Judges

Speaker 1 00:00:15 Welcome to the weekly deep dive podcast on the add on education network, the podcast where we take a look at the weekly, come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host here in the studio. Speaker 2 00:00:30 Your name. Speaker 1 00:00:32 Yeah, it doesn't matter how many times I've done this. I am your host, Jason Lloyd here at the studio with my friend and this shows producer the great one and only Nate Piper. Speaker 2 00:00:44 What's up Speaker 1 00:00:45 Nate? You're looking good tonight. Wearing your hoodie. Speaker 2 00:00:47 Got the hoodie taking shots at the media. I've got my beard. I'm ready to roll. I'm ready to rock Speaker 1 00:00:54 Roll. So question for you, Nate? Speaker 2 00:00:59 Yes, Speaker 1 00:00:59 How's. How's how's eastward coming along Speaker 2 00:01:01 Really good. Always appreciate any, um, new listeners to that project eastward. It's a, uh, a religious tone record, but not like a E F Y at all, actually, but it's a lot of, uh, actually fairly successful LDS artists and we all kind of got together and made music that we love and are proud of. And it definitely doesn't fit into the yeah. The E FY, um, kind of Mormon sounding music, but, uh, I don't know, just released a track couple weeks ago. It's doing well. Speaker 1 00:01:45 Well, congratulations. We'll have to give it all. Listen, Speaker 2 00:01:47 It's the music that you hear coming in and out of this podcast. Speaker 1 00:01:51 Yeah. And, and where, where should I, where, where should I listen? Spotify, Speaker 2 00:01:54 Apple, anywhere you stream music. Speaker 1 00:01:57 Yeah. Give it a listen. See what Nate's been working up to. Uh, thanks buddy. Speaker 2 00:02:00 So hard. Thanks Jason. Yeah. What are we talking about today, Jason, Speaker 1 00:02:04 This week? Speaker 1 00:02:06 I, I tell you, I don't know how much longer I can do this. It seems like the last couple of weeks. And, and it seems like it because it is, we keep getting these massive sections of reading and in today's lesson's gonna cover the entire book of judges. And I don't know that I can do the entire book of judges and do it justice in just one night. So I'll do my best. I'm trying my best to keep up with this content. Um, but if it feels like we're drowning and going through a lot, we are that just for comparison, we have already gone through more pages of scripture up to this point this year, then all of doctor and covenants last year combined. Wow. Speaker 1 00:02:52 So we've got our work cut out for us tonight. As we talk about judges, just to give you guys an idea. There are 12 judges that rule in this period of time, it's about 300 years of history. It's, it's taking it from when Moses and Joshua hand off Israel to their, their place in, in this new land that they're trying to get things done up to the point 300 years later, where they finally say, you know what? We have to have a king. We, we don't want the Lord as our king anymore. We need our own king. We can't handle ourselves. We, we tried, we couldn't, we need, we need some more discipline. And, and then we're gonna get into Solomon and David and Saul and, and kind of work our way through the Kings for the rest of the, the old Testament. But this, this bit of history is, is something we're probably very intimately familiar with over the 300 years, we've got these 12 different Kings that are, are Kings. Speaker 1 00:03:50 I'm sorry, these 12 different judges that are gonna rise up throughout here. And, and this is very akin to the pride cycle for, for those of us reading the book of Mormon. And, and we get that sense of the nation is righteous. God blesses them delivers 'em in warfare. They become wicked and their enemy kind of persists and destroys them. And they humble themself and come back to God and he delivers them and raises someone else up. This is the entire book of judges, just rinse and repeat over and over and over again. But in that cycle rises up some of the most interesting stories you you've got Deborah and Barrack. We're gonna talk about, you've got, um, hoo, you've got Samson. Speaker 2 00:04:35 Can't wait, Speaker 1 00:04:36 Gideon, Speaker 2 00:04:37 Gideon GI. Where's my morning jacket. Outide Gideon. Thank you. My morning check for such a great little jam. Speaker 1 00:04:52 So I'm, I'm gonna do my best to try to pull in some good insight and unique perspective as we call it. And, and, and maybe just highlight some of these interesting stories that maybe you're familiar with, or maybe some of these you looked at and say, wow, that really happened. And you know, we'll, we'll just try to have some fun with the book of judges. So thanks for listen, Speaker 2 00:05:12 And try to make and try to add, um, actual life lessons that you learned from these stories as well, too, right? Yeah. Something that we can kind of get out. We, we we'll try not to just tell you the stories. We'll try to add some, some context and hopefully some deeper meaning to them as well. Speaker 1 00:05:29 All right. To get started judges chapter one, verse 19, and just looking at some of the verbiage here and the Lord was with Judah and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain. And if you sing, drove sounds weird. Mm-hmm Speaker 2 00:05:44 <affirmative> it does. Speaker 1 00:05:45 Yeah, but I got, I, I, I'm not wrong this time. Cause I'm quoting it straight out of the book Speaker 2 00:05:49 Here. Okay. Speaker 1 00:05:50 Drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron. That seems like a, I, the Lord was with Judah. So he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but he couldn't drive out the ones of the valley. If the Lord was with them, why couldn't he drive out the ones of the valley? Interesting, because they had chariots are chariots. God's kryptonite <laugh>. If, if, if you come to God with chariots and horses, like, is he is his, are, are his hands tied? Can he can no longer be a God? And like, Hey peace, you guys, you, you, you gotta do this on, on your own because I can't be there