Day 20, Joshua 20-24, Judges 1-6

Today we wrap up the Book of Joshua and proceed to Judges, which continues the tale of Israelite settlement in the holy land. These books, along with Deuteronomy, Samuel, Kings, and Jeremiah, are said to comprise Deuteronomist history; that is, they were presumably written by a movement of Levite priests who we now call the Deuteronomists, and tell the tale of Canaan's early colonization. How fun!

Chapter 20 kicks off with another, better explanation of the cities of refuge. Whereas before they were presented as places where murderers could flee to in order to avoid consequence for their crimes, now it is explained that in order to gain entry into the city, a prospective refugee must stand trial. These cities are set up to protect those who commit manslaughter from undue retaliation.

Chapter 21 resumes the favorite pastime of Joshua's authors: writing out the names of cities! We get to hear about all the regions in each tribal territory that is to be allotted to the Levites, who -- as you may remember -- are not entitled to their own land.

In chapter 22 there is a bit of a drama-rama, because the tribes on the opposite banks of the Jordan River -- the Reubenites, Gadites, and half of Manasseh -- set up an altar to God, which is totally not cool since there's only supposed to be one altar, apparently. One god, one altar... It all makes sense!! Just work with us! All the other tribes journey over to confront their wayward pals, who explain themselves: "The truth is that we have done this for fear that the day may come when your children will say to ours, 'What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? The Lord put the Jordan as a boundary between us and you. You have no share in the Lord, you Reubenites and Gadites.'" (Joshua 22:24-25) Aww! They're insecure! How precious. This response is considered satisfactory, and the tribes "[think] no more of attacking and ravaging the land" (Joshua 22:33) and mosey on back home.

In chapter 23, Joshua prepares to die, making a farewell speech that echoes the sentiments of Moses's: he tells the Israelites to behave themselves, continue to worship God, etc, etc. He continues into chapter 24 with a great big freaking summary of everything we've read, and then he dies and is buried in Shechem along with the bones of Joseph, which were brought up from Egypt. How nice. Of less significance, Aaron's son Eleazar dies and is succeeded by his son Phinehas. And thus ends the Book of Joshua!

As previously mentioned, Judges describes the settlement of Canaan -- and contrary to the rosy accounts of Joshua, where the region was conquered effortlessly, the Israelites of Judges encounter many more difficulties. In other words, if you were a little surprised at how smoothly everything was going and how well the Jews were behaving themselves, don't worry one bit! Chaos will ensue once more. This is the bible, after all!

After Joshua's death, everyone is annoyed about the Canaanites still being everywhere, so they ask God which tribe should start attacking these infidels first. God picks the tribe of Judah, and they proceed to kick some ass, eventually capturing a king, Adoni-bezek. Weirdly enough, they "cut off his thumbs and his big toes" (Judges 1:6), which causes him to lament his wrongdoings: "I once had seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off who were picking up the scraps under my table. What I have done, God has done to me" (Judges 1:7). He dies in Jerusalem, remorseful as can be. Incidentally, although Jerusalem is depicted as being Israelite territory, later sources suggest that it was not yet conquered at this time in the biblical canon.

In chapter 2 we get another helping of good old fashioned Israelite disobedience. Holy shit, they are so stupid. In spite of making like a million covenants and having countless examples of God's sovereignty, they continue to act like morons and start worshiping Canaanite gods, which makes the Hebrew God set up a system of judges (LIKE THE NAME OF THE BOOK!!! HAHAH GET IT?) to keep an eye on them. The first of these judges is named Othniel, who doesn't get much of a story but is said to have kept the land at peace for 40 years. Good for him! However, as soon as he dies the Israelites start screwing up again, so he is succeeded by Ehud, a southpaw from the tribe of Benjamin. Apparently it is significant that he is left-handed; he probably throws a filthy change-up as well. Ehud goes to make a sacrifice to King Eglon, a Moabite king who is occupying Israelite territory, but when he reaches the palace he asks to address Eglon in private. They go into a closet where Ehud tells him, "I have a message from God to you" (Judges 3:20) and stabs him to death! What a badass! By the way, the servants take a long time to realize that Eglon is dead because they think he is "relieving himself in the closet of his summer palace" (Judges 3:24). What does that even mean?!

Ehud brings peace to the land for eighty years, and is succeeded by a fellow named Shamgar, who we don't know much about except that he kills a lot of Philistines. Cool!

Chapter 4 is remarkable in that it features a WOMAN as its protagonist. A woman! I know, right? It's crazy! Her name is Deborah and she is described as a "prophetess" (Judges 4:4). One day she sends for a fellow named Barak and tells him to run for president. Just kidding. That was a joke. This is a different Barak, it's even spelled differently! She actually tells him to gather the forces from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulum to kick some Canaanite butt. They go to take on an infidel commander named Sisera and are met with overwhelming success, despite Sisera's powerful armies. The commander himself flees the battle on foot, and is hidden in the tent of a Kenite woman named Jael -- Moses's wife, by the way, is rewritten to be Kenite rather than Middianite, as she was first identified. Jael covers the commander with a rug (because that will hide him!) but then while he's sleeping she "[drives] a peg into his temple, so that it [goes] down into the ground" (Judges 4:21). Ew! Don't do that! Or at least don't describe it!

Anyway, the point of the story is that the Israelites are victorious. Hooray! Chapter 5 commemorates the event with a poetic retelling, which supposedly predates the prose version. After the valiant deeds of Deborah, Barak, and Jael, the land is at peace for forty years.

Our next judge is named Gideon, and he shows up after the Israelites sin again and are delivered into the hands of the Midianites. Presumably, he was chosen for this job because his name rhymes with "Midian."

Things are pretty rough for the Jews these days, and when Gideon is first confronted with the angel of God he is skeptical: "If the Lord really is with us, why has all this happened to us? What has become of all those wonderful deeds of his, of which we have heard from our forefathers?" (Judges 6:13). The angel persists that Gideon must free the people from the Midianites, so he asks for a divine sign and is granted one. After receiving sufficient proof, he sneaks off in the middle of the night and topples the altar to Canaanite gods, like a boss.

In the morning everyone is super pissed off that their altar has been knocked over, and after "careful investigation" (like what, did they trace the DNA in his fingerprints or something?) they discover that Gideon did it. The tribes are all set to stone him to death, but Gid's dad comes to his rescue by saying that if Baal is really a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks his altar. Fair logic. I like that!

Apparently the first sign wasn't enough for Gideon, because the chapter ends with him asking for two more. Isn't it a little funny how today, people believe absolutely in these old religious texts without any proof, and the characters within the text can't manage to muster up any faith in spite of having shit tons of evidence that God exists? That's what we call IRONY!

See you tomorrow for more Judges and more fun!