The Fall of Israel: Understanding Judges and Leadership Turmoil

In this Sunday edition of the Daily Bible Podcast, the hosts emphasize the importance of church attendance and energize listeners with lively suggestions. They humorously navigate past remarks about an unnamed group and discuss the playful editing of previous podcast comments. Key focus is given to the Book of Judges, covering themes of Israel's stubbornness, rebellion, and God's mercy through the Judges. The hosts also delve into the authorship attributed traditionally to Samuel, discuss the nature of the Angel of the Lord as representing the pre-incarnate Christ, and underscore Israel's failure to follow God's commands resulting in dire consequences. The presenters also reflect on the integral leadership role of Joshua and his impact on Israel's faithfulness. The episode concludes reminding listeners to approach scripture humbly and persist in Bible reading and knowledge.

00:00 Introduction and Sunday Greetings

00:24 Podcast Etiquette and Funny Anecdotes

02:18 Leadership Training Recap

03:16 Introduction to the Book of Judges

04:49 Judges Chapter 1: Israel's Disobedience

08:44 Judges Chapter 2: The Angel of the Lord and Joshua's Death

10:38 Clarifying the Angel of the Lord

14:40 Closing Prayer and Final Thoughts

15:35 Outro and Podcast Information

Rod (2): Hey everybody.

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Welcome back to another edition

of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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Welcome back, folks.

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It's a Sunday edition of

the Daily Bible Podcast.

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It's the Lord's Day.

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Please get yourself to church today.

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Make sure you're wide awake.

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Plenty of caffeine with

some excitement, perhaps.

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Some excitement.

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Yeah, some fervor.

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That

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PJ (2): would

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Rod (2): be good.

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Yeah.

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Some

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PJ (2): clapping, even c songs.

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Clapping,

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Rod (2): dancing, flag waving,

oof, tambourine hitting.

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Oof.

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All the

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PJ (2): things.

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Yeah, we gotta be careful about

what we say on the podcast.

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'cause we mentioned we, I used the royal,

we I believe that it was your words.

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You called the Kim's group.

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Unhinged.

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Unhinged.

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Did I say unhinged?

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You said unhinged.

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Because then I went to go visit

their group and they said, Hey,

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we're gonna, we're gonna show

you what's really unhinged.

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And thankfully it was very not

unhinged when I went there.

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It was very subdued and

it was a great group.

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I don't recall calling them unhinged.

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May I guess it happened.

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I believe you.

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Yeah.

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I just don't recall it.

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What was even in the

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Rod (2): context?

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It was ironically said, wasn't

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PJ (2): it?

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It was said ironically.

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Oh, okay.

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It wasn't on purpose.

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Yes.

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You were not angry.

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I think you talk about

flag waving the Kim.

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Yeah.

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Arg.

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And I apparently have to be

careful about what I say on the

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podcast because that's not true.

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It's not true.

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So you've never taken a snippet

of something I've said and

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then maybe scattered it in

throughout a podcast episode.

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I might've sprinkled

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Rod (2): it in on the yesterday's episode

maybe, and maybe an episode before that.

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But not liberally.

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Not liberally, okay.

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And I'm not taking

words out of your mouth.

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They were words that you said.

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Okay.

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I just applied them in multiple contexts.

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Okay.

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Alright.

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So it's

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PJ (2): a proof text then

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Rod (2): for you?

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Something like that.

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Yeah.

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So it's the words nobody

noticed, to my knowledge.

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Except for your wife.

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Yeah.

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She picked up on it.

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Amanda noticed.

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Yeah.

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But what did you say?

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I can't remember now.

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Just go ahead and say that again.

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PJ (2): No, I'm not.

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Yeah.

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No, I don't think I will.

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It's too

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Rod (2): late, man.

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I already have it.

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It's not like it can be

anything I don't have already.

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PJ (2): I just wanna make it harder

for you to have to go back and find

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Rod (2): it to drop it in again,

bro, let me tell you, I've got

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that phrase under lock and key

at the ready anytime I need it.

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It is safe and secure.

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So it was during one of our

conversations you were saying,

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PJ: Yeah.