with you. I mean, why, what is the deal with this story? Yeah. So this is this, I think highlights, who's writing the old Testament. Speaker 1 00:06:46 This is the book, the scroll of Judah. Judah's the one that we get this account from, and you're gonna look at it here. And you're just gonna sit here and list all of the other tribes and, and where they fell short in driving people out. But when they talk about themselves, like, yeah, but God was with us. So we did all right, except for in this regard. <laugh> so I, I think you get a little bit of flavoring here. That's funny. And, and I think it's important when we read this, when it says the Lord was with Judah and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain that when you read it and he, they're not very careful with their pronouns. So if you're taking the direct subject here at the Lord, who was the one who was with Judah and he drove out the inhabitants, it'd be easy for us to read the Lord's the one who drove out the inhabitants, but it's not, it's it's Judah that drove them out because the Lord was with him, but could not. Speaker 1 00:07:39 So when he says, but could not, it's not saying the Lord could not do it, but Judah could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley. Okay. And chariots were a serious advantage and Israel did not have chariots. They didn't use the chariots. In fact, when they conquered and they took chariots, there was a law saying that they couldn't, and, and the king would hamstring the horses so that they couldn't be used for chariots. Eventually Israel kind of changes their policy on that and adopts chariots. But to give you some context of the stage of history, chariots had just become like the new, great weapon and, and who was able to wheel them and have them obviously had a great advantage in the valleys and in the planes, chariots don't stew so well, or at least back then climbing mountains and Hills and going over rocks. Speaker 1 00:08:32 So Israel had the gorilla warfare and the mountains going really well for 'em. And some of these areas that were in the valley below Israel looked at and, and kind of wooed out on doubt on. Okay. And, and I think there's a little bit of a difference here too, between could not versus would not because the Lord in Exodus says I will not drive all of them out right away, unless the land becomes uninhabited and overrun with beast and doesn't serve an advantage, but I will do it little by little. And so maybe the Lord helps drive them out of the mountain, but Judah isn't large enough and strong enough to possess the valley yet. So the Lord is not giving them that strength yet until they're ready to possess the valley below in that case, this is an example of could not, but as they follow along here in the book of, of judges, they're going to list all of the different tribes where not that they could not, but they absolutely refused to. Speaker 1 00:09:36 They would not. So verse 31, neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of ACO, uh, verse 30, neither did Zelin drive out the inhabitants of Tron and 29. Neither did ERU drive out the Canaanites thatw and Geer. So this idea that not only could, it's not that they couldn't in these instances, it's the Israel absolutely refused to. This is where the Lord steps in chapter two, verse one. And in angel, the Lord came up from Gil gall to Bo him and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you into the land, which I swear into your father's. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as a thorn in your side. Speaker 1 00:10:35 And their God shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass when the angel of the Lord spand these words into all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept what was happening is rather than driving them out because they, they did possess the power to drive. A lot of these people out. They had the, the strength, the Lord was with them. They had the number, the, the advantage, and they took that advantage to go to the people and say, look, you know, we could win this war rather than fight this war. We're going to extort you for money. And they would turn 'em into VA kingdoms, and they would make these agreements and these treaties and these covenants with these people and to seal these relationships, oftentimes what happened is your king. When you make a treaty with another king is going to give his children to wife, to the other kingdom's king to wife, so that they have this blood relationship, this, this kinship. And so they start inter marrying and start worshiping their gods and start to defile themselves through these relationships that when they had the advantage, they were soft and not chasing them out. But also they sought for money to, to make these where they would have to pay a tribute to them every year. And they were leveraging all of these, these tributes to, to get themselves wealthy at expense of what the Lord had commanded them to do. So I think that's the highlighting difference between could not and would not. And sweet. Yeah. And Speaker 2 00:12:11 Let's get to Sampson Speaker 1 00:12:12 Sampson. Speaker 2 00:12:13 I mean, unless you got something else about this, this is cool and all, but we need to get to Speaker 1 00:12:17 Sampson. The only thing I would add, it seems like in the Bible, in, in all of these things, maybe just frame this context like this Nefi saw in a vision that layman and Lial and their seed were gonna be fighting against his seed and ultimately 400, 500, 600 years later, be the cause of the destruction of his people that layman Lial seed would continue to live on, but his seed would be cut off and destroyed despite that he still takes them on the boat with him. Hmm. There's something about having opposition in all things and having these people counterbalance them out. And, and as the angel says, you know, you've done this and because you've done this, this is gonna be a thorn in your side. That's gonna serve to humble you and counterbalance your existence. And that, that's