as we will see in this next section , the Levite is sending these pieces out into Israel to say look at what has been done at Gibeah .

Speaker 1 2:17

This horrible crime has just been committed . I'm going to pick up in the last verse of Judges 19 into chapter 20 . All who saw it said nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day . Consider it , take counsel and speak up . Then all the sons of Israel , from Dan to Beersheba , including the land of Gilead , came out and the congregation assembled as one man to the Lord at Mizpah . The chiefs of the people , even all the tribes of Israel , took their stand in the assembly of the people of God , 400,000 foot soldiers who drew the sword .

Speaker 1 2:55

Now the sons of Benjamin heard that the sons of Israel had gone up to Mizpah and the sons of Israel said tell us , how did this wickedness take place ? We have here . The people are shocked when the people hear of this crime , of what happened to this woman and what the man did to her , and it causes an outrage . They gather it says all the tribes in verse two , and they gather an army of very large , 400,000 people . So even as wicked as Israel was , they were shocked at this crime and they wanted to do something about it . 400,000 people in verse two . Then they ask him how this happens .

Speaker 1 3:35

The next verses in chapter 20 , the man tells the story of how the concubine was murdered and how he dismembered her and scattered her remains . Then the army of Israel says that they're going to cast lots to select 10% of the army to go fight against the tribe of Benjamin . Ok , remember that they said they're going to cast lots to select 10% to go fight . Then in Judges , chapter 20 , verses 12 and 13 , the army of Israel goes to the tribe of Benjamin and demands the men who murdered the women . Benjamin refuses to turn them over and Benjamin draws up an army to fight against Israel . The men of Benjamin are so depraved that they would rather fight their kinsmen than to turn over men who raped somebody to death . How low can you go ? They were more concerned with their national pride than they were turning over murderers . Is there a limit to how depraved humans can get ?

Speaker 2 4:35

Actually , they were more concerned with their tribal pride over the benefit of the nation itself as soon as it seems like humans can't get any more depraved , they do .

Speaker 1 4:46

The Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked . In Jeremiah 17-9 . Another verse the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil . Continually . Genesis 6-5 . Romans , chapter 3 , says there's none righteous no , not one . And the poison of asps is under their tongue and their feet are swift to shed blood . The Bible gives a very accurate picture of humanity and sometimes we like to sugarcoat ourselves and tell us that ourselves are better than others . But really God sees our heart and there's a lot of wickedness in mankind . Then Judges 20 , verses 14-17 , the tribe of Benjamin mustered 26,000 soldiers , plus another 700 from Givia , the town that killed a woman , and Israel gathered all 400,000 of their soldiers . Steve read verse 16 .

Speaker 2 5:41

Out of all these people , 700 choice men were left-handed . Each one could sling a stone at a hare and not miss .

Speaker 1 5:50

The Bible records these small details because it's recording accurate history , tells all these people where they were from , but here's these 700 of them that were left-handed and how good they were with slinging stones . These are details of the battle that we just like to point out as we go through , simply because it's recording history . Then pick up Steve in verse 18 and read all the way down to 26 .

Speaker 2 6:15

Now the sons of Israel arose , went up to Bethel and inquired of God and said who shall go up first for us to battle against the sons of Benjamin ? Then the Lord said Judah shall go up first . So the sons of Israel arose in the morning and camped against Givia . The men of Israel went out to battle against Benjamin and the men of Israel arrayed for battle against them at Givia . Then the sons of Benjamin came out of Givia and felled to the ground on that day 22,000 men of Israel . But the people , the men of Israel , encouraged themselves and arrayed for battle again in the place where they had arrayed themselves the first day .

