Today’s passage: Judges 19:1-21

Helpful thoughts:

• The use of the word “Concubine” styles this marriage differently than God’s purpose for the unity of husband and wife.  This was a second class kind of marriage, perhaps similar to what Samson desired with the Timnite woman.
• The unfaithfulness of the woman should not automatically be assumed as sexual.  She may have simply not wanted to remain with the Levite, for whatever reason, and left him.
• The repetitive hospitality of her father toward the Levite seems strange but was quite hospitable.  It might seem stranger when we see the rest of the context tomorrow.
• The Levite rejects the idea of spending the night in Jebus because he didn’t expect to receive hospitality there…not like the hospitality he would expect to receive from his own countrymen.

Questions to consider:

1. What have you come to expect when you see the opening line, “In those days, when there was no king in Israel…”?  What should we be expecting to see in this narrative?
2. What kind of hospitality did the Levite and his party receive in Gibeah?  Who ended up actually helping them?
3. How do verses 16-21 compare to what happened in Genesis 19:1-4?  Why might this comparison give us cause for concern?

Today’s passage: Judges 18:14-31

Helpful thoughts:

• With the mentions of the “gods” that had been made, we have confirmation that the worship of Yahweh had become a polytheistic practice in the minds of all these Israelites.
• This narrative was written in such a way to give us a shocking ending.  The unnamed Levite who had become Micah’s priest for hire, and then happily left him for a better job…was a descendant of Moses.
• In this chapter, we are introduced not to an individual who had abandoned the Lord, but an entire tribe.

Questions to consider:

1. How would this passage contrast with the idea that success is always a sign of blessing and right actions/motives?
2. In what way should we be alarmed by the way the Tribe of Dan and Moses’ descendant seemed to have no idea they were in the wrong?  How do I know that the things I think and do are right?  How can I rightly (Righteously) measure that?
3. Was Jonathan the Levite automatically a godly man because he was from Moses’ lineage?  Am I a Christian because my parents are Christians?  What must I do to be saved?

Today’s passage: Judges 18:1-13

Helpful thoughts:

• The people of Dan felt as though they had no inheritance in the land but that was simply not true.
  • They had been given an inheritance (Joshua 19:40-48).
  • They failed to ever take possession of it (Judges 1:34-36).
• The leaders of Dan inquired from God from a Levite who was serving in an illegitimate ministry with no hesitation.
  • That hired Levite gave an immediate vague response that was entirely open to interpretation under the name of Yahweh.
• Compared to the thousands and ten-thousands of men the other tribes have mustered up for battles over the last couple hundred years in Israel, the Danites put together an army of 600.

Questions to consider:

1. Why didn’t the Danites have more land for their possession in the first place?  Did God fail them?  Did the rest of Israel fail them?
2. How many ways could the Levite’s response have been interpreted?  For example, if you were looking for a fight, how might you interpret, “Go in peace?”
3. What was motivating the Danites to prepare to fight?  How does this motivation compare to the motivation from Joshua 23:1-13?  How can God’s promises to His people, Christ’s victory over death, and His love for you motivate you to live today?

Today’s passage: Judges 17:1-13

Helpful thoughts:

• “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
• Micah returned the huge amount of money he had stolen from his own mother to avoid a curse.
  • When she realizes it was her son, she tried to invoke blessing to undo the curse.
  • She tried to buy the blessing from the Lord by giving 200 pieces of the silver to make… an idol!
• Micah made more idols and got himself a couple of priests (One of his own sons and a Levite!) for his new version of religion which was going under the name of Yahweh worship.
• “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Questions to consider:

1. How many wrong practices/ideas can you find in this narrative?
2. What had to be true of Micah and his family’s knowledge of the Word, their knowledge about Yahweh Himself, and their view of religion in general that would have allowed them to think they could just invent all of these features of Yahweh worship?
3. In what ways might we (Christians) mimic these characteristics of self-styled worship today?

Today’s passage: Judges 16:23-31

Helpful thoughts:

• The Philistines praised their god for giving them victory over Samson.  By default, it was also a taunting of the God of Israel.
• Samson never refers to Israel in his prayer for strength.
• God’s plan was not limited or inhibited by Samson’s Philistine lifestyle and death.

