I think it is fair to say that in our country, we generally tend to be easy going when it comes to the way people live their lives. For the most part. Except if they are too successful (outside sport), or believe or act in a way which our “elites” do not like. While that easy going nature can be a good thing, it can also be a bad thing, especially if we extend it to ideas and actions which undermine our values, or the wellbeing of society as a whole.
While in the south of Israel the military campaigns were largely successful, because they followed God’s leadership, the north of Israel was not as successful. The ultimate failures in the North laid the seeds for much of the later oppression experienced by Israel recorded in Judges, because of a tolerance for sin and disobedience. The Northern Tribes failed to follow God’s lead and command, and tolerated pagans and their ideas in their midst. Their failure is a warning to us, not to become comfortable with sin and worldly ideas in our lives.
The latter part of Judges chapter 1 describes a progressive failure to conquest and subdue the territories of the Northern Tribes. At first, we see initial success. Ephraim and Manasseh, the “house of Joseph” (who were given the status of tribes through adoption by Jacob in his old age), “also went up against Bethel, and the LORD was with them” (v.22).
Through a stratagem similar to the conquest of Jericho many years before, the house of Joseph gains access to the historic city of Luz through sparing one of its inhabitants and his family (vv.23-5). Luz and its occupants fall to the sword, with Luz becoming Bethel (v.25).
But in a departure from the story of Jericho, the man and his family do not become believers in God as Rahab and her family did. Instead, they depart to the land of the Hittites and re-establish their old way of life, even to the extent of naming their settlement Luz (v.26). Perhaps an indication of problems to come.
Those problems arrived quickly. Manasseh failed to “drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages” (v.27). These names-on-a-map to us were geographically strategic, fortresses and key points which would have allowed Israel to defend themselves against invaders.
More concerning though was the outcome of failing to drive out the inhabitants of these villages, as God had previously commanded. “The Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land” (v.27). While Israel eventually grew strong enough to subdue them, they did not drive them and their pagan practices out but “put the Canaanites to forced labor” (v.28).
This failure kept playing out. Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali failed to drive out the inhabitants of their territories, instead subjecting them to forced labour (vv.29-33). While perhaps pragmatic for economic output, this was sinful disobedience of God, and toleration for pagan practices and influences on the Israelites which God clearly did not want.
Even worse, the Tribe of Dan were pushed back in their attempts to conquer. The Amorites denied their attempts to conquer the plains, pushing them back into the hill country (v.34).
While Israel eventually grew strong enough to subjugate the Amorites as well (vv.35-6), their pragmatic military and economic success did not translate to obedience to God. Instead, they tolerated the evil pagan religious practices of the Canaanites, ensuring that their children and grandchildren would be influenced by those values.
While this could be interpreted as a call to Culture War, the reality is that we are not called to the battle flesh and blood, we are called to spiritual warfare (Eph. 6). We may desire our society to adopt more consistently Biblical morality and ethics, but we cannot call the nations to remove the log of rebellion and disobedience of God from their eyes if we are not willing to remove the speck from ours.
Instead, this passage reminds us of the call to purity and faithfulness in our own lives, and that of the Church. Outward success does not demonstrate inward success, just as the success of Israel in ultimately controlling the land did not demonstrate their disobedient failure to God, which laid the seed for apostasy.
Instead, unlike the failure of the Northern Tribes to root out the sources of idolatry and disobedience among them, we need to root out the sources of idolatry and disobedience in our lives. Our sin. Our captivity to the world’s ideas. We should not grow comfortable with either, nor try to put them to our own use.
We should pursue holiness and faithfulness. In our lives. In our Churches. In the big things, but definitely in the small things too. Christ rescued us at great cost; his life. Faithfulness and devotion to Christlikeness show our loving thanks for God’s covenant faithfulness to us.
