Ever wonder why the minor Judges are called “Minor Judges”?
The answer is quite simple actually.
It’s because there’s almost nothing written about them.
Maybe 1 or 2 sentences or at most a measly paragraph.
Compared to the other 7 Shophetim who have narratives stretching as long as a mile in some cases, the details of the lives of the 5 minor Judges weren’t considered as important.
Although the minor Judges operated in different areas under differing conditions, one thing they had in common was they all lived during the same time as Yiftach (Jephthah in English).
Now there’s one thing that should be getting clearer to you at this point.
Israel was going through some BIG TIME changes at this stage in their history.
From the time when Joshua led Israel into the land to up until now, the Israelites operated under your typical Middle Eastern tribal structure.
In other words, there was little cooperation and harmony among the tribes.
Each tribe only gave 2 hoots about themselves and their own selfish interests.
However, during this era, things were beginning to change.
The people had begun to recognize their need for a king rule over them.
And they started to operate more like a true nation-state.
Here’s the thing.
Periods of change are unavoidably messy and filled with stress, unrest and overwhelm.
That’s just the nature of the beast when transitioning from one societal structure to another.
In addition, each of the Judges only operated in specific areas of the Promised Land.
In other words, the Lord raised up Judges to deal with only local trouble as opposed to national upheaval.
And 99.9% of the time these local troubles were directly connected to idolatry…
Which led to the Lord responding by sending a gentile nation to oppress them.
It’s not like the 12 tribes fell into idolatry or had to deal with oppression from a foreign nation equally or simultaneously.
We also see the era of Judges was characterized by Israel’s declining faith in God accompanied by a rapid descent into immorality and idolatry.
This was a period when a pure hearted dedication to Torah was replaced with a mishmash of God’s instructions, pagan customs, men’s doctrines and then defending all of it for the sake of political correctness and “peace”.
Now if ever there was a statement that would accurately describe the state of the church today, it would be that last sentence, don’t you think?
As I’ve said many times already, right now as I write this, you’d be hard pressed to find a book that has more parallels to the gentile church’s current situation than the Book of Judges.
Leave a Reply