Sermon Tone Analysis
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As we begin to move through the cycles of the judges, we must bear in mind how the author has set things up for us in the prologue.
He gave us the pattern of the cycles in chapter two, and as we move into the cycles themselves, we will see that pattern unfold.
We must be on guard for attempts to moralize the text.
If we fall into that trap we will miss what the author was trying to communicate.
The two themes that will emerge over and over again are the increasing Canaanization of the people of Israel, and the Covenant faithfulness of God.
Othniel: Forgetting but not Forgotten
This paragraph gives us the paradigm for the whole book.
Just as it was said in chapter two, so it plays out in the first cycle.
The people forsake the Lord.
Verse seven says that they “forgot” the Lord and served the Baals.
This word for “forgot” doesn’t carry the idea that something just slipped their minds, like they developed a form of spiritual amnesia.
It speaks of having a lack of regard for something.
They did not pay suffient attention to something that they ought to have focused on, namely the Lord!
Forgetfulness is semi-major theme throughout the Old Testament.
We are commanded to remember!
When I was in college, I learned a painful lesson about forgetfulness.
I was hired by a church to perform certain duties, and in the midst of all the things going on with school and work and church....I forgot about some of my responsibilities.
They just weren’t in my head.
For a while I thought that this absolved me of wrongdoing.
You can’t fault a guy for forgetting!
I didn’t deliberately ignore or brush things off.
I just got busy and....forgot.
I had to learn that forgetfulness only adds to the sin.
My forgetfulness was evidence that I did not regard that responsibility high enough so as to remember.
Part of my responsibility is to remember!
To forget is an offense worthy of discipline on its own.
The people forgot the Lord their God.
They did not regard him highly enough so as to keep his commands.
Instead, they served the fertility gods of the land.
And so we see God’s response.
He delivers them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim.
Again, God has every right to be angry.
It is no small thing to serve the Baals and Asheroth, as we discussed last week.
And just like God promised he would, he turns them over to the people of the land, in this case Cushan-Rishathaim.
Who is this guy?
We only know of this man from this text, and that may be partly because of how his name is presented here.
Cushan Rishathaim literally means “Cushan, the double wicked”.
More than likely this was a pejorative title given to him by those he oppressed.
As a result we don’t have much by way of extra-biblical resources on him.
It says he the king of Mesopotamia....the Hebrew words that are translated there refer to a region, and would be literally translated “the land of the double rivers”
Thus you have Cushan the Double-wicked King of the Double-Rivers land.
A phrase that rhymes in Hebrew.
So God gives over the forgetful Israelites into the hand of this double-wicked ruler and they are oppressed for eight years.
But the people cry out to the Lord.
When we see this concept of “cried out” we need to be careful to not read more into that than what it says.
This word on its own does not mean that they were repentant.
In fact, it can be argued that this particular word is never used to signify repentance, but that idea has to come from other words in the context.
Rather the idea is that they cried out in agony.
They groaned under the burden.
They knew that they were in trouble, and they “remembered” God, and asked for help.
“God I need your help right now”
How many of you have had friends that you knew if they were calling, it was because they wanted or needed something?
I’ve known a few of those over the years.
They didn’t stick around because I figured out what they were doing and put an end to it.
This is how most people in America interact with God.
There is no prayer, no Scripture reading, no interaction with the God they claim to follow except perhaps occasional church attendance and the plea for help when things go wrong.
What kind of faith is that?
We are called to be God’s ambassadors....what kind of ambassador never communicates with his King outside of needing help??
This is the people of Israel.
Nevertheless, we see the faithfulness of God in his deliverance:
Though the people were forgetful, they were not forgotten.
God raised up Othniel to cast off the oppression of Cushan, the double-wicked.
This is Othniel’s second appearance in this book.
We saw him back in chapter one.
We noted when we moved through that text that Othniel was a Canaanite by birth.
He was not an Israelite.
Yet he was convinced that Yahweh was the one true God and he became a proselyte and was assimilated into the Israelite community.
Again, another testament to God’s mercy.
The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him and he judged Israel, he went out to war, and the Lord gave this double wicked man into his hand.
Who is the primary actor in those verses?
It’s God! Othniel was God’s instrument, but it was God who was at work!
And so we see the people move from sin, to suffering, to supplication, to salvation, to rest, and the first cycle is complete.
Ehud: Divine Comedy
Things didn’t last long in their newfound state of peace.
40 years is about one generation.
That’s all it took to see the people slide back into idolatry once again.
Notice that it takes longer for the people to cry out this time.
Already we are seeing the degradation in this detail alone.
What are we to do with a story like that?
As far as pure stories go, it doesn’t get much better than this, right?
I mean, kids love this story!
The text itself is just dripping with divine comedy, irony, and mockery of the Moabites.
First you have Ehud, a Benjamite who is left-handed.
The name Benjamin literally means “son of my right hand” and here is a left-handed man.
The irony is not lost on the Hebrew listeners.
Because he is left handed, he is able to conceal his weapon on the opposite side that would normally be searched by the guards.
His dagger was around 18 inches in length, likely contained a blade with a handle with no cross piece.
Then there is Eglon.
“a very fat man”.
He is portrayed as not only being physically fat, but mentally dull.
He has a “secret message” for the king and he falls for it hook line and sinker.
When Eglon hears there is a secret message, we requires silence, which his guards interpreted as meaning “time to leave”, which left Ehud and Eglon alone on the roof chamber.
This was where the cool evening breeze could blow and apparently there was a private restroom chamber up there, as we will see in a moment.
Ehud then repeats that he has a message, but this time he says it is from God. Eglon staggers to his feet, only to be met with the dagger from Ehud’s hand “this is the message”.
And being as fat as he was, Ehud didn’t even try to get the dagger back. it pierced him through and the text says the dung came out.
The means of Ehud’s escape is ambiguous from the Hebrew.
It says he locked the doors and went out into the porch.
Some scholars believe that he literally slide down the waste shaft from the toilet chamber to escape.
The guards, seeing the door is locked seek to give the king his privacy, until the embarrassment of waiting is worse than the potential embarrassment of intruding upon their king using the toilet.
And then we find the ccount of delieverance from the Moabites:
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