what the book of judges is all about. Okay. All right. That's all I'll say on that. All Speaker 2 00:13:16 Right. But what about Samson Speaker 1 00:13:17 Samson night? Speaker 2 00:13:18 Are we not going to Samson yet? Speaker 1 00:13:20 Um, let's get there soon, but not quite yet. All right. One, one thing that happens over and over again with these people is the worship of Bal. And I feel like it's worth talking about Bal for a second. Does that, is that all right with you name? Let's do it. Who is Bal in the Canaanite religion? They have, they have different gods. You have moat. Who's the God of death Bal who is the sky, God, the God of thunder and yam, who is the sea. God, if you were to try to make this and, and compare it to Greek mythology, yam is like Poseidon. Bal is like Zeus and moat is like Hades. And, and you can see this kind of play out in a lot of different mythologies. Um, even Norse mythology, kind of this idea of Thor, th this God of thunder Baal, Jehovah is associated very, very closely with Baal. He is called a sky, God. And if we're to read a lot of these old Testament verses, you can almost see how easy it is to confuse Jehovah this God of, of thunder with Baal and Canaanite mythology like Exodus nine 30, uh, 9 23, the Lord sent thunder and hell 2018. The people saw thunderings and the Lord thundered from heaven, the Lord, God thunders marvelously with his voice. I, I mean, it's, it's all throughout the whole thing all the way down into new Testament. Uh, the sons of thunder Boanerges right. Speaker 2 00:14:52 Was it, uh, James and John? That's correct. The sons of thunder baby. I should, that's it. We should, I should have called the instead of east word. I should have just called that band. The sons of thunder, Speaker 1 00:15:01 Sons of thunder. Okay. Speaker 2 00:15:03 Let's keep going. Speaker 1 00:15:03 Book of revelation, even into the end of the new Testament, you still have, God's speaking with the voice of thunder and the, the voice of lightnings and the voice of thunders. You see it in doctor and covenants when they're talking about thunderings speaking for the Lord. So it, there, there is this close association with him, but all becomes the king, uh, ball actually gets slain and has to rise back up from the dead. Oh yeah. And defeats Mao, um, moat death. And he defeats yam and, and he becomes the king of the gods. Wow. So there there's, they're very similar arcs with, with Jehovah, if you will, particularly, if you add Christianity's flavor on Jehovah, understanding that he comes, embodies, Christ dies, goes to the underworld and rises again to overcome death. So adding Christianity's flavor to Jehovah makes it even more kind of an interesting parallel. Speaker 2 00:16:01 Okay. Speaker 1 00:16:02 And, and the people worship all, but Baal is ATIC word. That means Lord. And it's very interesting. When the Lord says later on in the old Testament, he says, thou shall no more call me BA Ali. And when you add the E ending in Hebrew, it means my so Baal being Lord, you shall no longer call me my Lord, but you shall call me Ishi. Ish means, man. And then you add the E ending. So my man, my man is the Hebrew for saying my husband. And so I love what you showed me, Nate, if you don't mind me kind of taking a little detour here from Speaker 2 00:16:44 My morning jacket. Speaker 1 00:16:45 That's what Speaker 2 00:16:45 Gideon the song. Is that what you're talking Speaker 1 00:16:47 About? No. Oh, rabbis. Jonathan. Speaker 2 00:16:50 Oh, I love rabbis. Speaker 1 00:16:52 Uh, he had such a wonderful insight on this for so many years. Israel keeps for, for whatever reason, finding it very easy to worship Baal. We're gonna see it when they build the, the altars to Baal. We'll see it with Gideon. We're gonna see it with, with Elijah. Remember when he, he has the, the competition with the priest of Baal and he, he floods it with water. Yeah. And the fire comes and consumes it. And then he slays the priest of Baal. So Baals gonna be all throughout the old Testament. And because they keep diverting their worship from Jehovah to Baal, he says, no more, shall you call me BA Ali, my Lord. But you shall call me Ishi. My husband. Speaker 2 00:17:36 Is that just because he, uh, he just didn't want it to the Lord. Didn't wanna be confused, confusing at all. Speaker 1 00:17:43 I wonder if it's not, Israel keeps removing themselves from this intimate relationship with the Lord. Okay. How many times has the Lord tried to portray his relationship as a loving relationship with Israel? You are my beloved wife. I've given my life to you to create life, to create children, to create salvation. And if you're my people and you love me, you will, you will serve me. And he describes this relationship as a covenant relationship as a husband and a wife, but Israel, rather than wanting a loving, caring relationship with God, keep trying to refer to him instead as a Lord, a master and overseer as this, as this power, like we're, we're looking for a strong hand to keep us in line. We're looking for a king. We're looking for someone not to be partners with, but to rule over us with, and the Lord keeps saying, no, don't call me your master. Speaker 1 00:18:52 Don't call me ex uh, your, your overseer. It's not, this is supposed to be an intimate partnership between you and me. Stop cheating on me for this. And, and, and think about this also, Nate, in terms of the choice in the garden of Eden, this idea that how do you become God? And on one side you have a choice to, to become power, to seize power, to, to, to take the shortcut, to become mighty and, and rule and dominate versus the other choice which is to serve and give yourself and change your nature to where you're loving and caring. And, and that being the path to, and, and kind of looking at that dichotomy between Bali me between BA Ali versus Ishi and Baal versus Jehovah. Okay. I love that. So just glad we're, I'm really glad we talked about that. Just a, just a little sidetrack. Speaker 1 00:19:52 If you're looking at