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I would agree with

everything that you said

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Rod (2): and I just took that little

snippet and tightened it up a bit and

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put it after everything that I said.

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Yeah, you affirmed everything

that I said for that episode.

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It was wonderful.

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Yeah, I felt so good at

the end of that episode.

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I'm glad you did.

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I was like, man, maybe I'm

doing the right thing, Lord.

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'cause I feel affirmed right now.

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PJ (2): Oh,

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Rod (2): I'm glad you feel affirmed.

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Speaking of affirming

anything, last night went well.

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We had a, not last night.

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I guess it was two nights ago.

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Was two nights ago.

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Yeah.

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We had our Friday night

leadership training.

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It was always cool to have our

people and talk about fun things.

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We talk about being committed leaders.

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That was a good night.

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PJ (2): It was a good night.

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Yeah.

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We

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Rod (2): had Christian chicken

sandwiches, which I, yes, Christian

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chicken was amazing, but I have to tell

you, my favorite part of the night.

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Was not the food and

it wasn't the teaching.

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It was the games.

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The games were the best.

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They were awesome.

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That was so much fun.

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Yeah.

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I could not believe I, the joy that

I felt when we initially played those

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games back when I was in high school.

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Yeah.

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At least some of the games, not all of

them, but I felt just this is so good.

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I think we should do it

every time we gather.

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PJ (2): We should do

it on Sunday mornings.

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That's a great idea.

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Before announcements have icebreaker games

during the service ice game, let's do it.

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I don't know that we should do that.

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People would enjoy it.

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I'm not saying they wouldn't, I just, I

think there would be other people that

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would probably, they'd be confused.

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They might think that's unhinged.

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They'd be, that there

would be no flag waving.

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That's true.

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At least that's true.

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That's true.

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That is accurate.

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Yeah, for sure.

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Anyways let's jump in.

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Let's talk about judges.

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We're in a pretty, a new book.

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Brand new book.

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And this book is gonna take us all

the way from Joshua's death until

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the beginning of Samuel's leadership.

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So right about up to 10 50 BC

if you're keeping score at home.

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The book has really not a lot

in the way of positive events.

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Not a lot of highlights going on here.

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This is a lot about Israel's

stubbornness, their rebellion.

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And God's mercy.

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I, those are the themes

that really come out here.

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And God's mercy is seen in the

raising up of the judges, and that's

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where the book gets its title.

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There's no author named, but actually

tradition in the Jewish camp holds

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that this was written by Samuel.

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And so we may have Samuel as the

author of both judges and First

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and second Samuel, if he was the

author of First and Second Samuel.

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But yeah, Jewish believe that Samuel

is the one that wrote the book.

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My favorite judge is Judge Judy.

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She's not in the book.

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She's not in the book.

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No.

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Is she the same kind of judge?

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She's not the same kind of judge.

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Yeah.

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No.

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And that's probably a helpful distinction.

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We're not talking about the

court of law type judges.

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We're talking about the judges that are

there to help decide matters between

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people, but also more importantly

to lead the people of Israel.

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And so they are seen

as the defacto leaders.

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In fact we know that because a couple of

the judges are approached and said, Hey,

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why don't you just make yourself king?

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And and they're serving

in that level at that.

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At that capacity.

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And one of the descendants of the

judges, a bialek, we'll get to him

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eventually or a alek it's a bialek, right?

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Yeah.

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He goes ahead and says, I wanna do

that and wrongfully but we're gonna see

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Gideon say, no, I'm not gonna do that.

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This is not the monarchy, this is,

these are not kings, but they're serving

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as the defacto leaders of the people.

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As we get into chapter one, we see in

verses one through 10 it's a strong start.

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It starts.

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You're gonna read this and go, okay,

this seems like this might go well.

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And Judah and Simeon continue

the conquest in the region

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that's been allotted to them.

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So it seems like we're doing all right

here in verses 11 through 15, we get this

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kind of retelling of the story of Aneal.

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You remember that from

the end of Jo Joshua that.

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Othniel was Caleb's eventual Caleb,

eventually Caleb's son-in-law that as

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Caleb was settling his land, he said,

if anyone can do this and drive these

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people out, I'll give them my daughter.

