Judges 1: Old Testament Obedience

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Every parent and child knows a little something about obedience. Parents want their child to obey and children don’t want to. When a child is told to clean their room the last thing they want to do is to clean their room. However, rules are typically made for the child’s benefit. For instance, children should not play on busy streets, watch violent and graphic movies, or demean one another. Even chores and responsibilities teach children the value of work and discipline, without which they will struggle later in life. But we too often fail to realize that we adults must be obedient. We have laws, work regulations, and other obligations to which we must submit too. Every month I must pay my mortgage or I will lose my house. Similarly, Israel had obligations to obey.

God brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt and gave them a specific area of land to live in. In Numbers 13, Israel rebelled against God because the Canaanites appeared too strong for them. Instead that entire generation wandered in the desert for forty years. Finally, under Joshua’s leadership Israel was allowed to enter the Promised Land, but to remain in it they must continue to be obedient to God (Deut 4:5-14). They were given explicit instructions to drive out all the nations that lived in the land (Deut 7). This may seem harsh to us today, but God had a purpose. If these nations remained they would turn the hearts of the children of Israel away from God to Canaanite idols (Deut 7:4). God desires a holy people who solely serve and obey him (v. 6-7).

Judges 1 begins to hint at Israel’s failure to obey God with their inability to drive out the Canaanites from the land. Judah was the most successful but the tribes faired increasingly worse. The failure to remove the Canaanites left Israel susceptible to their influence and ultimately Israel served the Canaanite gods. What was Israel’s problem? They had wicked hearts. It was not that Israel would not be obedient to God ­- Israel could not be obedient. God taught Israel his laws but he had yet to write them on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34). This would occur when God makes a new covenant with Israel.

Israel’s failure to obey God points toward Christ who came in humility and in obedience (Matt 26:39, 42). Christ did what Israel could not. Through Christ God made a new covenant with us which gives us the ability to obey God. We are now alive in Christ and we no longer walk according to ways of this world (Eph 2:1-10). Since we are now alive in Christ, let us then live in obedience to God. Let us be imitators of God and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us (Eph 5:1-2).

Posted by Aaron Miner