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| I think that this is the Roman Forum It was a long time ago when I visited - 1972 |
The Role of the Old Testament Judge
Our English term judge
does not accurately convey the role of a judge in the day of Samuel. While it
is true that one of the things that the judge did in that day was to settle
disagreements among disputing parties; that was only one of their roles. The
Hebrew word, usually translated “judge,”[1] means not only an
arbitrator of conflicts, but also could refer to one who acted as a governor,
or even a military commander. The judges of Israel also usually served to raise
awareness of the moral and spiritual life among the people. They even sometimes
spoke for God as a prophet.
God is, in fact, the supreme Judge who does settle disputes.
However, more than that, he ministers to his people in every way and will
rescue them from difficult situations. In some ways the Israelite judges also
fulfilled those roles. God chose and appointed the judges as his
representatives to intervene in matters where he wanted to work.
Jephthah, an earlier judge, appealed to God as the Judge
above all. At the time, Jephthah sent word to the king of the Ammonites about a
dispute that the king had with him. After explaining his position, Jephthah
told him, “May the LORD, the Judge, decide today between the Israelites and the
Ammonites” (Judges 11:27).
God was and is the supreme Judge, but in those days, he called
each of the Israelite judges to act on his behalf during a time of national
oppression that came from neighboring hostile nations. Each was given the
charge to deliver the Israelites from outside aggression. Some succeeded better
than others in this, but God appointed each one to deliver the people. In fact,
the term deliverer may be a better
designation than judge, for it more
accurately conveys their role.
The Judges
There were fifteen judges in all, the first one being Othniel,
who rescued Israel from the Aramians. Some of the most well-known of the judges
were Deborah, Gideon and Samson. Jephthah may not be as familiar to us, but he
is actually listed in the New Testament book of Hebrews[2] as an example of a strong
faith in God, as some of the other judges also are. None of these rulers were
perfect however, and in fact with most of them, failures in their personal
characters surfaced near the end of their term, at least up until the last
judge, who was Samuel.
God brought deliverance for the Israelites through each of
these judges, and even some religious and moral reform. But the reform never
lasted. As the author of the book of Judges summarizes in chapter two:
Israel, did not
listen to their judges. Instead, they prostituted themselves with other gods
and bowed down to them. They quickly turned from the way of their fathers, who
had walked in obedience to the LORD’s commandments; they did not do as their
fathers had done.
Whenever the LORD
raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them
from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the LORD
was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and
afflicted them.
But when the judge
died, the Israelites became even more corrupt than their fathers, going after
other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They would not give up their
evil practices and stubborn ways. (Judges 2:16-19 BSB)
Samuel, the Last Judge
After such a buildup regarding the birth of Samuel in the
first chapters of the book that bears his name, and after we are told of his
dedication to the House of the Lord and his calling by God, we are actually
given very little specific information about his years as a judge of Israel. In
fact, the major portion of the two books of the Bible that are given his name
as titles (First and Second Samuel) speak much more about the first kings of
Saul and David than they do of Samuel.
But there are some important summaries of Samuel’s life in
the pages of the book that bears his name. Near the end of chapter three we
read one of these about the early days of Samuel as a young man:
And Samuel grew,
and the LORD was with him, and He let none of Samuel’s words fall to the
ground. So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a
prophet of the LORD. And the LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, because there
He revealed Himself to Samuel by His word. (1 Samuel 3:19-21 BSB)
There are some forceful statements in these words. Samuel
was universally recognized as the prophet and leader sent to Israel by God. By
saying “all Israel from Dan to Beersheba,” the meaning was that from the
farthest north to the farthest south. The tribe of Dan was the northernmost
tribe, and Beersheba was in the furthest in the south.
Then, at the end of chapter seven of First Samuel, we read
another summarizing statement about his life:
So Samuel judged
Israel all the days of his life. Every year he would go on a circuit from
Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah, judging Israel in all these places. Then he would
return to Ramah because his home was there, and there he judged Israel and
built an altar to the LORD. (1 Samuel 7:15-17 BSB)
There seemed to have been no controversy among the people in
recognizing the leadership of Samuel as the one sent by the Lord to be their
judge. The people accepted him and followed him.
Nevertheless, the mood was slowly changing in the nation.
Samuel was not to have an easy tenure.
