{"id":348,"date":"2012-02-14T09:10:27","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T17:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?p=348"},"modified":"2012-02-14T09:10:27","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T17:10:27","slug":"judges-181-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"Judges 18:1-13"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 18:1-13. \u00a0Yesterday we started the last section of the book which describes life on the streets during the time of the Judges. \u00a0Yesterday we met a guy, Micah, who was starting his own personal religion. \u00a0Sure he talked about the LORD (Notice all capitals. \u00a0See yesterdays post for an explanation.) \u00a0He even hired a Levite, a guy from the tribe approved to be priests by God. \u00a0But he didn’t follow the LORD’s commands. \u00a0Although God is personal, worship of Him in Israel was to be done at the Tabernacle, a special tent-like structure that the Israelites had used during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness before entering the promised land.<\/p>\n

Today we continue Micah’s story. \u00a0In verse one the tribe of Dan enters the story. \u00a0You may remember this is the tribe that Samson was from. \u00a0In fact the spies that are sent out in the next verse are from the very area where Samson lived. \u00a0In the layout of the book this story follows the story of Samson and would naturally make us think of him. \u00a0We want to remember though that the book of Judges is not strictly laid out in order of time. \u00a0It is not a time line of events and there is overlapping of the stories. \u00a0It is a sort of spiritual timeline, however. \u00a0So we meet the Danites. \u00a0Are they all like Samson spiritually? \u00a0That should be the question we have in mind as we read this next part.<\/p>\n

Back to verses 1. \u00a0Some translations say they had not received an allotment. \u00a0We know from the book of Joshua (Joshua 19:40-48) that land had been given to them. \u00a0In Joshua the land was divided up and assigned to the different tribes but they still had to go take it. \u00a0The first two cities that were given to the Danites were \u00a0Zorah and Eshtaol. \u00a0When cities are listed in the book of Joshua they are usually listed from east to west, the direction the tribes would usually move through the land as they took it over. \u00a0So it looks like the Danites had only been able to take the first couple of cities. \u00a0But they needed the rest of their land. \u00a0So they sent out spies to check out where they may be able to go.<\/p>\n

It is interesting that they wind up in Ephraim’s territory. \u00a0Ephraim’s territory is north of the territory given to Dan. \u00a0Ephraims territory is in the center of Israel and it does not quite reach to the Jordan River or the Mediterranean Sea. \u00a0A little piece of Manasseh’s territory comes down between Ephraim and the river and about half of Dan’s land goes up between Ephraim and the Mediterranean. \u00a0Benjamin’s land is also south of Ephraim to the east, under Manasseah’s little piece. \u00a0South of all of this is Judah. \u00a0Bethlehem is in Judah about 20 miles south-east of Eshtaol and Zorah. \u00a0it looks like the spies may have been cutting across Ephraim’s territory to the part of their land that was west of Ephraim’s.<\/p>\n

During their scouting mission they came to the house of Micah and decided to stop and rest there. \u00a0Much to their surprise they heard a familiar voice. \u00a0The voice of the Levite. \u00a0Remember that the Levite had left his home in Bethlehem and went looking for a place to stay. \u00a0If you have read “The Twelve?”<\/a>\u00a0you might remember that Levi was \u00a0chosen by God to be priests. \u00a0To go in and out of the tabernacle and bring offerings from the people to God. \u00a0The Levites were not given a portion of the land because they were to be supported by the offerings (Joshua 13:14, 33). \u00a0They did have property in certain cities where they were to live (Joshua 21:1-3). \u00a0It looks like the Israeiltes were not supporting the Levites and so this guy went looking for a place to stay. \u00a0Really he was looking for a job not a house. \u00a0Along the way he would have passed through \u00a0Eshtaol and Zorah before coming to Micah’s house. \u00a0He must have spoken to theses men at that time. \u00a0So the spies from Dan check out Micah’s little shrine and must have been impressed because they ask the Levite to check out their journey with God. \u00a0He tells them that their plans are approved by God.<\/p>\n

The spies went on their way. \u00a0But they did not go on to the coast, maybe 10 miles away, to the land given to them by God. \u00a0Instead they traveled 100 mile north into the northern parts of Naphtali’s territory and found a city up there that they liked, Laish (Later called Dan. \u00a0Also called Leshem in Joshua 19:47). \u00a0The spies returned home and talked the tribe into going north to take the city they had found. \u00a0A troop of 600 men went to conquer the city and stopped by Micah’s house. \u00a0What happens next is interesting but we will have to wait until tomorrow for that.<\/p>\n

But what about this part of the story? \u00a0Were the rest of the Danites like Samson? \u00a0Were they into doing things their own way? \u00a0At first it looked like they were finally going to conquer their land. \u00a0But then they didn’t even get close. \u00a0Instead they travelled through land that belonged to the other tribes. \u00a0Samson repeatedly checked out women that were off limits now his relatives were checking out land that was not theirs (See Deuteronomy 5:21). \u00a0Remember yesterday that I said this larger section of Judges was an inclusio. \u00a0There is an envelope or parenthesis of two verses (Judges 17:6; 21:25) that make it a unit. \u00a0Those verses give us a clue about what we will find in between. \u00a0Judges 17:6 says that every man did what was right in his own eyes. \u00a0Samson followed his eyes and now we have a whole tribe doing the same thing. \u00a0In Joshua 19 when certain land was set aside for Dan we find out that they could not or would not conquer it. \u00a0So they went up to Laish (Leshem) and took it instead. \u00a0That is the story we are reading about here in Judges. \u00a0It was not land God had given them it was land that they saw and took, they coveted it. \u00a0And remember that they had asked the Levite if they should do it and he told them yes. \u00a0He<\/span> told them God was with them. \u00a0It was really him talking. \u00a0Sometimes we do the same thing. \u00a0We make plans and then ask others what they think. \u00a0“Oh sure God……” \u00a0but it’s really just their opinion. \u00a0There is a time and place to ask others (Proverbs 15:22) but it is God’s truth we should be looking for not their opinion. \u00a0We need to check out the Bible first and after we have been given advise check out the Bible again. \u00a0And we need to be careful no to look for the easy way out either. \u00a0Sometimes we will go a long way to avoid doing what God has given us to do. We need to be careful to find out what God has said, really said, and then do it. \u00a0God help me hear you voice instead of all the false voices. \u00a0help me check out everything I hear with the stuff you have already said \u00a0in the Bible. Help me not look for the comfortable way out. \u00a0The Danites wanted a land where there ws no lack of anything. \u00a0I know when I have “everything I need” I start to forget you. \u00a0Thank you for tough times so I can cling to you. \u00a0Thank you for being there and caring. \u00a0Help me do what is right in your eyes and not my own. \u00a0Help me be satisfied with what you have given me and not want what others have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judges 18:1-13. \u00a0Yesterday we started the last section of the book which describes life on the streets during the time of the Judges. \u00a0Yesterday we met a guy, Micah, who was starting his own personal religion. \u00a0Sure he talked about the LORD (Notice all capitals. \u00a0See yesterdays post for an explanation.) \u00a0He even hired a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}