Today’s passage: Judges 10:1-18
Helpful thoughts:
- In the aftermath of Abimelech, Tola (Which means “Worm”) and Jair lead Israel. In their short stories, God is nowhere to be found nor any enemies. Perhaps the troubles were still internal.
- Israel has become polytheistic. They were now worshiping every god BUT the true God!
- God has now told Israel to cry out to their new gods for help. Of course the sad irony of this is that the gods Israel has been worshiping are the gods of the people under whom they are being oppressed!
- Israel pursued repentance, but were left to look for a man to save them.
Questions to consider:
- Why couldn’t Israel ask the gods of the Philistines and the Ammonites for help? If those gods were real, who would they be “busy” helping?
- Knowing what we do from the rest of Scripture, what was God communicating to Israel about His responsibility to save them? Were His efforts for their rescue part of a covenant responsibility or purely mercy and grace?
- In what ways do we mimic the people of Israel? In what ways can we be guilty of living like the world around us and then crying out to God whenever we don’t like our circumstances or consequences?