Eli and His Sons
The High Priest Eli would be considered the judge just
before Samuel. As far as has been recorded in the Scriptures, the only
opposition that he faced from another nation during his forty years as priest
and judge was with the Philistines at the very end of his life—a battle that
was lost and in which the Ark of the Lord was taken.
Eli did not seem to be an overtly evil man, but neither did
he raise the level of the spiritual life in Israel. His sons, on the other
hand, were known for their wickedness. Although Eli asked his sons about what
they were doing and gave them a slight verbal reprimand, he did nothing to stop
them.
The word of the Lord came to Eli saying, “You have honored
your sons more than me by fattening yourselves with the best of all the
offerings of my people Israel.”
God at one time told Eli that although he was of the
priestly line whose family would continue to hold the office of priest, God
was then reconsidering. A prophet brought to Eli these words:
The LORD, the God of Israel, declares:
“I did indeed say
that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.”
But now the LORD
declares:
“Far be it from Me!
For I will honor those who honor Me, but those who despise Me will be
disdained.
Behold, the days
are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s
house, so that no older man will be left in your house.” (1 Samuel 2:30-31 BSB)
Samuel and His Sons
Samuel did better as a judge. As we saw in the sermon last
week, under his leadership the Israelites committed themselves to real moral
and spiritual reform. It seems like they also stayed true to that commitment
for some years.
But there was trouble even within the Samuel household.
Samuel also had two sons. When the father was getting old, he appointed the two
sons to be the judges in Israel. However, the two young men were not ethically
qualified to hold the office. They did not follow the example of their father.
It was said of them that they “turned aside toward dishonest gain by accepting
bribes and perverting justice.”
We do not know the reason that the sons did not follow after
their father. If there was a failure of fatherhood on the part of Samuel in some
way, it is not given to us.
The refusal of children to continue to walk in the faith
that they have been taught by their parents can be because of many reasons,
most of them usually unknown. In the end, each child has his or her own will,
and they can choose what to believe and what not to believe. Parents can present
them with truth, but the child always remains free to reject it if he or she
chooses—sometimes to the deep hurt of their parents.
But all that being said, at the time Israel was once again
in a leadership crisis. The elders of Israel came to Samuel at his home in the
town of Ramah and presented to him their concern, “Look, you are old, and your
sons do not walk in your ways.”
This Samuel could not deny. But the request of the elders
did not please him:
“Now appoint a king to judge us like all the other nations.”
Stepping Away from God
I mentioned that the two books of First and Second Samuel
are mostly comprised of the accounts of the first kings of Israel. The new
emphasis in writing about the kings rather than the prophets of God that we see
in the two books of Samuel is an indication of a momentous shift in government
that was taking place in that day. This movement in the politics of the period
saw the people of Israel taking a step away from the kingdom of God, and a step
toward conforming to the system of the world.
In the life of the nation of Israel, this emphasis on the
desire for a king to lead the nation rather than a prophet of God also reveals
to us what was morally taking place among the people. The shift in moral
emphasis may have been not so obvious at first, but it slowly began the newly
formed nation of Israel down a path that would radically alter the way that
they related to God. The movement would eventually turn them into a secular
society.
The Desire for a King
It was true that the people were uneasy about the future
under the leadership of Samuel’s two corrupt sons, but they also could have
remembered that God could replace the two unfit leaders with righteous
leadership, as he did with Eli’s two evil sons. The time God gave them Samuel
to be their judge was within the living memory of the people. God took the
lives of the two wicked sons of Eli and instead gave them Samuel as their
judge—a man whom they all respected.
But for God to do this, the people had to give him the
freedom to act in this regard. This was something that they apparently were
unwilling to do.
Samuel no doubt felt some regret at this rejection of his
sons, even if he could see the reasoning. What bothered him more than that
however, was the statement of the elders that the Israelites wanted a
government like all the other nations. They wanted a king.
But it was not Samuel who was the most deeply hurt by this
request. The Lord spoke to Samuel:
Listen to the voice
of the people in all that they say to you. For it is not you they have
rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king. Just as they have done from
the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking Me and serving
other gods, so they are doing to you.