who in the heck is Baal, what's going on and it does, it does play plague Israel constantly throughout the old Testament. I, I think that's all I needed to say on that. What about Samson? Samsonite? All right. We're getting there. We're not there yet, but we're getting there, you know, you know, you get to that section in the book of Mormon and, and you have some whole, chapter' dedicated to somebody talking all about their life and their story and what happens. And then you get to Omni alumni where, where one chapter, all of a sudden, you're talking about five people with, within one verse. Yeah. That's the judges. Some of these judges get more page space than others. Okay. So some of these, we're not gonna really talk about much, especially where we have so much to talk to you, uh, to talk about. Speaker 1 00:20:39 Yeah. And so I'm gonna skip over, over a little bit of this. Let let's just mention quickly the story of, of hoo he's lefthanded and, and Israel starts worshiping, but all starts to, to become more like their neighbors. And, and so the Lord stops protecting them and they become conquered. And when they're conquered, the king Lon is, is ruling over them. And the Lord raises up Ihud to deliver them. And Ihud comes to Lon and says, I have a gift for you. And I think it's significant that they're saying he's lefthanded because when they frisk him or check him before he comes in to talk to the king, they don't notice that he has a dagger and he's got the dagger on his right thigh that he's going to draw with his left hand. And, and they talk about the dagger. It's, it's fairly long. Speaker 1 00:21:37 He, he, he comes in, he tells the king, I have a secret message for you. So the king dismisses all of his servants and, and I, and I think it's kind of fascinating. They have a key to the building, the chamber in which the king is, is in. So they, they have a key and he locks it from, from the ins, from the inside. And he asks him what this, this, this message is that he has. And hoo pulls out a dagger and thrust it through the stomach of the king. And the king is so large that the dagger disappears within the stomach, even the hilt of it. And it says that dirt comes out and you're like, dirt. That, that seems weird. Like the king, like one of my kids that just eats dirt. And you're like, what are you doing out there in the backyard? Speaker 1 00:22:24 <laugh> I can't no dirt, the Hebrew word, dirt. It's just a kind way of translating it really, really it's it's, um, excrement that's coming out. It is gruesome. It's terrible. And he, he, and he, he locks the door. He hops out the window and he takes off. And his servants after a while are kind of wondering like what's going on in there, but they don't want to interrupt the king. And so they, they keep waiting this game until it becomes too late. They break in the doors and they find their king is dead. Meanwhile, hoots, escape, prepared, Israel and their armies, and, and ends up delivering Israel that day. And, and, and they're happy. And they rejoice and, and they live for, for a good little amount of time. And then they become wicked again, and they have to raise up another king. Another judge might be worth noticing. Speaker 1 00:23:11 They use judge. The book is called the book of judges, the Hebrew word for judge though. And, and as you, you, you notice that when it says the Lord raises up someone to judge Israel or praying that the Lord will have someone to come, judge them judging them, sounds like a harsh deal. Like, Hey, if you want to raise someone up to judge Israel, who by the way has been wicked and another nation's ruling over them, wouldn't that be bad news bears for Israel? So the word judge is, is vindicate, is to redeem is, is to issue judgment in the sense that it can be damning, but it also can be very liberating. And so in these cases, they're looking for someone who's a liberator, a Redeemer, someone who will not necessarily judge them, but redeem them, save them from the situation that they're in. So you could almost call this the book of redeemers if you wanted to. Speaker 2 00:24:07 Okay, well, that was a gruesome story. Speaker 1 00:24:09 I know it's just weird enough. I felt like we needed to mention it. All right. And you'd be like, oh, there's a story about a dagger disappearance. I Speaker 2 00:24:16 Mean, is there, is there anything that we can learn from this? Speaker 1 00:24:20 I told you there's a lot of weird stories. Speaker 2 00:24:21 All right, let's keep going. Speaker 1 00:24:23 There's, there's a lot of weird stories and judges Speaker 2 00:24:26 Let's keep going. Speaker 1 00:24:27 Deborah. Deborah Speaker 2 00:24:29 Is, Speaker 1 00:24:29 Deborah's a prophet. She judges Israel. Um, and she asks BARR to kind of take charge and lead the armies and do this. I, I love the story of Deborah because as, as a, a professor of mine pointed out, the Bible appears to be a manly book written by manly men, doing manly things and, and women don't really get a good, fair shake in the Bible. They don't appear very often. Uh, a lot of times you don't hear much about them, but in this story, you're gonna have Deborah playing a very strong leading role. And the men in this story are going to be particularly weak. So it's, it's interesting. And I think this is intentional, as it's showing this dynamic of a, a switch, we talked about this with Bayham and the talking donkey, as they kind of had this role reversal. So Deborah is going to Barrack and says, I need you to redeem Israel. Speaker 1 00:25:26 And he's like, I'll only do it. If you come with me, can you come hold my hand? Like, he's, he's, he's not particularly strong in this story. And she says, yeah, I'll go with you. But so, you know, the Lord is not going to deliver the enemy king into your hand. The Lord is actually going to redeem Israel through the hands of a woman. So they go to battle and, and here is a, another case in point, because they're going, Israel's going to battle with a large army of chariots. The enemy king is writing