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And oth Neil was the one that

steps up and ends up doing that.

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Verses 16 through 26.

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You get more of the conquest here

except this is where things begin

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to go sideways a little bit.

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You'll note verse 19 that we find that,

judah's failure to, to trust the Lord

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fully leads to their failure to completely

drive out the people of the plane here.

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And there, there's, this is where we

find that their disobedience kicks in.

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And this is gonna go from good or somewhat

good to, to bad really quickly here.

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And they're gonna find

that they're in need of.

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Deliverance more failures to drive

out the people completely as the

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chapter goes on verses 27 through 36.

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This is just they're

disobeying God's commands here.

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And so it starts well, but then quickly

in chapter one it unravels here.

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Rod (2): Talk about the fact that

they cut off this guy's thumbs and is.

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Toes it's glanced.

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It is just said here quickly in,

in verse six, Adonai beek fled, but

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they caught him and they cut off his

thumbs and his big toes, and then

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he's yeah, I did this before to other

people and now you've done it to me.

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It seems like he's saying this is justice.

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But this may not sit well with people.

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Because it doesn't say

that they should do this.

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What are your thoughts about

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PJ (2): that?

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Yeah I wrestle with that too.

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I it seems that this was a

decision that they made without.

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The direct instructions

from the Lord on that.

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And it may have been that they

were thinking that same thing.

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Hey, we're gonna do to you

as you've done to others.

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And this is certainly

a sign of humiliation.

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And so they're embarrassing this one.

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They're embarrassing his

people as a result of that.

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It's, it should certainly

would've been shameful.

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So I don't think this is anywhere

that we would say God said.

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This is what you should do.

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I think this is them kind of taking

things into their own hands there,

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which is part of what gets them in

trouble throughout the whole book.

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Yeah,

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Rod (2): I'd be inclined to agree.

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I think the book of judges, when

you read about what the people do,

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generally speaking, it's not favorable.

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It's not a good thing.

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Judges ends with the refrain that we're

gonna become familiar with short order.

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But I think that's important to

see because nowhere does God tell.

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His people to maim a king, even if it does

render him ineffective in battle, which

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is the equivalent of hamstringing a horse.

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He's no longer able to pick up a sword and

conduct battle operations as he once did.

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But there it is, you begin to see cracks

in the veneer O of the nation's face.

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On top of that, you'll notice in

the verses 27 to the end of the

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chapter that it doesn't say that they

could not drive out these people.

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It says that they did not.

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Which, to your point, speaks to their.

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Their defiance their utter

disobedience did not drive them

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out, did not drive them out.

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This is repeated over and over again

for the force of you as the reader

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saying, wow, they're just straight up

blatantly rebelling against the Lord.

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And of course, this is not gonna end well.

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PJ (2): Yeah, that, that's a,

I had that highlighted too.

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That's a repeated phrase.

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There.

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Did not drive them out.

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Did not drive 'em out and over again.

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There one thing that, that.

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I just wanna draw your attention to, I

know I keep coming back to Jerusalem and

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you're like, fine enough of Jerusalem,

but this is such a significant city

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and I wanna clear something up.

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'cause you may look at this

and say, wait a minute.

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And I thought Pastor PJ said they

didn't take Jerusalem until David's day.

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That's what he said.

264

But in verse eight, it says, the men

of Juda against Jerusalem and captured

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it and struck it with the edge of

the sword and set the city on fire.

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And so what gives it seems that the city

was taken, was defeated, but they did

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not drive the inhabitants outta the city.

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They defeated the city and moved on.

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They didn't settle in the city

where that would've been, what

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God would've wanted them to do.

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And if you jumped down to verse

21, it says, but the people of

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Benjamin did not drive out the

Jebe sites who lived in Jerusalem.

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So it seems that they defeated them, but

they didn't exterminate them completely.

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They didn't settle in the city.

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And so eventually the cities rebuilt

and the Jebusites continued to live

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there, even unto the day of Samuel.

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And then eventually David.

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Chapter two.

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Then in chapter two, we get an

appearance from the angel of the Lord

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and again, the angel of the Lord.