Speaker 2 6:54

The sons of Israel went up and wept before the Lord until evening and inquired to the Lord , saying Shall we again draw near for battle against the sons of my brother Benjamin ? And the Lord said Go up against him . Then the sons of Israel came against the sons of Benjamin the second day . Benjamin went out against them from Givia the second day and fell to the ground again . 18,000 men of the sons of Israel , all these drew the sword . Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept . Thus they remained there before the Lord and fasted that day until evening and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord

Lessons on Faith and Perseverance

Speaker 2 7:33

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Speaker 1 7:33

This section here . We read this because they're praying to the Lord . This is the first time that's happened in this book in a while . It's been a good long while before somebody inquired of the Lord as to what I should do . They come up on the first day verse 21 . They ask God in verse 18 , what should we do ? And he says oh , sin Judah . So what happened the first day ? They lost 22,000 men . They go back and they ask God again . They ask God what to do and God says go fight against them . Verse 25, . How many did they lose the second day ? 18,000 . 18,000 . The people were following the Lord's instructions , yet they were failing , they were losing . They were asking of God and they were fighting against evil , which should be a righteous cause . What do you do when you're doing what the Lord wants and you're still failing and it seems like evil's winning ?

Speaker 2 8:27

You have to hold faithful and continue to do like what they did . They went and had burnt offerings , sacrificed . They continue to inquire of God . So I think that that's kind of what you have to do . What you need to do you don't abandon God . You don't go off and do what you need to do on your own . You still continue to look to him for direction .

Speaker 1 8:47

Now we've done our verse by verse study here so that when we get to passages like this we can make a point . How many times over the course of this book did Israel disobey God and forget God ? And at the beginning of the book , remember that they were repeatedly just using God as like a good luck charm . God finally says I'm not going to help you because you're not really repenting . But then there's a long period where there's no turning to God . Then they come back here in this chapter . They ask God , he tells them what to do and they fail .

Speaker 2 9:20

Why .

Speaker 1 9:21

Why would God , on two different days , tell them to do something and let them fail ? I submit to you because God's teaching them a faith lesson . Remember what happened at the beginning of the book . Over and over , it was like seven different cycles where they were again just using God like a good luck charm . God's trying to prove a point to them . Are you going to look to me ? Are you just using me because you're in a spot ? Are you praying to me just because you're in a spot and you need help ? Are you praying to me because you love me ? There's a consequence to sin . When you sin , you pay the price , and these people are paying the price . They knew these people in Gibbia were there . They weren't fools . They knew these murderers were there .

Speaker 2 10:03

What we talked about was the old man from Ephraim was there and he knew he knew . Don't stay out here in the middle of the night . You need to come in with me . So they knew that this was the type of city that was going on .

Speaker 1 10:15

So I submit , god always has a purpose . He's letting them fail on purpose because he's driving home the lesson . These were people that deserved punishment , because everybody in the story was guilty . God's not arbitrary or powerless . And the other verse I think of is remember in the Gospels , in John , jesus feeds a whole bunch of people and then he goes out in the wilderness and they keep following him because they want more food . All they wanted was the food . He then takes them out and stops feeding them and says some very difficult things Eat my flesh , drink my blood . They turn away and leave .

Speaker 1 10:55

Jesus is losing his congregation . He turns to the 12 and he says you're going to go too . You remember what Peter said To whom shall we go ? You have the words of eternal life . I submit the same question here to these people of Benjamin . They've lost two days in a row . Where are they going to go ? Because God's the only one that can help them . So they actually will compliment them at the end of this verse 26 . They wept , they fasted and they kept praying to God . So I submit that's the example for us when we run into a situation where it seems like evil's winning . They've beat the pants off of us a couple of times now and we were doing what the Lord said and we're still losing . I submit to you , stay with the Lord . He's got a purpose , he's got a reason , he sees the end from the beginning and he knows what to do .

Speaker 2 11:47

A story from my life that relates to this , glenn , is when you can hear my testimony , or part of it , in our introduction to reasoning through the Bible . But when I submitted myself to God and said , look , I'm tired of doing everything on my own , I'm just turning my life completely over to you . I was in the grocery business , I was running the store at the time and my spiritual life was going great . My home life , my family life was going great because of my repentance , but my work life was really miserable . I was really really miserable and prior to that I had been taking myself and Tina , my wife . We had been moving about every six months and we had been in the area here for several years .

Speaker 2 12:32

But when I said , look , I've turning my life over to you , you do with it and you take me where you want to go , it was three years after that that I continued to work at that store before God opened the door for me to make a career change into the computer and manufacturing business and I've been paid very well and God's taking care of me and my family very well through that , and I had weekends off and everything else .