Questions to consider:

1. Why did Samson want to knock over the pillars?  What was his motivation?  How was his motivation similar to his previous actions against the Philistines?
2. How do you know Dagon the god of the Philistines did not give Samson into their hands? (Hint: He doesn’t exist!)  Who did and for what purpose? (Judges 13:5)
3. In what way could the ability of the nations surrounding Israel to “faithfully” worship their gods, and the inability of Israel to remain faithful to the true LORD, give us more reason to believe that our God is the true God?  Why is it so easy for people groups around the world to follow false religions and so “hard” for people to accept the truth of Jesus Christ?  What is the nature of those gods?  What is the basis of those systems of belief?  How are they all different from Biblical Christianity?

Today’s passage: Judges 16:1-22

Helpful thoughts:

• Samson carried the massive city gate 40 miles uphill, while the men of the city were waiting to capture him.  Not much detail is given in the first three verses in this narrative, but something amazing had to have happened to make all this possible.
  • Yet, the Lord is never mentioned.
  • We do get to see that Samson has become not only a regional, but a national enemy of the Philistines.
• Samson could unhinge and carry city gates, but he couldn’t say no to a woman, even after her repeated and blatant attempts to destroy him.
• Samson knew the account of how he had received his strength and the purpose of it.  What he may not have realized is just how much of his strength was God-given.
  • Samson either didn’t realize his hair had been shaved, or he didn’t realize that losing it would even matter.  Every other time he violated the Nazarite vow, he had “gotten away with it.”

Questions to consider:

1. Other than the calling that God had given Samson before his birth, how have we seen him living for the Lord?  What fights has he fought for Israel and not for himself?
2. Why did Samson continue to go to the Philistines, and particularly the women, and particularly when they were aggressively trying to hurt him?
3. Again, how does this part of the Samson narrative mirror the way Israel had been conducting herself as a nation in relation to the Lord?
4. What might you be turning to repeatedly that does nothing but hurt you and those you should be loving?  How does Christ provide the way of escape, repentance, redemption and victory?

Today’s passage: Judges 15:1-20

Helpful thoughts:

• Samson’s fiance begged the answer to the riddle in chapter 14 out of him to avoid being burned to death.
• The Israelites were willing to turn Samson over to the Philistines in order to satisfy their oppressors.  They had not cried out to God for help and they didn’t see Samson as God’s man for their salvation.
• The freshness of the jawbone would have made it less useful as a weapon.  The freshness also means this was the second time Samson came into contact with a corpse, violating his Nazarite vow.
• God freed Samson and gave him victory over these Philistines.  Samson sang his own praises.
• Even after Samson does acknowledge God’s role in the victory and God’s provision of water, Samson names the place where the water came out after his own action, “The spring of him who called.”

Questions to consider:

1. What was the motivation for violence for both Samson and the Philistines?  Were they doing unto others as they would want to have done to them…or something else?
2. Was Samson thankful and reverent toward God or did he expect God to do what he asked?  In whose power did he seem to delight?
3. In what ways has Samson been different than the rest of the judges?  How large is his army?
4. What similarities did you see between Samson and Israel from this chapter?

Today’s passage: Judges 14:1-20

Helpful thoughts:

• God’s sovereignty does not nullify the responsibility of man.  God is able to use the wrong choices of people to bring about His will.
• In touching the carcass of the lion, Samson broke a part of his Nazarite vow and then shared this “uncleanness” with his parents.
• Evidently, there was a type of marriage in this region, during this time, where the bride would stay with her parents and the groom could come “calling”.  Samson may have left without his bride.  But he would not have assumed his bride was given to another man.

Questions to consider:

1. What seemed to be Samson’s motivation to marry this Philistine woman?  Did he desire to love her as Christ would love the church?
2. In what ways did Samson show a lack of respect for his parents?  In what ways were his actions and words towards his parents similar to the way Israel had treated God?
3. What does Samson’s desire to make a wager on a riddle and calling his fiance a cow tell you about him?  If the Spirit of the Lord didn’t rush on him in these moments of crisis, what would have happened to him?  Whose fault would it have been?