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Anytime we see that most often is

the second person of the trinity,

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I think that's what we see here.

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Again, this is Christ in.

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Incarnate, pre-incarnate vision of

Jesus incarnate meaning in the flesh.

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So he's not in the flesh, but

he's taking bodily form here so

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that people can see him and he's

communicating and he's confronting them.

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And he says in verse three

you have not obeyed my voice.

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And so he says in verse or verse

two, and then in verse three, he

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says, so now I say, I will not

drive them out before you, but they

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shall become thorns in your sides.

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And there God shall be a snare to you.

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So God is doling out the judgment

and the punishment for Israel's

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rejection and failure to do what

he had commanded them to do.

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Verse six through 10, verses six

through 10, we get the death of Joshua

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again, significant because Joshua was

such a good leader for the people.

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And so he dies here at 110 years old.

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And so that tells us chapters one

and this point to chapter two, the

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introductory material for the book

as a whole, and it's setting up.

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What's gonna lead to their downfall.

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This is the tailspin of Israel,

which continues after Joshua dies.

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They serve the Baals, the other gods

of the peoples that they had not driven

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out and fulfillment of the prophecy

of the angel of the Lord there.

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And this is gonna set up the need for

them to be delivered by judges, which

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God's gonna begin to do in the book.

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Two

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Rod (2): quick ideas here.

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One, one of them is a question

for you, and the other one really

308

about the, about Joshua himself.

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I'll start with the second one, Joshua.

310

It seems because of his death.

311

The nation now lacks a strong centralized

leader, which I wonder if this is what

312

led to their compromise and their fraction

their factions that resulted in all

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their different kind of idolatry and

their unwillingness to obey the Lord.

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Joshua was a strong leader

and I can't help but wonder,

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at least question out loud.

316

I wonder if it's because he

was no longer on the scene.

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This is Moses' protege.

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He was trained, he was godly, and now

he's gone, and now you're beginning

319

to see the breakdown of the nation.

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That was my first thought.

321

The second one.

322

It has to do with something that

you brought up multiple times.

323

And I just wanna clarify something

that has a potential to confuse and

324

it's about the angel of the Lord.

325

So we believe that Jesus is the

second person of the Godhead.

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He's fully human, fully divine,

at least not at this point.

327

He's not fully human,

he's still fully divine.

328

One of the things that the

Jehovah's Witnesses will say is

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that Jesus is the Archangel Michael

and that he is in fact an angel.

330

He's not.

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Fully divine.

332

So one of the issues it seems that could

be raised if someone was reading this and

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says, oh, Jesus is the angel of the Lord.

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Then Jesus is an angel, is he not?

335

How would you respond to that and offer

some kind of clarification so that no

336

one's confused about who Jesus is, even

if we're seeing something of his nature

337

presented through the angel of the Lord?

338

Yeah,

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PJ (2): that's a helpful question to

raise the word angel we immediately

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think spiritual being the word

angel at its root means messenger.

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One sent by someone with a

message, with a, an instructions.

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That's why in, the book of Revelation

that the seven churches are written

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to the angel of the church, of the

messenger of that church the one that

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is carrying the message of the Lord.

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This is what I have to say to you.

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So when we read the angel of the

Lord, it's the messenger of the Lord.

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And then, so that's the first thing.

348

It doesn't mean spiritual being.

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The second thing is, when we look

at the response of people, when the

350

angel of the Lord shows up, and I

don't know if this is necessarily the

351

greatest example, but there's other

times where the angel of the Lord, and

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that's what's unique, is when it's He's

signified as the angel of the Lord.

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Not an angel of the Lord,

but the angel of the Lord.

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When we see that.

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People respond to this angel the way that

they would respond in the presence of God.

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There's a fear, there's a terror,

there's an a recognition even

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admitting I've been in the presence

of God there when the angel departs.

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And anytime that happens with

a mere angel, think again.

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The Book of Revelation.

360

When John falls down and worships a,

an angel in the book of Revelation,

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the angel says, what are you doing?

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Get up.

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You don't, you shouldn't worship me.

