Archive for month: July, 2023

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Judges 6:11-27.  Let’s go!

Judges 6:11-16 (NIV)
11  The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
12  When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”
13  “But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

On verses 13-16:  God did not directly answer Gideon’s questions and doubts about why God seemed uninvolved and unconcerned when all this oppression was happening to his people (v13).  God could easily have pointed to all the ways that Gideon’s people had broken their covenant with God and how patient God had been with the Israelites up to this point.  But instead of focusing on that, instead of explaining anything, God gives Gideon a mission to save Israel from the hand of Midian (v14).

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Judges 6:1-10.  Let’s go!

Judges 6:1-6 (NIV)
1  Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.
2  Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds.
3  Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country.
4  They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys.
5  They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.
6  Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.
 
On verses 1-6:  Once again the Israelites reject God and become subject to the Midianites.  Experiencing oppression and impoverishment that they cannot get up from under, the Israelites cry out to God again.  Likewise, sin oppresses and impoverishes us, and we have no power by ourselves to get up from under it.  Our only hope is to cry out to God for help.  Praise God that He hears our cry and acts in response.

Hi GAMErs!

Today’s passage is Judges 4:11-24.  Let’s go!

Judges 4:11 (NIV)
11  Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.  
 
On verse 11:  The author of Judges has been talking about Deborah and Barak of the Israelites going to war against the Canaanites, so what does Heber the Kenite have anything to do with this?  We’ll see starting at verse 17. 

Judges 4:12-14 (NIV)
12  When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor,
13  Sisera gathered together his nine hundred iron chariots and all the men with him, from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River.  
14  Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?” So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by ten thousand men.
 
On verses 12-14:  Previously in Judges 1:19, the tribe of Judah could not advance successfully in the plains because they were intimidated by their enemies’ iron chariots.  Now the Israelites are facing iron chariots again, but rather than being intimidated, Deborah tells Barak to move forward in faith.  She reminds him that the LORD has already gone before him.