June 15 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 46—Judges 1:22–26

²²The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the LORD was with them. ²³And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) ²⁴And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, "Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you." ²⁵And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. ²⁶And the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day.

Devotional:

This text forms the third vignette puncturing the author's list of military exploits. Here too we see hints of Israel's disobedience to Yahweh. With God accompanying Israel's warriors (cf. 1:22), they had all they needed and everything should have gone well. But the people's strategy included the help of an inhabitant of the city that heretofore was called Luz (1:23-25).

The point of this episode is equally subtle as the one in the story of Adoni-Bezek. In fact, there are sufficient textual features that invite a comparison with the fall of Jericho through the help of an enemy. In Joshua 2 it was Rahab, whose assistance saved her life. Is Bethel another version of the conquest of Jericho? In both cases, Israel "made a covenant" with the enemy (cf. 1:24), despite the fact that Deut. 7:2 prohibited such deals. But a closer look at both accounts reveals that Israel's offer to the man of Luz belongs in a different category altogether. Rahab and her family were fully integrated into the faith and life of Israel. She confessed the God of Israel and identified with him. But the traitor of Bethel/Luz is simply permitted to pack his pots and pans on a donkey and leave. What does he do? He builds his own city, stubbornly resurrects the name of Luz and continues his life as a Hittite. In one sense, Luz was destroyed, but in another, the city was simply beamed to a new site. Israel had not fulfilled its mandate in striking a deal with the enemy. Anything short of total destruction posed a violation of Yahweh's command. Eventually, one Canaanite would turn into many, and before long Israel was content to live side by side with them.

Judges tells the tale of Israel's gradual Canaanization, and the opening chapter conveys this message in its own way. Yet, the main character of the book is God, and he shows himself to be most gracious. The cycles of the judges demonstrate that Yahweh typically operates on Israel's behalf in mercy, not in the judgment that the people worked so hard to earn by their infidelity. Read this book and you will know that the only reason why Israel emerges from this dark age of the Old Testament is because of the repeated gracious interventions of Yahweh who took pity on them. Left to themselves, they would have destroyed themselves! But the nation survives because God pulls them through. He has other plans.

Thanks be to God! Left to ourselves, we would do what we all do best, namely, destroy ourselves and the lives of others. Jeremiah once put this human dilemma into words: "They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge" (Jer. 4:22). Don't think we are different! But God is holy. He sent his Son to break the cycle of sin and destruction once and for all, so that our hope may not be in things that perish. Because of Christ's finished work there will be no unfinished business as in the days of the judges. Indeed, "we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Rom. 8:37). God is the hero of the story.

The author of these devotionals, the Rev. Martin Emmrich, is an ordained OPC minister (Westminster OPC, Corvallis, Oregon) as well as the author of Pneumatological Concepts in the Epistle to the Hebrews, a book on the teaching of Hebrews on the Holy Spirit. We are happy to make these devotionals on Ecclesiastes and other passages of Scripture available to you.