in a chariot, and yet the Lord still delivers them, even though the army has the technological advantage. So going back to that point early on with Judah had nothing to do with, I, I don't know. The Lord has obviously redeemed him from Egypt in the chariots. And in this case, he's going to redeem them and they're gonna win the war with, with these guys in their chariots as well. Speaker 2 00:26:15 It's not their first rodeo with horses. Speaker 1 00:26:17 No, Speaker 2 00:26:18 No. In chariots. Speaker 1 00:26:20 So, so the, the enemy king is cicek and, and, and this is the, the Canaanites that have been oppressing Israel from, from their wickedness. And as there have the advantage, Cura jumps off his chariot and runs away, and he comes into a camp, and this is not an Israelite camp. This, this, these are, this is again an outsider. And, and he goes into the tent of a woman Jale who's there. And he asks for help. So here you have this strong king begging some, some woman for help to, to save him. And she puts a mantle over him to hide him and to give him rest and says, don't worry, I'll take care of you. And he says, just stay in the door of the tent. So if they come by and ask, you can tell him that there's not a man in the tent. Speaker 1 00:27:10 And even that's a little bit, um, what's, what's the right word for this, uh, humiliating. I mean, somebody comes, you're like, yeah, there's no man in this tent. I mean, knowing that he's inside of there, it's almost a little bit embarrassing to have some woman to saying that, yeah, there's, there is no man in this tent <laugh> and he asks her for water and she's like, I'll do you one better. I'll give you milk. So she doesn't even give him water. She gives him milk. She calms him down. And, and he's exhausted from running away from this battle. So here you have this king again, just like you have Barrack on this other side, who's supposed to be strong in character. And yet he's, he's deferring to Deborah. Who's saying here, please hold my hand. You have this king, who's running away from battle rather than being this, this strong character and begging for this, this woman, this Gentile woman to, to save him, to cover him up. Speaker 1 00:28:10 And you can almost look at this again, this covering atonement, making atonement for him, cover me up, save me, redeem me, protect me. And so she comforts him. She gives him milk, just like a little baby, puts him to bed. And then she takes a tent steak and drives it through his temples and murders him in her tent that, that went to 10 fast. Yeah, that, that took a, that took a nasty turn pretty quick. Okay. So what's the deal. And then she goes out to Barrack and says, Hey, I've, I've delivered the king in your hands. And so Deborah, the prophet is her prophecy comes true. You're not going to win. You're not going to slay the king. He's going to be delivered by the hands of a woman. And, and so here you have the story of, of this guy who, um, debases himself to becomes to becomes little and small and nothing or whatever. Speaker 1 00:29:05 And you have this role reversal again. And, and I, and I like seeing this, this role reversal and this idea of, of this woman, particularly an outside woman, kind of stepping up and, and taking control of a situation and being elevated beyond her status. And, and we go back to the story of, of rehab again, this, this Gentile prostitute. So she's an outsider on two accounts. She's, she's not part of Israel and she's not living a wholesome life. She's definitely on the, on the other side of the spectrum. And yet she redeems her father's house. Notice it's not the father that saves his household. His household is saved by her. She saves her father's household. She's brought into Israel on the fringes. But then as Joshua says, she finds her place at the heart. And we know that the fringe is kind of these people that, that tend to be a little bit more rebellious or distance themselves a little bit more from the Lord from, from faithfulness. And she works her way, not towards the outside, but from the outside towards the center. And, and to give you some more context so that you don't think I'm reading too much into this, the story's gonna be played out again with Ruth when Ruth marries an Israelite, man, the idea Ruth is not an Israelite here. She's an outsider, she's a Gentile and her husband's name. They, they have two boys, brothers Malo and Chile, which means weekly and sickly. Oh Speaker 2 00:30:42 Yeah, that's right. I love those guys. Speaker 1 00:30:44 Yeah. They're not like what, what good Israelite mother is going to name her kids weekly and sickly. Speaker 2 00:30:51 I mean, Speaker 1 00:30:52 And they're weekly and sickly physically because they die at a young age from disease, but they're also weekly and sickly in character. And that rather than follow the, the teachings of their parents, the teachings of Israel, they're marrying Gentile women from the outside. But these outside women, Ruth is going to be the strong character in this because she doesn't take this opportunity to stay on the outside. And when her husband dies, but she tells her husband's mom, I want to be your people. I want to be in your house. And she finds next to kin in Israel to marry and establish herself again, like this rehab, someone who starts on the fringes, but works their way into the core. This, this is so much a message of Christ when he comes and, and they keep expecting that he's going to be saving the, the, the core group, the Jews strengthening the strong, and he says, I'm not coming to the healthy, it's these weak, these confirmed that need me, that I'm going to take and bring them in and make them strong. But not only that Speaker 2 00:32:01 Sickly, oh, go ahead. Weekly and sickly. I'm just saying that's, that's such a funny thing, but it is, doesn't make sense though, in context, that's who Christ came for. So Speaker 1 00:32:10 It, it is. And I, and I think Israel, they, they they're going, they, they regularly find themselves in a situation where they become