Day 86 I Samuel 9-12

            There was a Benjaminite kid named Saul who was a full head taller than everyone else.  He goes out one day looking for ome sheep that have wandered off and eventually finds his way to Samuel, who old him his sheep had already been found and also, he will be made king of Israel soon.

           

            When the time comes to choose a king,  all of Israel meets and Samuel starts drawing lots, which was not a random thing, but a way of telling what God wanted.  I think it would be frowned upon in most Christian churches today, but that was the way they made a lot of decisions back then.  Sure enough, Samuel drew Saul’s lot and he was made king.

            Everybody went home pretty unimpressed that the crown should go to kind of a backwater little clan, but not long after a town was attacked by ammonites and Saul led an army and defeated them though and everyone loved him.  That seems to be about the quickest way to impress the Israelites, raising an army and winning a battle.

            Once Saul is accepted as king, a bunch of his followers want to find those guys from before who made snarky comments about Saul being king and kill them as an example and a tribute to Saul, but he denies them because this is a good day in which the Lord has saved Israel.

            Samuel chews everyone out one last time for having a king, but tells them to just do the best they can to follow the Law still anyway.  I think it’s really interesting that God chose Saul as king, or that he chose anyone as king really.  We’ve seen that God has no trouble killing His people and unleashing terrible plagues among them when they act against Him, but I guess wanting a human king isn’t really a sin per se because God never told them not to do it, it’s just kind of stupid because God is in charge of the entire universe so they’re just adding another level of middle management to their own nation.

Day 85 I Samuel 4-6

            God punishes Eli’s sons and the rest of Israel by letting the Philistines win an important battle against them.  After the first defeat, the ark of the covenant is brought out, but God isn’t with Israel so Eli’s two sons are killed and the ark taken by the Philistines.  When Eli heard about this, he fell over and died too.  Samuel had gained quite a reputation by now though as someone with a direct line to God, so he was in a prime position to move in politically.

            Meanwhile, the Philistines were jazzed about having captured the God of the Israelites and took the ark to live with a giant statue of their god, Dagon.  When they came back the next morning, the statue of Dagon was on its belly on the ground in front of the ark of the covenant.  This happened a couple more times, along with some nasty curses and stuff.  Everyone started getting bad tumors.

            They moved the ark to another city, but then that city started having problems too.  Finally they decided that the ark was more trouble than it was worth and they needed to give it back.

            Once the ark was back in Israel’s hands, Samuel got everyone to worship the Lord properly again without trying to mix in a bunch of foreign gods and idols, and then organized an army to meet the Philistines, who had still been steadily soaking up more and more of Israel’s land.

            When Samuel prayed for God to help them in the battle, there was so much thunder and noise that the Philistines were routed before the battle even started.  Samuel’s army just waded through and killed them all.

            After such a high-profile victory, of course Samuel was the people’s choice for a leader.  For years he did laps around Israel mediating and teaching.  They wanted him to give them a king too, but he balked at that.  God was supposed to be the king, that was what was to set them apart from other people, what made them set apart for God.  The Israelites specifically wanted a king to make them more like the other nations around them though, and finally Samuel gave into their demands for a king.

            God told him first to explain to the people that a king would roll in and take all their best stuff for himself and his court and require taxes and tribute and service and all this material stuff on top of what was to be set aside for God.  Samuel di his best to convince them that they didn’t want a king, but the people had made up their big, loud, communal mind and they would not be swayed.

            Samuel told God about their demands for a king and He said to give them one.

            I have a friend who’s an anarchist as well as a Christian.  Well, he might not identify himself as an anarchist, but he’s sympathetic to their cause.  I don’t agree with him all the time in his interpretations of scripture, but I feel like the last couple books have really promoted an anarchistic political system.  Obviously there are clans and priests and all these official sounding social artifacts, but in practice, the way things work is that a need arises and then God drops in a judge with the skills needed to resolve the situation.  If there’s a battle that needs to be fought, God calls up a good general and tells him to build an army.  If there’s a whole bunch of Philistines that are going to need to be put in their place, God releases a super-human psychopath to terrorize them.  If there had been some great need to build a relationship with the Latin tribes in Italy, God would have called a judge who was really into the shipping industry or something.

            Now contrast that system with America today.  If there’s a battle to be fought, we have a standing military already prepared to keep us safe.  If there’s a famine or a natural disaster, we have federal programs already set up to deal with them, the national guard, FEMA, and so on.  This reminds me of another facet of the arguments made in Steven Levitt’s Ishmael which I mentioned several times back in Genesis.  Levitt opines through the titular character that it’s ridiculous to insist upon such a high degree of personal control over the world as we exercise in our culture.

            On a personal level, Jesus talked about how we shouldn’t spend all of our energy worrying about where our clothes or shelter or even our next meal are going to come from because those things are under God’s control.  When we spend all our energy trying to bring them under our own control, it’s disrespectful and only serves to show our own ignorance, but I’m getting ahead of myself now.

