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.
