Judges, Chapter 18 - Religious Chaos | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom friends. Welcome back to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is the book of Judges chapter 18. My name is Jeremy Gapel [music] and I'm here with Arya Bramwoods. Ari, how are you? >> Thank God. I'm good. Good to see you, Jeremy. >> Yeah. Well, this series is brought to you by the land of Israel network at the landofisrael.com. And if you're catching this chapter for the first time, you can visit the landofisrael.com and watch all the previous chapters in the book of Judges and all of the book of Joshua. And you can check it out. It's absolutely free. All right. The stories in this part of Judges are like nothing else in Tanakh. This section of the book of Judges, they share detailed stories that reflect the spiritual state of Israel at that time without a king at a time toward the end of the era of Judges. And we'll see that Israel's spiritual state is spiraling out of control. And so, this is one of the judges darkest mirrors. And we're meant to look into it. And so to understand chapter 18, we just need to step back for a second into chapter 17 because what happens here grows directly out of what was planted there. So we know a name a man named Mika steals 1100 pieces of silver from his own mother. She curses whoever took it. He confesses. She immediately consecrates the money to Hashem and makes an idol. And so you got to let that sit in. She consecrates stolen silver to God to make an idol. She means well. She's devoted and she's completely catastrophically confused. And so Micah takes the idol, builds a private shrine in his home, makes one of his sons a priest, then upgrades when a wandering Levite comes through. He hires the Levite as his personal priest. And they're both doing what was right in their own eyes and calling it kosher. And then Ma ironically declares verse 13 in chapter 17. Now I know that Hashem will be good to me because I have a Levite as my priest. And so he has a private idol, a stolen silver shrine, an unauthorized priest who's really a Levite. He's certain that Hashem will bless him. And so this is the world that chapter 18 opens into. And the text gives us the frame for everything that follows in these words. And it summarizes the book of Judges and starts it and it ends it just like this. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. That's Judges 17:6 and then Judges 25. The phrase it's like bookends of the entire final section of Shuim. It appears at the beginning, it appears at the end. It's the diagnosis. It's the verdict. It's the most real sentence in the entire book because it describes the heart of Israel at a time which is just total confusion. And these people aren't saying we reject Hashem. They're saying we're serving Hashem. We're doing it completely wrong. It's like every man with his own priest, every man with his own Torah, every man with his own truth. And that's a lot more dangerous than an outright rebellion because it leads to total disintegration which we will regretfully see. >> Yeah. So what gets me about Mika is again he wasn't cutting corners. He was trying to do the right thing. A real is a real real Levite proper lineage. He went through every step of authentic worship. He just filled it all with something he just made up. And that's actually harder to correct than someone who openly walks away. If a person rejects the whole thing, you can at least have the argument. But Mika, he's all he's already doing it, there's nothing to argue about. The most dangerous religious confusion isn't the kind that looks wrong. It's the kind that looks exactly right. I agree. And the people think it's right, but sometimes it's really, really, really wrong. And I think that's the point, but we'll get to that a little bit later on in the book. So chapter 18 opens up like this and Israel verse one in those days there was no king in Israel and it's framing the problem. There's no unity. Each tribe is doing their own thing within their tribes. Each man is doing what's right in his own eyes. And the book of Judges is exposing the dire need for Israel to have united leadership and that will bring some sort of restoration to Israel. And so the chapter starts off explaining that the tribe of Dan has a problem. They've been given an inheritance in the land, but they weren't able to take it. The Amorites pressed them back into the hills. They never fought through. They never claimed what was theirs. So, right now, they're landless. They're just drifting looking for somewhere to go. And I think it's interesting that Don in that way are a symbol of weakness and a lack of commitment to the land of Israel. And today, the bastion of left-wing Israel are all located in an area called Gush Dan. the territory of Dan that was originally supposed to be settled. And like then, like now, you just can't make this up. Dan is Dan. And so, the tribe of Dan sends five spies to scout out the land. And on the way, they stumble upon Mika's house. And so, they recognize the Levites voice. They stop and they ask him for a prophetic word. And he obliges. Verse six, shalom. Go in peace. The presence of Hashem is on the way which you shall go. The Levite says, "Hashem approves." Go with confidence. The priest is a stolen silver idol in an unauthorized shrine. Pronounces divine blessing on a mission of tribal land grabbing a land that wasn't designated for them. And everyone nods and moves on. It's like this Levite is not a prophet. He doesn't have prophecy, a priest without authority. He's giving out a blessing without any basis. And no one questions it. It's just everyone exists in total confusion. and they don't even have a clue. And so the spies continue north and they find the city of Lish. >> And the description is is really interesting. The text says the people were were quiet there, unsuspecting, living in security. They had no dealings with anyone. They were peaceful, isolated, completely unaware of what was coming. The these are not Philistines. These are not Canaanites guilty of the sins that forfeited their right to the land. They're simply a quiet people living their lives. and the tribe of Dawn is going to annihilate them. And I think that the contrast is deliberate and we're meant to feel perhaps the wrongness of it. Exactly. I mean, there's wrongness all throughout the story. So, the spies return with their report. 