07/17/2024 – Day 045 – Judges – Chapters 7 – 11- Make no mistake: “Our God reigns, forever He reigns!
Prior cycle coverage : See 07/15/2020 – Tragic life lessons: 11:39 – Jephthat sacrificing his daughter from a silly vow he had made.
Last week – Day 038 – I commented how the angel first greeted Gideon with: “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. Yes, he was speaking not so much from the current but to future events. On top of it, who accomplished these unbelievable triumphs on the battlefield but Almighty God directly. So Gideon, gets a “mighty” tag for the faith and trust in the Lord to follow it through, no small task in of itself.
Make no mistake about it, a God driven miracle indeed, an intentionally winnowed force of just 300 men (see 7:7) drives a Midianite casualty count of 120,000 men “who drew the sword”. (see 8:10). Throughout this period from Joshua, modern day skeptics scoff at the notion that these battlefield victories are real history. Another non-battlefield “scoffing” example I have heard often over the years is Jonah getting swallowed by whale and being spit out after three days in the belly of the whale. My reply: So you’re telling me that the “big banger” that produced the “big bang” of creation, confirmed by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is incapable of such a miracle? It boggles the rational mind… As in: Dude, I don’t know who your god is, but he is infinitely too small! ( case in point: I am god! Good luck with that!)
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I would like to share with you from “Halley’s Bible Handbook” the short excerpt for Chapter 9:
“Chapter 9. Abimelech
Son of a wonderful father, but himself a brutal man. A typical story in the eternal struggle of gangsters for power.
ARCHAELOGICAL NOTE: Abimelech’s Destruction of Shechem. With money for the temple of Baal (4), he hired men to murder his brothers, and ‘beat down the city, and sowed it with salt’ (45)
Sellin (1913-14, 1926-28), identified a mound near the modern city of Shechem as the ruins of ancient Shechem. He found a stratum of Canaanite ruins of 1600 B.C.; and above that an Israelite layer, with indications that it had been destroyed and abandoned about 1100 B.C.. He found the ruins of a temple of Baal, believed to be the temple mentioned in verse 4.”
Now let’s move to Chapter 10: 11 – 16:
Here is my footnote in “The Evidence Bible”:
“10: 11-14. Forgetting what they had delivered from led Israel to forsake the One who had delivered them. Understanding the spiritual nature of the Law from which we have been delivered will keep us close to the foot of the cross in heartfelt gratitude.”
Whoa!, 10: 16: “So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel.”
Just perhaps, we can have a fellowship discussion over this, but take a look at John Gill’s commentary:
https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/judges-10-16.html
Thoughts? Reflections?
In an infinite understatement: God is unfathomably all-loving and patient. But with the 2nd coming, God’s perfect justice will take over. Soli Deo Gloria!