            I’m interested to see how this king thing works out.

day 84 I Samuel 1-3

            It looks like things are getting back into more of a narrative format now.  The lists of rules from Leviticus and Numbers were kind of tedious and the disjointed stories from Joshua and Judges were just confusing.  I miss being able to stick with a character for a while and watch their relationship with God evolve.  I've got a good feeling about his next group of chapters.

            Samuel is a boy born to a lady who was barren.  She prayed to God and said that if she had a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord for his entire life.  Eli, the priest Samuel got himself volunteered to serve under, had a couple sons also working under him.  His sons were, basically, jerks who didn’t respect God.  They abused the sacrifice system to get the best parts of meat for themselves.  God hated this kind of thing.  He probably still does.

            At this time prophets and miracles were rare, but God told Samuel that He was going to punish Eli’s family for what his sons were doing.  Eli is at fault for their sins both because he is both their father and their priest-boss and there’s a precedent back in Leviticus for a higher-ranking Levite also being held accountable for any screw-ups happening lower in his chain of command.  He’s very supportive of Samuel’s vision and even seems accepting when Samuel explains that God is going to take vengeance upon Eli and his family.

Day 84 Ruth

  King David (who we will be meeting shortly) is descended from a moabite woman.  It's okay though, she's a good one.

Day 83 Judges 19-21

            A Levite in the land of Ephraim had an unfaithful concubine.  Ephraim seems to be over-represented in this book.  The concubine runs off to her father’s house and the Levite goes after her.  After staying for a few days, they head back home, but by the time they reach Jebus, the sun is starting to set.  The Jebusites are not Israelites so the Levite does not want to stay there.  They press on and make it to Gibeon, which is a Benjaminite city, so they are Israelites.

            No one would take the Levite and his party in for the night though so they were ready to stay in the town square for the night.  Luckily an old Ephraimite man came in from the fields and invited them into his house.

            Now this story plays out exactly like the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for a little while.  The wicked men come and want to have sex with the Levite, but the head of the household in stead offers them his daughter.  This time though, the wicked men accept the offer and the host’s daughter and the Levite’s concubine are both dropped outside in the crowd and the concubine is raped to death by the mob.

            The Levite slung her body over the back of his donkey the next morning, took her home and cut her into twelve pieces which he sent to the heads of the twelve tribes.

            All of Israel came together and met so the Levite could tell them the story of what had happened.  They told the tribe of Benjamin to hand over the men of that wicked town, but they refused and mustered an army.  They were beaten though and most of the town was killed.  All the men of the other eleven tribes swore that they would never give a daughter in marriage to a Benjaminite.

            What happened next is a little unclear, but it sounds like there was an assembly sometime later and everyone felt bad for the tribe of Benjamin because they had no women and would die out.  Now no one from Jabesh Galead bothered to show up to this meeting, so the rest of the assembly went in and killed all the men and all the women who weren’t virgins there.  I’m not sure what tribe Jabesh Galead was a part of, but I think they must have been Israelites because they were expected at the meeting.  The Israelites gave the women who weren’t killed to the Benjaminites, but there weren’t enough to go around.  The solution they came up with was to wait until the next big festival and have all the available girls run around through the fields and the Benjaminites hide in the grass waiting for them.  Then the Benjaminites could steal some women and they would have Israelite wives without anyone having to break their vow.  If any of the girls fathers started asking questions about what happened to their daughters at the festival, the tribal elders would let them know that they had been given to the Benjaminites but don’t worry because the vow hadn’t been broken.

            This is the last story in Judges and I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve taken away a single message or lesson from this entire book.  It’s interesting to read, but no one seems to be following the law, even when the book seems to imply that they’re doing the right thing.  The first story didn’t make much sense, and then each one after that made progressively less.  There’s a recurring assertion that this was the time before Israel had a king and people did as they pleased.  Is this whole book just a statement about what a mess things are when we try to govern ourselves without anyone who has a direct line to God?  I would certainly accept that teaching but isn’t that kind of what we’re trying to do now?

Day 82 Judges 16-18

            Some time later, Samson went to Gaza and saw a prostitute he wanted to spend the night with.  The Philistines still hated him though so when they found out about it they shut the gates of the city to trap him so they could kill him.  Samson just tore the gates off the wall and carried them off when he felt like leaving.  This kind of scenario was not uncommon with Samson.

            Eventually he fell in love with a Philistine woman, a different Philistine woman than the one from before though.  Her name was Delilah and shortly after they started sleeping together, some Philistine leaders promised to pay Delilah if she could learn Samson’s weakness.

            Three times she asked him the secret of his strength and each time he lied to her, and when she tried to weaken him and called the Philistines, he broke free and killed them all.  I mean all of them except her.  Finally the forth time, when Samson had had a lot to drink one night (again, breaking his vow to never drink) he showed incredibly poor pattern recognition skills and told her the truth, that he was a Nazarite and that he could never cut his hair.