600 armed men from Dan march out with their families, their children, their livestock. And on the way they pass Mika's house and five spies say to the others, "Um, did you know there's an Ephod household idols and a carved image right in there? Let's take them." And so what follows next darkly comic. It's like 600 armed men stand at the gate. Five of them walk into Ma's house and take everything. The carved image, the ephod, the house idols, the molden image. The Levite priest comes out and says, "What are you doing?" And they say to him, "Put your hand over your mouth and come with us. Be a father and a priest to us. It's better for you to be a priest to one man's house or a priest to a whole tribe in Israel." Verse 19. And the text says the priest's heart was glad. He doesn't protest. He doesn't wrestle with it. He doesn't say, "But that belongs to Mika and you're stealing it." It's like he he he took me in. He pretty much picks up the idols and walks and like upgrade accepted. He is the worst Cohen priest ever. And so Nico runs after them and he catches up and he says, "You took my gods. You took my priest. What do I have left?" And the people of Dun say to him in verse 25, "Don't raise your voice at us or angry men will fall upon you and you will lose your life and the lives of your household." So Micah realized that he's up against an army of dangerous men, much more powerful than him. So he turns around and goes home. So 600 armed men taking whatever they want, threatening whoever objects, and all for the sake of worshiping God. It's like this is what happens when there's no king in Israel. It's not only political chaos, but spiritual chaos, moral decay. I mean, when every man does what's right in his own eyes, the strongest man's eyes win. And so, they reach Lish, they attack the quiet, unsuspecting city. They kill the inhabitants, burn it down, they rebuild it, and rename it Don after their ancestor, the tribe of Den. And they set up this stolen idol, and they appoint the priest. And here the text finally reveals the name of the Levite who's been with Mika all along. And it has been withheld up until now because the name it's almost too much to bear. And here's what it says in verse 30. Yonatan, son of Gersom, the son of Menashe. Menashe. That's what it says in our printed text. But if you look at the original Hebrew, the letter the noon in manashe is written suspended above the line floating a little bit smaller inserted by later scribes because without it the name reads not mashe but Moshe Moses Jonathan son of Geishom son of Moses the priest of the stolen idol at the heart of Israel's first official descent into tribal idolatry is the grandson of the man who brought the Torah down from Sinai. >> I remember the impact this had on me when I was like I think 17 18 and first plowing through the Tanakh. It had such an impact on me and it really doesn't get easier. The the scribes couldn't write Moses's name there. And honestly, I get it. I feel like there's something in us that wants to protect Moshe from this moment. But the text itself doesn't really protect him. it just lift that one letter above the line like it couldn't quite bring itself to put it down. Right? Jonathan didn't set out to end up here. He just kept saying yes to the next reasonable thing. A better opportunity, a bigger audience, a step up. And and somewhere in all those small yeses, he ended up carrying stolen idols for a tribe of armed men. The scribes weren't just being kind to Moses. They were brokenhearted and when I read this, you know, I am too. >> So, the chapter closes with a verse that really says it all. Verse 31. And they maintained Micah's carved image all the time that the house of God was in Shilo. So, the tabernacle was in Shiloh, the real thing, the genuine presence of Hashem was available. The kohanim, the priests were there, the Torah was there. The ark of the covenant was there. The tribe of Dan set up a stolen idol in their stolen city and they kept it there the whole time. It's not because they didn't have an alternative. They preferred it. It was closer. It was a part of their tribe. It was theirs. And so here's what chapter 18 is saying to us. And it's the thing that most people miss when they read it. This isn't just a story about external enemies. There's like no foreign nation here that brought Israel to this point. No Midionite Philistines. The can no Canaanite king responsible for what happens. The tribe of Dan abandoned their inheritance without a fight. Micah built his shrine without being forced to. The Levites sold his priesthood without coercion. The idol was installed with full consent. And the house of God was in Shilo, available to everyone. They just chose not to go. And so this is a story, you know, like what a people does to itself without leadership. when it loses its moral and spiritual center, when every man becomes his own Torah, and when strength becomes the only law, you'll steal it and do it in the name of God. And so the phrase that every man did what was right in his own eyes, it's not describing freedom. It's describing dissolution. It's a society where there is no shared truth. There's no shared standard. There's no shared source of authority. It's not really a free society. It's a soci a society that's in the process of destroying itself from within. It's like quietly everyone's reasonable with everyone convinced they're doing the right thing. And so the most dangerous enemy Israel ever faced in the book of Judges, it wasn't Cisra. It was never Midian. It wasn't the Philistines. It was this the moment that every man became his own judge. And the question of the book of shifting impresses on every generation including ours. Who is your king? Whose eyes are you following? Just as the house of God was in Shilo today, the capital of Israel is in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem has never been this big. It's the real thing available to you right now. And so I know that many people around the world, they've started learning the prophets of Israel with us and they've joined our global community at the land of Israel fellowship and it's expanding and growing. And if you want to take the next step and take our learning together to the next level. So please visit us at the landofisrael.com. Your support strengthens us on our mission and helps [music] us bring the Torah from the land of Israel to the world. So thank you very much. [music] We will see you for Judges chapter 19 tomorrow.