The Theme of Judges Part 1

Once again the theme will be very clearly shown in the first three chapters and then that theme will play out thru the entire book.  This is not always the case in every book.  Especially in the books that are only a few chapters long.

Jdg 1:1  Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? 

Jdg 1:2  And the LORD said, Judah shall go up: behold, I have delivered the land into his hand. 

Jdg 1:3  And Judah said unto Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with thee into thy lot. So Simeon went with him. 

Jdg 1:4  And Judah went up; and the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand: and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men. 

Jdg 1:5  And they found Adonibezek in Bezek: and they fought against him, and they slew the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 

Jdg 1:6  But Adonibezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. 

Jdg 1:7  And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died. 

Now isn’t that an interesting story to put in the beginning of the book.  Judah and Simeon sowed a deal to help each other and they reaped victory.

And they defeat a wicked king’s army.  The king flees but is caught.  And when they catch him they cut off his thumbs and his great toes.  The wicked king says why this happened.  He says this has happened to me because I did the same thing to 70 other kings.

And the wicked king says who has actually done this to him.  He said, “as I have done, so God hath requited me.  The king sowed cutting off other kings toes and so God made sure it was done to him.

This is reaping and sowing.

Sometimes the reaping and sowing are given close together and sometimes they are not.

In verses 8 – 11 they sow taking Hebron.  Later you find out that they reap Hebron becoming a city of refuge to be used for the Lord.  If they never sowed taking it, then the later reaping of benefits would not come.

Verse 16 is another example of the sowing being mentioned by itself and you do not hear about the reaping of it until much later.

Jdg 1:16  And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people. 

Later a wicked man named Sisera was on the run and a lady named Jael used a tent stake to put an end to him.  Jael was the wife of Heber the Kenite.  If the children of the Moses’ father in law did not sow moving from the city of palm trees, then later Jael could not have reaped being used by God to end a reign of terror.

Sowing and reaping works both with good and with bad.  You sow good and you will reap good in like manner.  You sow bad and you will reap bad in like manner.

Now we start to see some bad sowing.

Jdg 1:19  And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. 

Jdg 1:20  And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak. 

Jdg 1:21  And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day. 

God told them to drive out all of the false god worshipers out of the land.  And they sowed not doing it.

Jdg 1:27  Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land. 

Jdg 1:28  And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out. 

Jdg 1:29  Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them. 

Jdg 1:30  Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became tributaries. 

Jdg 1:31  Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob: 

Jdg 1:32  But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: for they did not drive them out. 

Jdg 1:33  Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh, nor the inhabitants of Bethanath; but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: nevertheless the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and of Bethanath became tributaries unto them. 

Jdg 1:34  And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain: for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley: 

Jdg 1:35  But the Amorites would dwell in mount Heres in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim: yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became tributaries. 

Jdg 1:36  And the coast of the Amorites was from the going up to Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward. 

Tribe after tribe of Israel sowed the same thing.  God is now going to make a strong statement about this.

Jdg 2:1  And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. 

Jdg 2:2  And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? 

Jdg 2:3  Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. 

Jdg 2:4  And it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept. 

Jdg 2:5  And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD. 

Basically they sowed not obeying.  They sowed not driving them out.  Therefore they will reap them being thorns in their sides, and they will reap their gods being a snare unto them.

The main theme of Judges is you reap what you sow.

And you will see that all thru the book.  And at the end is this declaration.

Jdg 21:25  In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. 

And a book can have more than one theme.  Or even a sub theme that goes along with the main theme.

The book of Judge also shows what things can get like when every man does that which is right in his own eyes.

The sub theme of everyman doing what is right in his own eyes goes right along with the main theme of reaping and sowing.  You sow the belief that you think you are right over God’s Word and you will reap by doing some really horrible nasty things that are against God’s Word.  And you will reap the consequences of it.

What you see in Judges is man sowing wrong on a national level and you see them reap horrible things on a national level.

And one of the themes of Judges is to show you just how bad things can get when the majority of the people in a nation sow wrong and do that which is right in their own eyes.

See more lessons on Themes of Old Testament Books