March 7, 2025 - Judges 1-2

A bit of morbidity, this morning.  Judah and Simeon fought against Adoni-bezek (“Lord of Bezek”) and defeated him:  “They pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.  And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table.  As I have done, so God has repaid me” (1:6-7).  The Bible tells us real world stories even when they unsettle us a bit.  It would be easy to point the finger at Judah and Simeon and say, “How barbaric that they would cut off the thumbs and big toes of their enemy.  But even Adoni-bezek acknowledges the justice of the act.  He had done so to his enemies and, now, it was being done to him, not capriciously or senselessly but in righteous judgment.  One of our recent presidents declared, “Elections have consequences.”  In the case of Adoni-bezek, we might say, “Actions have consequences.”

I need to comment on another matter, also.  The writer tells us,  “The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.   And Joshua . . . died. . . . And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Since we we are quoting presidents, this morning, another observed, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”  Similarly, we might say, “A people’s faithfulness is never more than one generation from extinction.  It must be fought for, insisted upon, handed down from one generation to another.

All who would valiant be

‘Gainst all disaster,

Let them in constancy

Follow the master.

No foes shall stay their might;

Though they with giants fight,

They will make good their right

To be true pilgrims.   –John Bunyan (1684)