            So, of course, Delilah cut his hair.  The Philistines came to capture him, he fought back, but his strength was gone and he was taken.

            The Philistines put out Samson’s eyes and threw him in jail.  Later, they brought him out at a party to dance for their entertainment.  Samson prayed to God and was given back his strength just long enough to push over a pillar and topple the building they were in, killing himself and all of the Philistines.

            It seems to me in this reading though that Samson still didn’t learn anything about humility to God or glorifying God.  His final prayer isn’t apologetic for any of his own sins or even about showing God’s power to the Philistines or helping the oppressed Israelites.  Samson asks for the strength to take revenge on the Philistines for putting out his eyes.  But it still works.

            Man, God must have really hated Philistines.

            Okay, next judge:

            Micah and his mother made an ephod and a bunch of household gods.  Just to round out their collection of blessings, Micah also hired an errant Levite to be their household priest.  I guess an ephod is an okay thing to have now.  I know idols are forbidden, and you can only worship God properly with the help of some priests at a stone altar at the temple, but maybe an ephod doesn’t count as an idol.  I understand the desire for a physical object to focus your worship, but these ephods seem like bad policy, especially when it’s surrounded by other little idols.

            I guess I’m not in any position to judge the practice of displaying ephods though when I go to a church with an 18 foot tall cross hanging over the stage.

            So Micah’s got all his god ornaments in order and everything’s going great when some scouts from the tribe of Dan come through looking at land.  The Danites still haven’t received their inheritance so they’re looking around for land to conquer.  These scouts stay with Micah and they get a blessing from his priest before heading out again.  With this blessing, they find some nice land just past the lands of the tribe of Ephraim.

            The scouts return home and report what they saw and the Danites move out to conquer this good land.  On the way, they stop by Micah’s house, take his ephod and his household gods and convince his personal priest to come with them.  Micah and his neighbors go out and yell at the Danites about taking all of his stuff, but they tell him to go back home before they get angry and kill him.

            The Danites conquered the land and made a city  there named Dan (named after their ancestor, Dan).  They used Micah’s idols the whole time they were there.

            So, is this story about Micah being punished for having such a materialistic faith?  Is it about the dangers of investing too much in physical idols when they might be lost?  Is it just a sad story about a nice guy who got all his silver stolen by the Danites or a happy story about God providing blessings and silver for the righteous tribe of Dan?  I have no idea.  This one’s a little too foreign for me to make sense of I guess.

            That’s okay though, it doesn’t all have to resonate perfectly.  There’s so much different stuff in here that I’m pretty comfortable chalking one up to our cultural differences every once in a while.

            That seems to be happening a lot in this book though.

Day 81 Judges 13-15

            Ah, Samson.  Samson was super-strong, you probably already knew that, but there’s far more to his story.

            Before Samson was born, an angel came to his parents and told them that he was to be a Nazarite.  I think that vow was outlined in Leviticus.  Nazarites have three major rules: don’t drink any fermented beverages or anything that comes from grapes, don’t ever touch anything dead, and don’t cut your hair.  What’s different about Samson though is that he wasn’t just a Nazarite for a couple months like most people who took the vow, he was to be a Nazarite for life.  This is notable because, for his entire life, Samson was a terrible Nazarite.

            First, he decided he was in love with a Philistine woman, which was frowned upon by his family to say the least.  He demanded that his father procure this woman for him though and so he did.

            On his way to visit his future wife once he killed a lion with his bare hands.  That’s pretty amazing, but then when he went back through there again later to actually marry his betrothed, he saw that some bees had moved into the lion carcass.  He grabbed a handful of honey on his way by to snack on, breaking his vow to never touch dead things.

            At his wedding, he drank a little too much (violating his vow to never drink) and made a bet with the philistine guests to solve a riddle, but they pressured his new wife to give them the answer.  Samson responded by beating up a bunch of random philistines in town, gave away his wife and went back to his father’s house implementing what we might refer to today as a tantrum.

            Later, after he’d had some time to cool down, he went back again to claim his wife.  She was now someone else’s wife though because they thought that he didn’t want her.  Samson was so angry about not being able to see his wife that he set all the Philistine’s fields on fire.

            This was the last straw for the Philistines, who rounded up an army to take Samson prisoner.  Samson hid in a cave.

            This was a real turning point in Samson’s story though.  Up until this point he’s mostly just been using his great strength to beat up people he doesn’t like or to further his own goals, but after this encounter it seems like Samson begins to acknowledge that there are some bigger issues at stake.

            Some Israelites come and confront him with the fact that the Philistines are going to take out their anger on them if Samson isn’t captured, so he agrees to let them turn him over to the Philistine army, which he then kills with the jawbone of an ass.  I’m not sure if that counts as touching a dead thing or not.

            Then he delivers one of the most disrespectful prayers I think I’ve come across so far, yelling “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

            But maybe the tone is changed by the translation, because God responds by opening up a spring nearby for Samson to drink from.  Or maybe the moral of this story is simply that God really hates Philistines.