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Anytime the angel of the Lord is

worshiped in the Old Testament, he

365

welcomes it and says, this is good.

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This is right.

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You should do this.

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What we see from the angel of

the Lord in the Old Testament

369

is is the reception of worship.

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When a created angel, an angel

that's not the second member of

371

the Trinity, would never do that.

372

They would always say,

you shouldn't do this.

373

This is wrong.

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You should worship God.

375

Instead, I.

376

And then I would say the third thing

is when the angel of the Lord speaks

377

and it says here, the angel of the

Lord went up from gilgal to bokeem and

378

he said, I brought you up from Egypt.

379

I brought you into the land that

I swore to give your fathers.

380

I said, I will never break

my covenant with you.

381

He speaks as God.

382

And so I'd say it's those three things.

383

The word means messenger.

384

He receives the worship of man, and

then third, when he speaks as God.

385

Really

386

Rod (2): helpful for you to say that.

387

So let's just be clear then.

388

There is a class a spiritual

being called an angel.

389

Yes.

390

So this, even though the terminology

is used here, the translator decided to

391

render the word for messenger as angel.

392

Although throughout the text

there are times that they take the

393

same word maal and they translate

it as messenger as appropriate.

394

So I guess why do you think then

the ESB translators went with.

395

The angel of the Lord as opposed

to the messenger of the Lord.

396

Do you think that there's any

significance behind that, or is

397

it just a matter of tradition?

398

Maybe that's the best answer.

399

Do you have any ideas about that?

400

PJ (2): I haven't given

a whole lot of thought.

401

I, I would say, I think it

probably does carry a little

402

bit more weight than Messenger.

403

Perhaps messenger could be

misconstrued as a mere human

404

being a little bit more easily.

405

This does immediately put us in

the realm of the supernatural

406

by calling this an angel.

407

And so perhaps that's why whereas

the messenger of the Lord could be,

408

a human being that you're going,

oh, this is the servant of the Lord.

409

He's got a message from God for us.

410

And so maybe it just helps to elevate

our thinking right off the bat.

411

Rod (2): That's a fair idea.

412

And I guess my point for all of

you then is just not to confuse

413

the fact that the terminology as

angel applied to Jesus does not mean

414

that Jesus is an angel a messenger.

415

And that's the idea here.

416

Although he's a spiritual

being taking on some kind of.

417

Some kind of shape, whether

it's physical or just the

418

appearance of a physical shape.

419

I'm not exactly sure.

420

But the fact is he is not an angel.

421

He's a, he has a separate ontology, which

is a reference to the nature of his being.

422

He is God but right now he's inhabiting

some kind of per personage of some sort

423

to represent the divine being God himself.

424

PJ (2): Yep.

425

Let's pray and then we'll be done with

this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.

426

Yet we are our wanna be humble

in our approach to scripture.

427

We wanna ask good questions.

428

We want to ask things like,

how do we know this is.

429

God, that this is you, that this is the

second member of the Trinity here when we

430

read about this, the angel of the Lord.

431

And we are grateful for the way

that you've created our minds

432

to work and understand text.

433

And Lord, we wanna be careful always

to sit in subjection to your word

434

and not put the word in subjection

to our own intellect, our own wisdom.

435

Help us to be humble in that and

humble recipients of your truth.

436

And God, we just want to continue

to learn and know more, and

437

know your word more thoroughly.

438

As we spend more and more time

in it with each passing year that

439

we can say we've read the Bible

again, Lord, that is another.

440

It's not just checking a box.

441

It's not a badge of honor on us.

442

It's a way for us to know you more deeply.

443

And so I pray that would

be the end of our time.

444

We pray this in Jesus' name.

445

Amen.

446

Amen.

447

Keep bring your Bibles tune again

tomorrow for another edition of

448

the Daily Bible Podcast or else.

449

Bye.

450

Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

451

This is a ministry of Compass

Bible Church in north Texas.

452

You can find out more information

about ourChurch@compassntx.org.

453

We would love for you to leave a

review to rate to share this podcast

454

on whatever platform you happen to

be listening on, and we will catch

455

you against tomorrow for another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

456

PJ: Yeah.

457

I would agree with

everything that you said