Israel's Vow and Desperate Measures

Speaker 2 13:02

But it was a period of time that was showing whether or not I was serious . Was I going to wait and let God lead me , or was I going to try once again and go off and do whatever I wanted to do ? God knew what was happening in those three years that I was waiting for God to lead my life . That's in conjunction with what you just said here . It was a test of faith . Really , was I going to wait on God , like I had said I was going to do , or was I going to go off on my own ?

Speaker 1 13:31

I'm reminded of in Daniel . Remember he prayed for three weeks before the angels showed up in Daniel , chapter 10 . We should keep praying and trusting God . God has a purpose . He's either training us or he's using us an example for someone else or wants us in a position for some reason . God has a reason .

Speaker 2 13:50

When those things happen . That's something that is in your life and that you can't attribute it to anything else or anyone else other than God . You have something that firms your faith up like nothing else , and that you have now , something that you can relay to your children , you can relay to other people , and it builds your faith .

Speaker 1 14:11

Yes , I'm a firm believer that God does things like that to build our faith .

Speaker 2 14:15

He did it to me .

Speaker 1 14:16

Then in Judges 20 , 28 , they finally do it correctly . They weep in front of God . They send the high priest , phineas , the son of Eleazar , our son . They go before the Lord and ask , and God says in verse 28 , go up , for tomorrow , I will deliver them into your hand , I will do it . He says .

Speaker 1 14:35

Then in verses 29 through 48 , israel uses this strategy . That was very similar to what Joshua used back in AI when they set up a deception . The soldiers lined up . When the people of Benjamin came out , they had an ambush and they actually win . At this point , benjamin , sure , they had won the battle , as they had twice before , but destruction came upon them suddenly . People of Benjamin did not worry about God because they had won twice before and thought they had no reason to worry . So I submit that it's possible today that people think that they don't have to worry about God because they've always succeeded up to now , but suddenly destruction comes upon them . There is going to be a day of reckoning . Be a day of reckoning . They defeat the people of Benjamin .

Speaker 1 15:18

Then we have the last chapter here in Judges , which I think is very interesting , and I think we can dig some pretty neat stuff out of here Judges , chapter 21 , verse 1 , says Now the men of Israel had sworn in Misbah saying None of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin in marriage . So when Israel was fighting with Benjamin , israel had made this vow to God to not give any of their daughters to Benjamin . They were in the heat of battle and at that point rightfully , didn't like Benjamin because they were defending these murderers . But they had made this vow . Now they're regretting it . Verse two they regretted it . The people came to Bethel and sat before God until evening and lifted up their voices and wept .

Speaker 2 15:59

Well , they're thinking twice , because here's a fellow tribe and they're knowing that they're cutting them off and so that their tribe can't continue propagate itself . And now they're having second thoughts about that .

Speaker 1 16:10

They had killed so many of the women and Benjamin that they were afraid they weren't be able to continue . They again had made a vow when their emotions were high and now that they've calmed down , they're worried about being able to fulfill this vow . One more reason not to make a vow , especially when you do it when you're either very angry or very afraid , or very emotional . This chapter , israel learns to be legalists and they find ways to get wives to the men of Benjamin by trickery and scheming , which is what happens with legalism . As with all the book of Judges , israel continues to be unrighteous . Verse 3 , they ask God why has it come about in Israel so that one tribe should be missing today ? Why would they ask that question when they knew ? Because you just killed them in the last chapter . God doesn't answer because the question is a stupid question . They knew why they did it , so read verse 5 , steve .

Speaker 2 17:09

Then the sons of Israel said who is there among all the tribes of Israel who did not come up in the assembly of the Lord , For they had taken a great oath concerning him ? Who did not come up to the Lord at Mithspa , saying he shall surely be put to death ?

Speaker 1 17:27

Okay . So when they were in Mithspa they had lined up for this battle with Benjamin and everybody that was there had made this vow we're not going to marry their daughters . They had made this vow . Now they were worried oh , we have to keep our vow before God . So in verse 5 , who was it that didn't come , that didn't make the vow ? There are lawyers . They're looking for a loophole . They had made this vow and I think it was a foolish vow . They were Originally only planning to use like a couple of the troops , 10% of them but they had sent everybody . It was kind of a mess up from the word go . They're looking for a legal loophole . They're reading the fine print in the contract and they oh , these guys over here , they weren't there and didn't make the vow .

