The Ways of God in Joshua & Judges

ARTICLE • What did God reveal about himself in the Old Testament books of Joshua and Judges? In these two accounts, the acts of God—as the out-workings of his character—reveal him to be faithful, fearsome, and forgiving, opposing rebels and showing mercy towards the repentant.

Read time: 5 min

What may be known of God from the Old Testament books of Joshua and Judges? While God’s ways are ‘higher’ than our own (Is 55:8), they are not altogether secret or unpredictable. In fact, the behavior of God—the out-workings of his unchanging character—in the books of Joshua and Judges is structured, regular, and anything but capricious. A careful reading of these two accounts brings to surface the perspectives of the biblical writers concerning the nature of God.

At the onset, I'll state that this article is a short effort in biblical theology. In the words of Jim Hamilton, Biblical Theology “is the interpretive perspective reflected in the way the biblical authors have presented their understanding of earlier Scripture, redemptive history, and the events they are describing, recounting, celebrating, or addressing in narratives, poems, proverbs, letters, and apocalypses” (James M. Hamilton, Jr., What Is Biblical Theology? A Guide to the Bible’s Story, Symbolism, and Patterns [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014], 15-16). The brief reflections that follow will consider several aspects of the behavior of God in relation to Israel in Joshua and Judges as revealed these books.

First, God Is Faithful to His Covenant.

God directs history unceasingly towards the final redemption of all things. To understand Joshua and Judges, we need a bit of biblical backstory. The biblical metanarrative behind the smaller biblical stories contained in Joshua and Judges began in Genesis. After the fall of Adam, God cursed the serpent and the ground and promised an ultimate victory of the “seed of the woman” over the “seed of the serpent” (Gen 3:15). And on this torn terrestrial battlefield the conflict of the two spiritual seeds was played out. Cain killed Abel and too became cursed (Gen 4:11). Struggling to cultivate the cursed soil (Gen 5:29), in hope Lamech named his son Noah, meaning “rest, comfort.” Lamech evidently looked by faith for the “seed of the woman” to be born, reverse the curse, and restore God’s blessing upon humanity.

The Curse Continues

Sending a global flood that destroyed all humans except Noah’s family, God started the human race afresh, as if Noah were a new Adam. God’s mandate to Noah upon his exit from the ark, in fact, unmistakably echoed the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28. Genesis 9:1–3 reads,

“And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.’”

In the context of the cosmic curse, Noah had been chosen to mediate the promised blessing of salvation of Genesis 3:15. Tragically, we find that shortly after the flood, Noah got drunk and his son, Canaan, sinned against him:

“When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers’” (Gen 9:24-25).

So, the curse continued.

God would eventually make a promise to Abraham that his descendants would one day possess the land of none other than cursed Canaan. This often-called “blessing of Abraham” explains Israel’s eventual conquest of that land:

“And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:2-3).

Joshua and Judges

Joshua and Judges tell, respectively, of Israel’s conquest and apportioning of the Canaanite territory under the leadership of Joshua (the book of Joshua) and of the accounts of Israel’s conflict with the peoples of the land they had failed to utterly remove upon the initial conquest (the book of Judges). When we come to the book of Joshua, we realize that so much had occurred since the blessing of Abraham had been pronounced nearly five hundred years earlier. Israel had become a large people group in Egypt; they had been delivered from Egyptian bondage; they had rebelled and wandered forty years in the desert; and Moses had died. Joshua is now called to lead Israel into the land of Canaan (Josh 1:1-2). When Joshua dies, God eventually raises up fourteen different “judges” to deliver Israel from their oppressors (Judg 1:1-2; 2:18).

The point is this: generations would be born and die; nations would rise and fall, leaders would come and go, but God’s redemptive, benefactive work would not cease. Indeed, God’s covenant faithfulness was trans-generational. This matter is all the more poignant when we realize that God was willing to turn his back on an entire generation of Israelites (in effect, cursing them: i.e. Deut 28) when they rebelled against him in the wilderness, he still never turned his back on the ultimate deployment of his covenant of blessing through Israel.

Second, God is Fearsome.

God sets Himself against anyone who rebels against Him. Indeed this is an oft-cited refrain in the book of Judges:

“They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress” (Judg 2:13-15).

Far from giving special treatment to Israel since they were “a holy people unto the LORD” (Deut 28:9), God quite religiously brought calamity upon Israel when they rebelled by idolatry and persisted in unrepentant sin. The writer of Judges relates the iniquitous, downward spiral of Israel:

“But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways” (Judg 2:19).

Israel was not the only one following a pattern, however. God Himself would repeat the pattern of sending judgement on each wicked generations some seven times just in the books of Judges. This pattern of divine behavior (e.g. Judges 6:1; 10:6-7; 13:1, etc.) was described best by the prophet Azariah to king Asa long after the era of the judges had come to a close,

“Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you” (2 Chr 15:2).

Third, God is Forgiving.

God always grants mercy to those who repent and walk humbly before him. Just as God’s judgement on unrepentant Israelites was cyclical, regular, and even predictable, His mercy upon a repenting people was equally noteworthy. The seven specific occurrences in the book of Judges of (1) Israelite idolatry, (2) divine judgment and (3) Israelite repentance were each followed by seven divine deliverances with each evidence of repentance. Stephen Dempster notes:

“The only ‘saving grace’ during this tumultuous period is that human leaders—judges—are raised up by Yahweh to save Israel...Israel forgets God, adopts pagan practices, is punished by God in the form of a conquering nation, repents, cries out to God for help and is saved by a judge, and the land experiences rest as long as the judge lives” (Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003], 131).

Considering the frequent rate of relapse into paganism, God’s habit of forgiveness is all the more impressive. In the case of Israel’s oppression at the hand of the Philistines, true to God’s perfect foreknowledge, God raised up Samson even before we are told that Israel cried out in distress (Judg 13:1-5)!

This underscores the eagerness of God to be found of those who see him with their whole hearts. Indeed, before confession was made and cries for deliverance, deliverance was being born.

Conclusion

By way of summary and conclusion, the books of Joshua and Judges, especially through their repetitive structure, plainly establish certain predictable characteristics and patterns of God’s acts that stem from his faithful, fearsome, and forgiving character. He is shown to be faithful to his covenant promises, undaunted and trans-generational in the unfolding of his sure purposes. He is shown also to be fearsome, just, and severe with those who persist in unrepentant sin. And God is habitually forgiving of those who cry unto him out of distress, repent of their sins, and seek his help and salvation.

These historical testimonies of the writers of Joshua and Judge beckon us today to be assured of God's overwhelming favor and blessing. Likewise, we must not simply rely on past experiences or former blessings but live in constant repentance and reformation, walking humbly before our God. ❖