Judges 21 – The Israelites had
also agreed at Mizpah that none of them present would give a daughter in
marriage to the tribe of Benjamin. After the battle, they go to Bethel and
bewail the loss of the tribe. They also swore at Mizpah to cut off any clan
that did not come to the assembly at Mizpah—they carry out this threat
now.
They
realize that not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead had come, so they are
put to the sword (everyone, that is, except virgin girls). These virgins (of a clan who had not sworn to
not intermarry with Benjamin) are then given to the men remaining to the tribe
of Benjamin (the 600 who had escaped to the rock of Rimmon in the
wilderness—20:47), so that the tribe will not be lost forever. As for the
remaining 200, they are told they may go up and carry off women who “dance in
the dances” at the sanctuary at Shiloh.
These women may marry the Benjaminite men remaining.
After
these sad chapters the author repeats the obvious: “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was
right in their own eyes.” Amen--as we do now, sometimes with as much wisdom as these
people showed.
It is clear that the book of Judges brings together stories and
perhaps writings from a host of different sources, times and points of view. The variety is simply part of the reality they
must deal with in their sad state, but
it is also the chaos man just naturally sinks into when there is no centralized
ethos or law. That it is incorporated into the “story” again speaks volumes
for the people of Israel, who more than any other people I know, have looked at
the darkness in man with a clearer and more uncompromising eye than anyone else
I know of. The “fall” pursues us even on the road to redemption.
Augustine (354-430 AD)
Confessions
9 - And, behold, my infancy died long ago, and I live.
But You, O Lord, who ever livest, and in whom nothing dies (since before the
world was, and indeed before all that can be called "before," you
exist, and are the God and Lord of all Your creatures; and with you fixedly abide the causes of all unstable things, the
unchanging sources of all things changeable, and the eternal reasons of all
things unreasoning and temporal), tell me, Your suppliant, O God; tell, O
merciful One, Your miserable servant — tell
me whether my infancy succeeded another age of mine which had at that time
perished. Was it that which I passed in my mother's womb? For of that
something has been made known to me, and I have myself seen women with child.
And what, O God, my joy, preceded that life? Was I, indeed, anywhere, or anybody? For no one can tell me these
things, neither father nor mother, nor the experience of others, nor my own
memory. Do you laugh at me for asking such things, and command me to praise and confess you for what I know?
Let us
praise and confess the Lord for what we experience of Him, not speculate about
a million things our minds are capable of conceiving because we are rooted in
Him more than any other living creature. It is hard to avoid the ideas that
people have made into simplistic creeds. It isn’t necessarily the words of the
creeds that I dispute. It is how simply the words are interpreted. This poem,
the last of Kenneth Boulding’s, Naylor Sonnets captures what I am getting at.
We Christians do believe that life in God, in Christ, is “eternal.”
And Augustine wonders if that means he has existed in time before this present
life and will be forever since nothing “in [God] dies”. Boulding sees the words
as too narrow. We cannot KNOW a lot about spiritual truth:
While yet
we see with eyes, must we be blind?
Is lonely
mortal death the only gate
To holy
life eternal—must we wait
Until the
dark portcullis clangs behind
Our
hesitating steps, before we find
Abiding
good? Ah, no, not that our fate;
Our
time-bound cry “too early” or “too late”
Can have no
meaning in the Eternal Mind.
The door is
open, and the Kingdom here—
Yet Death
indeed upon the threshold stands
To bar our
way—unless into his hands
We give our
self, our will, our heart, our fear.
And
then—strange resurrection!—from above
Is poured
upon us life, will, heart, and love.
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