Speaker 2 18:10

They're not under the vow , they're not obligated by the vow .

Speaker 1 18:13

Chapter 21 , verse 8 , and they said what is there of the tribes of Israel who did not come up to the Lord at Misba ? And behold , no one had come to the camp , from Jabes Gilead to the assembly . For when the people were numbered , behold , no one of the inhabitants of Jabes Gilead was there . And the congregation sent 12,000 of the valiant warriors there and commanded them saying go and strike the inhabitants of Jabes Gilead with the edge of the sword , with the women and the little ones . This is the thing you shall do . You shall utterly destroy every man and every woman who has lain with a man . And they found , among the inhabitants of Jabes Gilead , 400 young virgins who had not known a man by lying with them , and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh , which is in the land of Canaan . So they found a way to get wives for Benjamin .

Speaker 1 19:04

They had made this vow and they said oh , who was it Didn't come ? Oh , it was those guys . We'll just go kill them all and take their virgins . Now , is that a valid way of okay ? We made this vow before God . We're not going to give any of our wives . We're going to go kill those guys and take their virgins . I mean , this is the way they're thinking . They're so depraved that they're going to go to protect one tribe from getting .

Speaker 2 19:29

Right down , not being able to continue .

Speaker 1 19:31

We're going to go kill another one . It's just a mess from the word go . It's a problem here because two wrongs don't make a right . When people have disobeyed God for as long as Israel has , what happens to their sense of justice ? They do what's right . In their own eyes , these men , justice really is blind , so blind that it's immoral and unfair . They take these virgin women in verses 13 and 14 and they give them to Benjamin . But it's still not enough . They still need to find another way . They were still bound by this foolish vow they had made . Read verses 19 through 22 .

Speaker 2 20:05

So they said Behold , there is a feast of the Lord from year to year in Shiloh , which is on the north side of Bethel , on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and on the south side of Lebanon . And they commanded the sons of Benjamin saying Go and lie and wait in the vineyards and watch and behold . If the daughters of Shiloh come out to take part in the dances , then you shall come out of the vineyards and each of you shall catch his wife from the daughters of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin . It shall come about when their fathers or their brothers come to complain to us , that we shall say to them Give them to us voluntarily , because we did not take for each man of Benjamin a wife in battle . Nor did you give them to them , else you would now be guilty From there what did they do ?

Speaker 1 20:57

They said we need wives . We went out and found some by killing these other guys and taking their daughters , so we still need some more . What are we going to do ? We can't give them ours . Ah , I know what we'll do . We've got this feast coming up and there's a part of the feast where the young ladies get out in the middle of the field and dance by themselves . What we'll do is we'll tell the Benjamites to hide in the trees and when those ladies are out there , they'll just kidnap them , and that way , we didn't give them the wives , they took them , and we're not breaking our vow that we made . Now , does that meet the spirit of the valve ? No , they were good lawyers here and they found some fine print and they said oh , we didn't give them our wives .

Speaker 2 21:42

They took them . Therefore , why don't you go ahead and let them give them voluntarily ? They're making the case to encourage the people to say they weren't stolen . We ended up giving them voluntarily the fathers .

Speaker 1 21:56

Now this type of thinking is what happens when you're legalist . When you're a legalist and you're trying to make a list of rules on righteousness and unrighteousness , then this is the kind of silly thing that ends up happening . We can't violate this rule . So I didn't . I didn't give them my daughter . He took her .

Speaker 2 22:15

It's an example of doing what is right in your own eyes . It's coming up with justifications on your own in order to make something happen .

Speaker 1 22:24

The Pharisees and the New Testament . If you read their commentaries on the law , you're not supposed to quote unquote work on the Sabbath . Well , what constitutes work ? Well , if I pick up something that's called work , if I pick up a tool , if I pick up my needle , if I'm a seamstress or something , I pick up my needle that I'm working . Or it got so silly that if you ask me for something , if I take it and hand it to you , then I've worked . But if I hold it out there and you take it from my hand , then I didn't work and it's just that silly .