weekly and sickly. And so God takes another branch from the outside and fuses it in. And you just think about parable of the tree, where you're cutting off branches and you're moving some out and bringing some in to try to revitalize, again, this sense, this idea that God is going to be reaching outside of Israel, grabbing the Gentiles and pulling them in. And the last story I want to tell with this context in mind is the story of Elijah, because it says in the new Testament and the time of famine, there were a lot of widows in Israel who were starving, but to none of them did Elijah appear. He went instead to the ti bite, a Gentile woman who was outside of Israel. Speaker 1 00:33:07 So why did God pass over all of Israel to pick this Gentile woman and think what, uh, a famine signifies, cuz God says you can't live on bread alone, but of every word that proceeded from his mouth, the word of God. So if there is a dearth of, of food, he's also talking about a dearth of the word of God, a famine from hearing the word of the Lord. There is no word of the Lord. And so in a time of famine of the word of Lord, or in other words, apostasy, Elijah, doesn't go to all the women in Israel who are starving and suffering from apostasy. Instead he goes to the ti bite to the Gentile woman, this outsider, and he gives her the promise that the food will never fail from her again and why this is so significant every year on Passover, observant Jews set up empty place at the table for Elijah to come back and visit them and think of a dearth, a famine in Israel today, apostacy, since they've, they've lost their temple, they've lost their rulers. Speaker 1 00:34:23 They don't have what they're looking for. And they're expecting any day now on Passover Elijah to come back and share a meal with them and, and restore this, this meal, this food. And until none of those did he appear, but to an outsider when the Curtland temple was dedicated, it was Passover. And Elijah showed up in the Lord's house to a Gentile woman. If you will, and gave her food, the restored gospel that would never again be taken from the earth, a meal that would never perish, not to all the widows who were starving, but to this one on the outside and took this outsider and brought it into the house of Israel. It's a common theme. Rahab's not just one off Deborah. And the story of this, uh, Jel, this gen Gentile woman who delivered the king into the hands of Israel are not these one offs. These are recurrent themes that we're going to see repeated over and over and over again throughout the Bible so much. So what happens when Christ resurrects goes out to his apostles who were doing what fishing? Speaker 2 00:35:41 They went back to what they knew, Speaker 1 00:35:42 Man, back to what they knew, but what what's fishing symbolic of Speaker 2 00:35:46 Missionary Speaker 1 00:35:47 Work, missionary work. And are they catching anything? Speaker 2 00:35:51 Wait, they're not this time. Are they? Speaker 1 00:35:53 No, they're not catching anything. So what does he tell ' to do? Speaker 2 00:35:55 Oh yeah. Toss the nets on the other side, Speaker 1 00:35:57 Toss the nets on the other side. So think who are the apostles proselytizing and teaching to at this time the Jews. Speaker 2 00:36:07 Yep. Speaker 1 00:36:08 And, and they're not catching anything they're being rejected. So he says, cast the nets. On the other side, don't go to the house of Israel anymore. Time to go to the outsiders, time to take the gospel to the Gentiles. And when the gospel goes to the Gentiles, what happens is you catch so many fish that the nets start to break. The structure of the church itself cannot be contained because of all of these converts, bringing in their ideas and their theories and their thoughts to where it breaks the church with Christianity, flooding the world. Think of these nets bursting with fish because they've cast their nets. Now on the other side, this idea, it was prophesied throughout the entire old Testament. That there's gonna be a time when Israel will turn away from the Lord where it's gonna be going to a whore, a prostitute. Speaker 1 00:37:00 If you will, as you think of this relationship between the husband, it's going to turn aside. And when that happens, the Lord's gonna raise up seed to Abraham from the outside, and he's going to bring them into the center. And from there, you're going to have this core that will, will, will take and bring the house of Israel back together again. So as we look and understand the old Testament for what it is in all of these biblical stories, we should expect an apostas a dearth of the word of God. And we should expect that the, the Lord is going to bring the truth, the word through Elijah, back to an outsider and bring them back in to be able to, as it says, the Gentiles will carry Israel on their shoulders as nursing fathers and nursing mothers and bring them back as it, as it's played out throughout the old Testament. Speaker 2 00:37:53 Dope. Speaker 1 00:37:54 All right. Sorry. That's a lot of Speaker 2 00:37:56 That was great stuff, but when are we gonna talk about Sampson? I Speaker 1 00:37:59 I know. And we're, we're, we're running, we're running a lot of time so far. We still have to talk about Gideon. Speaker 2 00:38:04 Okay. Speaker 1 00:38:05 Can we, can we talk about Gideon thought? We Speaker 2 00:38:06 Already talked about Gideon. So just mentioned Speaker 1 00:38:10 Gideon and the fleece. Speaker 2 00:38:11 All right. We don't talk about Samson. I'm not gonna be very happy. Speaker 1 00:38:15 We can talk about Samson. We can, we can, we can finale up on Sampson. Would that be Speaker 2 00:38:20 Good? All right. Samson's gonna be the grand finale. Speaker 1 00:38:22 Sampson night. Okay. Amps tonight. Okay. Gideon. What's his, and there's, there's so many stories in here, Nate. I'm sorry. Sorry. Something's gotta suffer somewhere, Speaker 2 00:38:33 But it won't be Speaker 1 00:38:34 Sampson, but it won't Sampson. Okay. Gideon. Okay. Gideon. So another, another judge is raised