Difficulty in Keeping the Covenant

MEMORY SELECTION: “The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God.” —Judges 3:7

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Judges 2:13-23

THE Book of Judges covers Israel’s history from the division of the land of Canaan to the anointing of Saul as king. That period of time was 450 years, as shown by the Apostle Paul (Acts 13:20), “After that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.”

During that long period Israel was governed by various servants of God who were raised up for a particular purpose. There was no central government. Indeed, “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judg. 17:6)

This period in Israel’s history reflected the degree of obedience or disobedience to the laws and regulations which were given to them. In proportion to their effort to live in harmony with the laws of righteousness they were blessed accordingly. When they went against the commandments of God they suffered the consequences. This was particularly true in their warfare against the heathen trespassers in the promised land whom they failed to drive out. Instead of ridding the land of the demon worshipers, they put them under slavery—not heeding the warning of God (Deut. 7:16): “Thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee.” They were further instructed to make no leagues with the inhabitants of the land and were told to destroy all their heathen altars.

When they failed to carry out the will of God, he said unto them (Judg. 2:3), “I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.” The Israelites compromised with the heathen and made leagues with them and even came under bondage to their heathen gods. And when they had thus forsaken God and his commandments he was angry with them. “And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.”—Judg. 2:14

God, however, was still with the children of Israel in spite of all their murmurings and disobedience, and in their depths of degradation and woe he showed his favor upon them. “Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.” (vs. 16) But after each such deliverance to a higher plane of worship and praise to Almighty God, they fell once again into the trap of heathen idolatry. The scriptural record continues (vs. 17), “And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the Lord; but they did not so.” In regular cycles this sequence of events occurred over and over again throughout the changing fortunes of Israel, as recorded in the Book of Judges. First the people forsook God, and then punishment followed in the form of oppression from some of the neighbors of Israel. Then, when the children of Israel cried for help, God, in turn, listened to their cry and raised them up a judge to deliver them from their oppression. Weaknesses of the flesh, however, caused them once again to return to their former ways of disobedience.

In our study of the Scriptures we conclude that the Israelites in some ways typified the new creation that is striving to follow its Lord and Head during the present Gospel Age. The Apostle Paul brings this to our attention (I Cor. 10:11, Diaglott), “But these things occurred to them typically, and were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.” The lesson for the child of God, then, is that he is admonished to overcome the various appetites of the fallen flesh and to root them out of his life—even as the Israelites were commanded to conquer the trespassers who stood in their way in the promised land.

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