If I was to sum up the contents of the whole book of Judges in one simple sentence, it would be this:
Israel failed at conquering Canaan and paid the price,
In a nutshell, that’s really it.
After Israel entered the land and all the territory was divvied up per tribe, it fell upon them to drive out the remaining Canaanites and destroy their pagan worship sanctuaries.
However, because they failed, disaster ensued…the details of which we’ll read about in the next chapter.
One important reminder here.
Understand the land was NOT divided up based on who conquered which territory.
Rather the divisions were decided beforehand via the drawing of lots which was supervised by Moses.
First, the tribes were assigned general land allotments in the north, south and near the Jordan (to the west).
Then later on, after Israel crossed over the Jordan into Canaan, Joshua modified the size of the land holdings based on each tribes’ population size.
In other words, the bigger the tribe, the bigger the territory received.
However, there was a caveat to getting a larger piece of real estate.
It meant the bigger the piece of land you got, the more enemies you had to drive out.
And that was a serious pain in the neck.
While studying the Book of Joshua, we saw how God used the Israelite army as His earthly agents to slay hundreds of thousands of Canaanites.
And Israel did win enough battles to achieve sufficient rest in the land.
But as I’ve been harping on, there was still a lot of conquering left to do.
As unseemly as the task ahead seemed, the Lord promised Israel victory if they would just be obedient.
On the other side of the coin, if Israel failed to be obedient, they could expect a future filled with difficulties, defeats and disappointments.
And that’s the takeaway for today folks.
The Yehoshua that fought the Canaanites thousands of years ago foreshadows the Yehoshua who’s coming back to reclaim territory-and I mean ALL the territory that rightfully belongs to God’s chosen people.
We are promised victory with him, IF we will but follow him and obey his commandments.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“This calls for patient endurance
on the part of the people of God
who keep his commands
and remain faithful to Yeshua.”
-Revelations 14:12
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