Day 77 Judges 3-5

            Israel sins against God and so God uses foreign kings to punish the tribes until they cry out and God sends a judge to save them.  One stabs a fat Moabite king and sinks a sword into his stomach up past the hilt.  One kills 600 philistines with an ox goad.

            I still don’t completely understand why all these foreign people were allowed to stay when Joshua conquered the land, but it’s interesting that one of the major groups working against the Israelites is the people from Sidon.  Sidon colonized Tyre, which colonized Carthage, which was the Soviet Union to the Roman Empire’s NATO back just before Jesus was born.  The Roman Empire plays such a large role in the life of Jesus and Carthage played such a large role in Roman foreign policy, it’s interesting to think of how things would be different if the Israelite armies had conquered the Sidonians.

            The first judge that warrants their own chapter is Deborah.  She’s a prophetess and a mediator of some renown.  It seems like a big deal that she’s a woman, but the text doesn’t seem to stress it much.  It’s pretty amazing that even though women were considered somewhere between pets and furniture on the scale of personal rights, God still used Deborah for such an important role.

            Deborah told the Israelite general Barak to fight a bunch of Canaanites and Barak said he would only do so if Deborah came with.  She agreed, but told him that because of his hedging, he wouldn’t get the honor for the battle, but it would go to a woman.

            It seems like she’s referring to herself here, but the way the battle plays out, the Canaanite general is actually killed by a different woman after running away from the battle.  What’s odd about this death is that the Canaanite general is killed by his host as he’s sleeping in her tent (she drives a tent spike clear through his head).  This doesn’t seem to mesh with the very strict laws about how you are to treat guests in your home.  The woman who killed him, Jael, is a Kenite, but I’m not sure if that’s an Israelite clan or not, so I guess I don’t know what here cultural rules were regarding hospitality and not braining your guests.  I thought it was pretty universal, but it wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve been wrong about so far.