Tag: Morning Musings

Morning Musings: Judges 2:14

Leave a comment

“So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them.  And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The Lord is a father and the people of Israel were His children.  (He’s also a bridegroom and they were His bride which is kind of an odd mixing of metaphors, but both are nonetheless appropriate at different times to describe our relationship with Him.)  When they refused to stay on the path down which He was leading them, He disciplined them.  What this summary description of how the rest of the book of Judges is going to go reveals is that once the people were settled in the land they struggled mightily with faithfulness. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Judges 1:19

Leave a comment

“And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Starting here and six more times in this chapter we see this phrase, “And he did not drive out…”  The command was to drive out completely or else you are going to pay for it, but they did not obey.  They did not obey, and as the rest of the story of Judges makes clear, they did indeed pay for it.  They stopped doing what the Lord had commanded, so He stopped helping them do it, so the peoples of Canaan remained in the land.  The Lord had told them that if the peoples of Canaan were allowed to remain in the land, they would trip them up and lead them astray.  If the people went astray, they were going to lose the blessings of obedience and gain the Lord Himself as their chief opponent.  And it all happened. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Joshua 23:12-13

Leave a comment

“For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever tried clearing a path for the first time?  I haven’t, but before we moved into our new house, we rallied some men from the church to come and help us clear the backyard.  No one had touched it for what was likely several years and it was a mess.  The patch of trees and branches and vines was so thick that you could just barely see through to the land behind us.  It took the group of us several hours, several chainsaws, a tractor, and two different days, but we got it done.  With all the mess and poison ivy (which I discovered the hard way I can get…twice) now gone, it’s well on its way to be a great space.  Eventually.  I can’t imagine how much work it would have been to have tried doing all that work on my own. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Joshua 18:2-3

Leave a comment

e”There remained among the people of Israel seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned.  So Joshua said to the people of Israel, ‘How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

When the people of Israel conquered the land, they did so by sacking the major cities, decimating the Canaanite resistance.  But they didn’t finish the task God gave them.  Over and over again in the course of the last several chapters of the book describing the dividing up of the land among the various tribes, we are told that they failed to completely drive out the peoples of the land as they had been instructed to do. Read the rest…