If you are following The Plan you should have completed the Book of Judges.

So there I was, sipping my morning coffee, starting my daily reading, and wondering to myself, "How come no one names their daughters Jael anymore?"  Then I got to Judges (Ch.4) and this - "But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died."

And so goes the Book of Judges.   Where the Book of Joshua had the epic sweep of conquest, the Book of Judges treats its violence much more personally - more Tarentino than Spielberg.

It starts off well enough, with the tribes of Judah and Joseph picking up where Joshua left off - driving the Canaanite's out of their territories.  But the rest had problems - in particular,  Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan. 

Naturally, this angers God (after all, what was the exodus all about?  The 40 years in the wilderness?  The covenant with Israel?)  The Angel of the Lord appears and says, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you."

Yet, we shouldn't be surprised by this.  Remember back in Deuteronomy?  God commands Moses to write a poem foretelling this rebellion, saying to Moses  "You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, 'Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?"

So as we think back on Judges, remember this phrase - "The anger of the LORD burned against Israel..."

Who were these Judges? (There were 12 of them .... hmmmm).  What did they do?  

The book ends with the story of Micah the priest, the tribe of Dan moving north to occupy some land, and the horrible story of a brutal rape of a travelers daughter at the hands of the tribe of Benjamin - a story with overtones of Sodom and Gomorrah and complete indifference towards suffering, and then the tribes almost exterminate the tribe of Benjamin because of it.

So despite "judges" rising up and leading Israel from time to time, this is a story of ongoing obedience and disobedience to God by the Israelites.  It's easy for us to focus on this waywardness and condemn them.  But really the story here is about God's faithfulness to his people.  His ongoing devotion and righteousness towards a rebellious, murderous, lying, cheating, collection of brigands, thieves, and murderers.  

We should remember this - because "they" are us.   Kinda harsh, but true.  Maybe we aren't murderers and rapists, but we are condemed by our sinfulness to a constant  state of rebellion against God.   What the Isrealites during the time of Judges deserved (and got) was God's wrath.  It is what we all deserve.  Except in our case Jesus stands in for us and his sacrifice washes away our rebellion and sin. 

Even during the time of the Judeges, God did not abandon his people.   (Do you really think he would abandon you?)  When they cry out for relief, he grants it.   When they are in anguish, he soothes them.  And when they cry out for a leader, he builds one up.   Which brings us to the last lines of Judges - "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit."

On to Samuel... and what may come of this King business.

Blessings.

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Pray.