JU5-3: In All Of Israel’s History, Which Generation Of Hebrews Was The Most Godly?

The Song of Devorah is a patriotic song of victory and freedom as well as an anthem celebrating a great moment in Israel’s history.

And not only that, this poem also summarizes how man falls into sin and what he must do to be delivered.

Now as with all parts of Scripture, it’s important to interpret the behavior of the characters depicted in their proper context.

Were their actions heroic?

Yes, but only in a relative sense.

What I’m saying is there’s a difference between behavior that’s considered good and moral when taken under less than ideal circumstances and the pure and holy actions of our Father in heaven.

Because the truth is, by this point in time, the Israelite tribes had fallen far away from a God-ordained, Kosher-approved and Torah-obedient lifestyle.

In a world of criminals, when one person does something even resembling moral godliness, of course his actions are gonna stand out like the proverbial sore thumb.

For instance, there’s no comparison to this generation of Israelites here in the Book of Judges and the first generation led by Joshua who crossed over the Jordan River to conquer Canaan.

Sure, Joshua’s generation was far from perfect and we all know they had their embarrassing failures.

But they were strongly immersed in God’s Torah and made a conscious effort to obey the Lord in every aspect of their lives.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that in terms of godly leadership and being close to God, save for Adam and Eve, there’s no group of people who lived in more harmony with the Lord than Joshua’s generation.

That’s right homies.

The Godly leadership that Joshua demonstrated ain’t gonna be repeated until Messiah returns to set up his Kingdom.

So just understand this generation of Israelites we’re studying about here in the book of the Shophetim (Judges) were living in ignorance to God’s laws.

Thus, even the so-called “good” they did, really stuck out.

Or to put it another way, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.