up to save the people. And in, in this case, Gideon is told by the Lord to destroy his father's altar to Baal. And he's a little worried about doing it, cuz he thinks all the men in the city are, are going to go after him with, with good cause. So he sneaks in at night with 10 of his servants to carry this out. And in the morning when the men in the city go to worship and they find out that their altars been destroyed, they say, who could have done this? Like it must have been Gideon. So they go to Gideon's dad and they say, Hey look, deliver your son so that we can slam for what he did. And the dad actually sticks up for Gideon. So very different from the story of Abraham. Speaker 1 00:39:27 He says, look, if, if he offended a God, then let God stand up for himself. Yep. Let God deliver his justice. And, and, and so getting not being the most popular of characters at this point is called by an angel of the Lord to deliver the people who have been very wicked. And he's not sure this is an angel of the Lord. So he, he says, I, I want to prove that you're an angel of the Lord. Kitty's almost kind of like a Thomas character in the new Testament where he keeps asking for a sign or some sort of proof. And so he says, I need something. And the angel says, okay, um, Gideon says I'll be right back. And, and it is kind of cool because Gideon is the one who is presenting the gifts or asking for things to be he's he's doing a lot of the thinking on his own. Speaker 1 00:40:21 He's not saying here, God, I want you to show me. And I'm just gonna sit back and wait. He says, here, let me, let me give you a gift. So just hang tight long enough for me to bring you a sacrifice. He goes, he brings the animal, he sacrifices it. And the angel says, look, put those pieces of meat on the rock. And he puts it on the rock and fire comes up outta the rock and consumes the meat. And he says there, now you happy. I I'm a messenger from the Lord. And so he is, he's happy. He, he understands that the, the, the, the Lord is going to help them. And then he's asked to deliver Israel and he designs an experiment to make sure that the Lord is going to deliver them when he goes to war and leads these people. And, uh, you, you remember Nate? Speaker 1 00:41:04 This seems about our time, those old sham. Wow. Commercials. Oh yeah, baby. The shamies. Those are the most awkward commercials ever. I would agree the, the thing about Shammy it's if I, if I'm, if I'm mistaken, correct me, but are they not made out of fleece? Oh, I don't know. I think they're made out of fleece. Fleece has a, a, a characteristic of property in which it's very absorbent and it holds water very well. And, and he lays out fleece and he says, look, it would be miraculous. If the fleece were to become wet when all the ground is dry, because where is it absorbing its water from? So he says here, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna lay out this fleece. And if you are going to deliver Israel from, from the, the enemy here through my hands, I want the fleece to be soaking wet and the ground to be all dry around it. Speaker 1 00:41:56 So he goes to bed, gets up the next morning and sure enough, the fleece is soaking wet and the ground is dry. And he rings this out into a bowl. And he's the bowl full of water. He's, he's a little sham. Wow. And he's like, well, okay, wait a second. I'm an idiot. If, if I took this fleece, which is super absorbent, how do I know that it just didn't absorb all the do around it totally. And, and left the ground dry. Like maybe the ground was already, it wasn't already dry. It's just dry because of the nature of the fleece. So what I like about this story is it demonstrates so well, the scientific method, this idea of finding what else could be underlying things. Maybe we read too much into, to, to inspiration or, or, or crediting God with, like, for example, Nate, if a guy and a girl decide that they want to go to the temple to see if they should get married and they go to the temple and they're like, wow, I feel really good. Speaker 1 00:42:54 Maybe that's a sign. And they decide to get married off this sign that they felt really good in the temple is the way they felt in the temple inspiration telling them that they should get married or do they just feel really good because they're in the temple doing good things. Yeah. So I, I, I kinda look at that as an example of Gideon and his fleece, like maybe we're, we're putting too much into it or correlating things that, that we, we should probably take an extra step to make sure we're not reading too much into something we shouldn't. So he says, Hey, don't, don't lose your patience with me. God, I'm gonna put this Shammy out here, again, this fleece and this time, if it's truly you, the ground will be wet, but the fleece will be bone dry. And the next morning he wakes up and sure enough, the fleece is dry. The ground is wet. So he knows the Lord is going to deliver him kind of some big signs for, for somebody. And, and, and I know this kind of comes into, are we okay asking God for signs? And, and how is this different in what Gideon's doing here versus asking people or, or people asking God for signs today or any other time? Like, if, if your God's really, God prove it to me, show me a sign. Do you, do you, do you have any, Speaker 2 00:44:16 This feels a little different than that. To me, this is feels more similar to, you know, the brother of Jared going to the Lord and saying, oh yeah, I already believe in you that, that, that's not the question here. I don't need, I don't need proof for my faith. I'm simply asking, will you gimme a sign so that I know what you want me to do? I just feel like that that's a pretty different thing than, Hey, I'll believe in you. If you give me like an actual, like visitation from an angel, then, then for sure. I'll believe in you. It's like, eh, Gideon Gideon was already like, yeah, I'm in, I'm on the team. Um, I just need to make sure that I'm, I'm understanding what you want me to do better. Speaker 1 00:44:59 Thank