Now listen to them, but you must solemnly
warn them and show them the manner of the king who will reign over them. (1
Samuel 8:7-9 BSB)
This is what Samuel did. Samuel told the people how a king
would draft their sons into military service and appoint others as his personal
attendants. Others he would take to work his fields and crops on his property, which by the way, will be of their best fields that he will confiscate for himself. Some of the sons will be required to make his
weaponry. A king will would also take the daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. There would also be
taxes, one tenth of all of their produce.
Samuel warned the people, “When that day comes, you will beg
for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you on
that day.”
His words and warnings seemed to make no difference to the
people: No!” they said. “We must have a king over us. Then we will be like all
the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight
our battles.”
“Listen to them,” the LORD said to Samuel. “Appoint a king
for them.”
Another Step Away from God
In the eyes of God, it was yet another step away from him.
It was one of several that there has been in history, and in each case, the
heart of God was saddened.
The first was in the Garden of Eden. In the first days of the
earth, God had perfect fellowship with the man and woman whom he had created to
live in that place. But believing the lie of Satan, the man and woman rebelled
against the One who had made them. They stepped away from having a close
relationship with their Father.
There were numerous other events that followed where God’s
people showed by their actions or words that they did not want to have a close
relationship to him. This happened in the days of Noah when the people lived in
great wickedness, and it happened at Babel where the people of that age
attempted to build a great tower to show the supreme power of mankind instead
of the sovereignty of God.
It happened also with the numerous grumblings
against God in the years of the wilderness when God attempted to lead his
people to the Promised Land. They wanted to return instead to the slavery of
the Pharaoh.
In each case, God tried to intervene. He attempted to bring
his people back to him. He often sent spokesmen and spokeswomen to demonstrate
his love and concern for his people. God sent Noah. He also sent Abraham and
Joseph and Moses. Through these individuals and others he tried to speak to his
people.
He did also sometimes send rebuke in the forms of hardships
or famine, but all were meant to bring his people back to a loving relationship
with him. In each case, there was an eventual movement back to him, but it was
short-lived and incomplete.
It was the same in the days of the judges. It was in
Samuel’s day that it happened again. The judges, as imperfect as they were,
were the men and women whom God had sent to teach the Israelites his ways and
to walk in his paths. But the people rejected them. They took another step away
from God.
“We want a king like the other nations,” the people said.
“Listen to them,” the Lord said to Samuel. “Appoint a king
for them.”
The World Continues to Step Away
from God
The same pattern continued throughout the Old Testament and
into the New Testament until the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that
“in these last days, God sent to us his Son.”
Jesus Christ was not only a representative from God—He was
God Himself. God Himself has visited us. What have we done to him?
As in the days of Noah and of Abraham, and as in the last
days of Samuel the judge, Jesus mourned how he was rejected. In a lament over
the city of Jerusalem, Jesus spoke these words:
O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I
have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under
her wings, but you were unwilling! Look, your house is left to you desolate.
And I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who
comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Luke 13:34-35 BSB)
I am afraid the same thing is happening in our own day and
even in our own country. Our nation was by no means perfect in its early years,
but it was apparent to many of our leaders of those days that the blessing of
God was upon the land. But since those early days, we have moved quite far away
from God.
As it was in the days of the judges of Israel, there have
been some occasions and even some years in our own history when it seemed that
we were returning to God. But also as in the days of the judges, those
occasions did not last. We as a nation came to several points of choosing to
follow the ways of God or to choose a different path, and lately it seems that
the choice has consistently been to move away from the Word of the Lord.
We are at one of those points right now, in this present day.
I pointed out in the previous two Sundays how in just the past few months God,
has hit our nation with such unprecedented tragedies that it is difficult to
ignore that we have some very important choices to make in our own day.
It is not only true of a nation, but it is true for every
individual. It is true for you and it is true for me. God brings us to points
of decisions. How we decide can have long-lasting consequences.
I believe that considering the days of Samuel can help us to
receive some clear guidance.
Will it be as we learned two weeks ago? That was when the
daughter-in-law of the former judge Eli declared, “Ichabod! The glory of the
Lord has departed.”
Or will we like Samuel twenty years later?
After an extended
time of seeking the Lord and of repentance, will we come to a point of
remembrance were we can set up a marker and declare,
“Ebenezer! Thus far the Lord has helped us!”
[1] Shaphat (Strong’s number 8199)
[2]
Hebrews 11:32
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