“But then Adonai raised up judges, who rescued them from the power of those who were plundering them. Yet they did not pay attention to their judges, but made whores of themselves to other gods and worshipped them; they quickly turned away from the path on which their ancestors had walked, the way of obeying Adonai’s mitzvot — they failed to do this. When Adonai raised up judges for them, Adonai was with the judge and delivered them from the hands of their enemies throughout the lifetime of the judge; for Adonai was moved to pity by their groaning under those oppressing and crushing them.“-Judges 2:16-18
Verses 16-18 gives us the cycle demonstrating how the SHOFETIM or Judges were to be used by the Lord.
First, God would raise up a judge.
Then the appointed judge would act as a savior and rescue whatever tribe was being oppressed from its enemies.
Third, things would take a reversal as Israel would quite rapidly fall back into idolatry.
Finally, the cycle would begin all over again.
The key point I want you to store in your back pocket here is that as long as a judge who God had appointed remained in power, Israel was kept safe and secure.
Did you catch that?
Whenever Israel had a judge ruling over them, they were safe and secure.
And whenever Israel didn’t have a judge ruling overing them, they were NOT safe and secure.
Again, keep this point in mind because it contains the secret to mankind’s salvation from the chaos it’s in today.
Onward.
Next, let’s take a good look at verse 18.
“When Adonai raised up judges for them, Adonai was with the judge and delivered them from the hands of their enemies throughout the lifetime of the judge; for Adonai was moved to pity by their groaning under those oppressing and crushing them.”-Judges 2:18
We’re told that God was moved to pity because of those who were “oppressing” His people.
The Hebrew word for “oppressing” or “to oppress” is LACHATS.
LACHATS means “to apply pressure” or “to squeeze” in the sense of being squeezed into a box that one doesn’t want to be squeezed into.
And wouldn’t you know it, the New Testament actually contains a direct equivalent to the word LACHATS in Greek.
That word is THLIPSIS.
Do you know how this word is usually translated in our English Bibles?
Come on now, take a guess.
If you said “tribulation”, you nailed it.
That’s right folks, the Greek word THLIPSIS is a direct translation from the Hebrew word LACHATS.
In both cases, the words mean “to be put under pressure” and are usually rendered as “oppressed” or “afflicted” or “tribulation” in our English Bibles.
However, here’s the thing.
The evangelical branch of the gentile church hasn’t quite captured the correct nuance of the word.
According to them, LACHAT means extreme oppression to the point where lives will be endangered.
That’s not entirely wrong but it’s not entirely correct either.
It can also mean peer pressure to do something such as the pressure to lose one’s virginity in high school whether you’re ready for sex or not.
Or the pressure governments are applying to their citizens to get the eniccav against their wills in many cases.
In fact, that’s a perfect example of the true Biblical meaning of the word “tribulation”.
If you think about it, the fact that I felt compelled to spell the word out backwards is because I sense there’s tremendous LACHAT or pressure in the world to not say anything negative about the eniccav.
Biblically speaking, LACHAT has more of a passive nuance to it where the result is being rejected by society like not being able to eat inside of restaurants, go to gyms or attend any type of group gathering unless you’ve complied with a certain order as opposed to being rounded up and being shot like in the holocaust or something.
That’s the true meaning of the word “tribulation”, biblically speaking.
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