1S11-7: The Importance Of Reading Your Bible In Sequence Without Jumping Around

Today I’m gonna give you a perfect example of why it’s so important to study ALL of the Scripture in sequence, and not treat it like some dinner buffet where you grab a morsel from the Exodus table, go back and get a dish from the Genesis table, and then afterward head over to the New Testament table for dessert.

So let’s jump right in.

In verse 3 of Samuel 11, we’re told the leaders of Jabesh-Gilead asked Nachash if he would please give them seven days to call on Israel to see if they could get some help before they agreed to his humiliating and horrible terms.

Now if you’re an average pastor, preacher, or Bible teacher, I betcha you have absolutely no freakin’ idea what’s going on here.

Am I right?

Or am I right?

The questions stirring around in your head right now are probably like…

Why would the leaders of Yavesh make such a strange request?

And why would Nachash accept their demands?

Well, recall that Nachash wanted nothing more than to humiliate Israel.

So I’m sure he was more than happy to get the free publicity.

But there’s another reason why he allowed the leaders of Yavesh to seek out help from greater Israel.

He probably didn’t believe any help would be forthcoming.

Why?

Because a century earlier the men of Yavesh-Gilead refused to answer the call to war to punish the tribe of Benjamin for the gang rape inflicted on that Levite’s concubine in the city of Gibeah.

Gibeah was a major city in the territory of Benjamin…

And that poor concubine ended up dying there.

On top of that, the siege that Nachash and his men had put in place was something that would normally last months.

So to Nachash, a week was no big deal.

Nachash was like “Go ahead homies and try to get help from your circumcised brethren”.

So that’s what was done.

The leaders of Yavesh-Gilead sent out messengers to Gibeah begging for help.

Again, I need to reiterate that Gibeah was where that poor concubine was sexually abused to death, and where Saul lived.

Now, notice in verse 4, we’re told the people of Gibeah instantly fell into deep despair and began wailing and crying like there was no tomorrow when they heard that Yavesh-Gilead was in trouble.

Think about this for a sec.

Sure, it was unfortunate news that their fellow Hebrews of Yavesh-Gilead were about to be humiliated by a gentile power.

But why such a strong reaction?

Gibeah was located a whopping 40 miles away from Yavesh-Gilead.

In those days, that might as well have been halfway across the world.

They weren’t in any danger and Nachash hadn’t threatened to attack any of the tribes on the west side of the Jordan River.

On top of that, Gibeah was of the tribe of Benjamin and Yavesh-Gilead was of the tribes of the Gadites and Reubenites.

So why were they freaking out as if it was their own close family members who were being threatened?

To be concerned is understandable…

But to be in deep despair and anguish doesn’t make sense.

So what was going on here?

Well, let’s travel back in time to that scene in the Book of Judges immediately following the gang rape of the Levite’s concubine.

 The Levite (the husband of the murdered concubine), said:

“I and my concubine came to Gibeah in Benjamin to spend the night. During the night the men of Gibeah came after me and surrounded the house, intending to kill me. They raped my concubine, and she died. I took my concubine, cut her into pieces, and sent one piece to each region of Israel’s inheritance because they committed this lewd and outrageous act in Israel.  Now, all you Israelites, speak up and tell me what you have decided to do.”-Judges 20:4-7

The response of the people to this outrageous crime was this:

“None of us will go home. No, not one of us will return to his house.  But now this is what we’ll do to Gibeah: We’ll go up against it in the order decided by casting lots. We’ll take ten men out of every hundred from all the tribes of Israel, and a hundred from a thousand, and a thousand from ten thousand, to get provisions for the army. Then, when the army arrives at Gibeah in Benjamin, it can give them what they deserve for this outrageous act done in Israel.”-Judges 20:8-10

So we see that all the men of Israel joined together to destroy Benjamin for their Sodom-like behavior at Gibeah.

However, one city refused to fight.

Can you guess which one it was?

That’s right.

It was Yavesh-Gilead.

Check out these verses:

“Then they asked, ‘Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to assemble before the Lord at Mizpah?’ They discovered that no one from Jabesh Gilead had come to the camp for the assembly.  For when they counted the people, they found that none of the people of Jabesh Gilead were there.”-Judges 21:8-9

So what happened next?

The Israelite warriors launched an attack against the male residents of Yavesh-Gilead for their disloyalty in not joining them to punish Benjamin.

“This is what you are to do,”
they said. “Kill every male and
every woman who is not a virgin.”
-Judges 21:11

That attack resulted in the population of Yavesh-Gilead almost being reduced to zero.

Are you with me here?

Gibeah of the tribe of Benjamin had been decimated to the point of near extinction…

And pretty much the entire male population of Yavesh-Gilead had also been killed off.

Israel was now in mourning that they were about to lose one of their 12 tribes.

“Lord, God of Israel,” they cried,
“why has this happened to Israel?
Why should one tribe be
missing from Israel today?”
-Judges 21:3

So what did they do to rectify the situation?

Long story short, the Israelite warriors captured 400 young virgins from Jabesh-Gilead and gave them as wives to the few remaining male survivors of Gibeah of Benjamin in order to keep the tribe of Benjamin from dying out.

So can you see why the residents of Gibeah were in despair when they heard the residents of Yavesh-Gilead were under attack?

It’s because literally their own flesh-and-blood family members WERE being threatened.

The two cities of Yavesh-Gilead and Gibeah had intermarried and were now closely related by blood.

After the concubine incident, most of the children born to the tribe of Benjamin had mothers from the tribe of Gad and most of their fathers were from the tribe of Benjamin.

Also, don’t forget that since Yavesh-Gilead was the only tribe that had sided with Benjamin, there was an obvious close bond between the two.

And the opposite was also true.

The relationship between Yavesh-Gilead and greater Israel was I’d say at best lukewarm because let’s face it, the rest of Israel had attacked them and tried to kill them off without mercy for their refusal to participate in their war against Benjamin.

This also perfectly explains why the leaders of Jabesh-Gilead called upon Gibeah of Benjamin for help.

Again, it’s because they were family.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the citizens of Gibeah owed a long-standing debt of gratitude to Yavesh-Gilead.

Man, I love how all of the pieces come together like this!!!

When you really, and I mean REALLY understand the details and history contained in Scripture like this it gives you an entirely new and exciting dimension of understanding.

If you really grasped what I said here today, pat yourself on the shoulder…

Because you’ve just separated yourself from 99.9% of churchgoers anywhere in the world whose entire Bible study is limited to reading just a few chapters from the Gospel of John.

There are actually a ton of connections like these that I’m looking forward to sharing with you folks.

See ya all next time!