Tag: battle

This Chapter Turned Stabby

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Judges Chapter 12

After Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, the Ephraimites were none too happy with him, so they told him so. After all, it was the second time now that they were excluded from the battlefield. Apparently they didn’t answer the call fast enough or something. Well, this turned a bit stabby, I would say.

5Then the Gileadites took the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. Whenever one of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” 6they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty‐two thousand of the Ephraimites fell at that time.

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 383). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

After Jephthah judged Israel for six years, he died and was buried at Gilead. He was followed by Ibzan who had thirty sons and thirty daughters who, if I read this accurately, he traded to another clan for thirty girls for his sons. This sounds like a movie, but with fewer brides and brothers. Then Elon (not that one) judged and died. Then Abdon ruled and…

14He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys; he judged Israel eight years.

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 383). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Somehow I picture all these sons and grandsons on donkeys 24/7, never dismounting and walking in lockstep. I am looking at articles about humor in the Bible, because there’s has to be some in here, although it’s probably only funny if you were there. Anyway, that’s all for Chapter 12. The next few chapters deal with one of the more famous characters in this book…Hallelujah!

Hell Hath No Fury…

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Judges Chapter 4

Let’s face it, every chapter starts off the same way. Israel does things that are evil in the eyes of God, and he sells them out to the local king until they cry hard enough. This time, it’s King Jabin of Hazor and he treated them badly for twenty years. Also, he has nine hundred iron chariots.

4At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. 5She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment.

Brettler, Marc; Newsom, Carol; Perkins, Pheme. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (p. 368). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

This is, according to the footnotes, the first time we see not only a female judge, but any judge doing judge-like things. She sent for Barak to rescue the people and he would only go if Deborah went too. She also says that the leader of the army, Sisera, would be sold into the hands of a woman.

While we do get the death of King Jabin at the very end, the death of Sisera is the one that is described in detail. He flees the battlefield after God throw the army into confusion and ends up in the tent of Jael, the wife of a Kenite man. Well, she hides him under a rug, but then kills him with a tent spike through the head and into the ground. See? Sisera was sold into the hands of a woman.

I’m sure there’s some misogynistic church out there that uses this chapter to show how the Bible “can’t possibly be sexist”. Well, one or two chapters doesn’t cut it; this book has been used on countless occasions to subjugate women.