Speaker 2 23:00

Well , and they also had other ones in regards to what was taking something . The thing that was posed is well , what if you come up to somebody's house and laying there on the windowsill is something , If I take it , is that stealing it ? And they had written into these extra rules with well , it depends how far out on the windowsill is this item . If it's over so far , if it's out on the outer edge of it , Well , that might mean that they really don't want it and if you take it it's not stealing . But if it's on the inner edge and you're reaching across more than half , then yes , you are stealing it .

Speaker 1 23:38

Silly

Legalism and God's Accountability

Speaker 1 23:39

, silly rule . This is the problem with legalism . Can we get away with silly technicalities when we deal with God ? Is God going to ask oh OK , you didn't violate the technical letter of the law . Is God like that ? Is he like a contract attorney ?

Speaker 1 23:56

No no , God's going to hold us accountable to what we know we should be doing . Don't be deceived . God is not mocked . It says in Galatians 6 , 7 . We will not be able to weasel our way out of a contract with God as we do people on earth . There's no fine print in the agreements to God In that example I gave .

Speaker 2 24:15

whether or not it's theft , God's simple command is don't steal , and a simple definition of that is if it's not yours , then don't take it . It's not your stealing . It's very simple . You don't have to come up with all these other rules .

Speaker 1 24:29

And then the last verse in the book of Judges in those days there was no king in Israel . Everyone did what was right in his own eyes and as we open the book with that's the key here is that everyone in the book is doing what seemed right to them rather than what they should be doing according to God's word . In the previous book in the Bible , the book of Joshua , there was a lot of victory because Joshua was a faithful man . The people of Israel were faithful in those days and they had a lot of victory , and they had a lot of righteousness and they inherited a land flowing with milk and honey .

Speaker 1 25:04

The book of Judges is exactly the opposite . It's a long series of disobedience , a long series of sufferings and a long series of ugly and moral acts . It's all because they were doing what they thought was right rather than what the word of God tells us is right . There's a verse in Proverb that appears twice in the book of Proverbs . There is a way that seems right unto a man , but its end is the way of death .

Speaker 2 25:30

Just a little bit of a couple of things here , as we mentioned these last two stories that we looked upon as being appendixes to the book of Judges and then the book of Ruth as being a third appendix , and some parallels that you can bring out of them , that both tribes of Dan and Benjamin were given territory on it interpart , the heartland of the land of Israel , and they bordered each other . So the problem of canonization it was not on the outer fringes , it was within the land itself , in the very heartland of themselves . They both found themselves in dire straits . Dan couldn't take the land that they were given . The Philistines were at them , so they went and looked for something else . Benjamin had all the other tribes that turned against them .

Speaker 2 26:16

Both of these stories have a Levite that plays a major role in them and both of those Levites fail their Levitical role and purpose . Both Levites have traveled from Bethlehem . Both Levites are connected to the hill country of Ephraim . Both accounts have priests inquiring of God concerning the outcome of a proposed plan of actions . Both of these accounts conclude with a reference to Shiloh and both accounts declare the fact that there was no king in Israel , revealing a major purpose of judges . Is that the reason why Israel needed a king . They revealed from which tribe a king should be chosen Saul , which is kind of forgotten about . But Saul , their first king , came from Gibeah , their most famous king and the most favorite king that's talked about , king David . Where does he come from ? He comes from Bethlehem , the city of David . When we get into Ruth , all that action takes place in Bethlehem and we're gonna see a much , much different atmosphere and things that are taking place in Bethlehem versus what took place in Gibeah .

Speaker 1 27:21

So thankfully we're done with the book of Judges .

Speaker 1 27:24

We can throw out all the garbage from the book of Judges and we'll bring out the bleach and disinfect everything Before we move on to a wonderful , pleasant book , the book of Ruth , where we find a nice romance

Romantic Story of Love and Christianity

Speaker 1 27:38

. It's very romantic . All of the ladies will love the romance , but most importantly it tells a story of the love relationship between us and the Lord Jesus Christ . There's a very wonderful story in the book of Ruth . I hope you all stay with us as we do our verse by verse studies here on reasoning through the Bible , and we'll see you next time . Upbeat music playing .