Judges - Generation Next

I have read this passage differently on numerous occasions and have collected a number of margin scribbles. Set against the boom and bust cycle of sin and repentance in this particular part of Israel’s history, God regularly intervenes to bring them back to the straight and narrow…usually achieved via a long procession of righteous men and women (the Judges) that He raises up to lead and admonish Israel. Occasionally however, God intervenes in a more direct and personal fashion.

In this particular instance the ‘Angel of the Lord’…or literally the ‘Messenger of God’…arrives for a little chat with the (again) wayward children of Israel…with the whole nation in fact! Why is this so interesting? Let’s do some maths/history. The book of Numbers is a good place to start…seeing as it is primarily a record of the census data for the post-Egyptian Israelites. The last census happened around 65 years before this and is a good place to start our calculations. It puzzled me for a long time why only men old enough to fight were counted in Numbers. Perhaps during wartime, this is the most important indicator of national survival. Numbers 26 tells us that there were 601,730 fighting-aged men. If we assume that there were the same number of women and have a guess at the number of children I don’t think a total population of somewhere around three million is unreasonable…similar to the populations of Sydney or San Diego.

On the 20th of January 2009, two million people gathered to hear President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech. It is hard to imagine this occurring without the use of modern video relay and high powered PA technologies…but this is what the Angel of the Lord appears to have done to three million people. (Judges 2:4) I guess if you are the messenger of God, some form of supernatural delivery is not out of the question…they all got the message and repented.

The second thing I notice is this…while Joshua was alive, the nation of Israel served God. After his generation died out, a whole generation of people emerged who neither ‘knew the LORD nor what He had done for Israel.’ (Judges 2:10) The word ‘knew’ in this context implies an intimate relationship. (often used by Bible translators to avoid having to talk about sex!) Rather than complaining about how they dress, cut their hair or that the music they play in church is too loud, we should be encouraging the next generation and urging them on to their own intimate relationship with God.

Finally, the concept of ‘National Sin’ intrigues me. In New Testament times we are almost entirely fixated on personal salvation. Now, I don’t want to in any way diminish the importance of our own individual relationship with God, but I can’t help thinking…perhaps if the nations of the world who claim to be Christian (mine included) would humble themselves and pray….maybe God would heal our lands.

Joshua - The Longest Day

In Joshua 10:12-13 we read of a battle against the Amorites….a battle where Joshua prayed (with nothing short of audacity verging on the completely mental!) and the sun stood still for a day until the battle was completed.

The ancients believed that the sun revolved around the earth….obviously we know now that day and night is a product of the rotation of the earth. The implications of knowing this are immense….

The rotation of the earth is caused by ‘radial momentum’….the tendency of a spinning body to continue spinning. The amount of energy required to stop….and then restart the spinning of the earth are calculable but mind boggling! If the earth stopped spinning:

· We would have day for half a year and night for the other half
· One half of the earth would overheat while the other half alternately froze
· The world wind patterns would change
· Tidal patterns would change….the sea level at the equator would drop and rise closer towards the polar ice caps
· The earth’s rotation generates a magnetic field that is responsible for protecting us from radiation and particles from space
· The earth’s atmosphere would continue to spin at over 1600km/hour – the resulting winds would strip everything from every piece of exposed land

The scribble in my margin notes that the enemies of Israel would have worshiped the sun and the moon. The Israelites would have been all too familiar with sun worship – they had recently left Egypt where Ra – the sun god – was revered above all other gods.

Perhaps God answered Joshua’s prayer as an object lesson to the enemies of Israel – a demonstration of His total domination – infinitely more powerful than their god. Perhaps it was an unsubtle reminder to Israel of His Omnipotence.

The Bible concludes this account thus……”There's never been a day like that before or since—God took orders from a human voice!” (Joshua 10:14 – The Message)

I am not going to attempt to answer the ‘how’….I don’t even fully understand the ‘why.’ It just reminds us that nothing is impossible for God….if He created it then he can changes the rules for a day too!