you. That's, that's exactly what I was thinking on this. It's not, if you show me, I will believe he already believed. And, and what he's gonna be doing is leading a group of people into battle. And maybe because he believes, because he even, he even talks about God delivered our, our fathers before I, he, he's very familiar with the miracles that have happened. He's very, uh, for lack of better word, I don't know, full of faith. He understands God. And he understands the history and the context of where they've gotten to at this point. And he probably has very fresh on his mind. The story of I, when a guy took some, some, some silver, some booty from, from the looting that was abominable and it led up to his army being wiped out and destroyed here. He is with a bunch of B all worshipers and saying, Hey, I believe in God. Speaker 1 00:45:59 And if you're asking me to do this, I'm going to battle with a bunch of all worshipers. Are we gonna get wiped out? Totally. I I'm okay with where I sit, but what about everybody that I'm leading into battle? I don't wanna repeat of that nonsense. That happened then I don't know about the hearts of everybody I'm leading. So yeah, he's, he takes this there and, and this is where the story gets pretty cool because he, he goes with his huge army and, and, and somehow he's, he's been able to, to convince or gain the support of, of Israel, because now they're willing to go to battle with him. And the Lord says, you have too many soldiers. Speaker 2 00:46:41 That's a great story. Speaker 1 00:46:43 I I'm gonna deliver Israel, but I'm not gonna do it just out of manpower alone. Anyone who's afraid tell 'em to turn around and go home right now. And so the army gets even smaller and he says, Hey, you're still too big. Right? And it gets down to where the, the difference is how you're drinking water. Anyone that goes to the stream, lays down on their belly and sticks their head into the water and drinks it right outta the stream. As opposed to people who are kneeling up and taking the water in their hands and bringing it up to their mouth and drinking it outta their hands. That's gonna be the separating thing. What's the difference there? Why, why is one different than another? Speaker 1 00:47:27 Is there, is there anything to be learned in that? Is that reading too much into it? Tell 'em, I'm wondering, I'm wondering if it's not here, you are preparing to go to battle your soldiers, right? Think of the position you put yourself in. Obviously if you're sticking your head in the water, there's an advantage that you can drink a lot of water a lot quicker, right? You can get your fill of water. The other one requires a lot more patience. You get a handful of water. You can take a few little sips, lapping it up with your tongue, but you have to keep pulling it up to your water requires more work. So you've, you've got kind of a shortcut easy way versus something that, that takes a little bit longer, but also the key differences between these, if you're kneeling up, you're on the ready, you haven't taken your eyes off of your surroundings. Speaker 1 00:48:15 You're bringing the water up to you and you can still, you can still see what's going on and getting up into a fighting position. When you're already kneeling up, as you're bringing the water to you, you can react. You. You're not disarming yourself as opposed to if you're laying down and you've got your head in the water, what can you see at that point? You've given up any kind of advantage you have. You're not looking out, you're not concerned about what's happening around you. You're not concerned about your safety. You're not concerned about your future. You're most concerned about what's in front of you right now, the water. And I think so many times we lose sight of what's important. We lose sight of what we should be doing. And the dangers around us in the world, we stop focusing on studying our scriptures. We stop focusing on praying. Speaker 1 00:49:01 We stop focused on being prepared and, and willing to do things maybe in a harder way, by bringing the water up to our mouth for the moment of trying to get quench our, our immediate lusts and stick our head in the water and do the shortcut. I, I, I think there's some value in that. Okay? So the Lord says anyone who lays down and sticks their head in the water, send home, and you get to the point where there's only 300 men left and the Lord's going to deliver Israel through these 300 men. And very much like the, the story of Jericho, they're gonna have to blow horns and trumpets. And it's again, gonna be the, the breath or the spirit, the, the moving it's gonna be God fighting the battle for them, not them. And, and to make an incredibly long story, slightly shorter than what I've already made it. Speaker 1 00:49:51 Um, God delivers Israel, right? These, these 300 people, they, they show up and they're surrounding, and they're blowing the horn from the different angles and make it seem like they're all surrounded. And what happens is the people themselves start this own fight within themselves and start to slay themselves to where they don't even have to fight the army that the Lord had prepared. And, and God delivers them from this day. And it's really cool. Everybody loves Gideon so much. So they want to make him their king right then and there, and Gideon refuses the, the title. And, and he kinda looks like George Washington, this, this figure that says, you know, I'm not going to rule over you. I I'm gonna turn this down. God is our king. He's the only king we should have, but it is kind of funny cuz his son's name is a Melik and a Melik is Hebrew for my dad is king mm-hmm <affirmative>. Speaker 1 00:50:42 So whether it's referring to heavenly father is that my father is king or his dad is just kind of interesting there, unfortunately for a lot of these characters in the old Testament, when, when they do get some pride and some power, I mean, poor Gideon, as great as he was and as cool of a hero as he is, he, he creates a golden E FOD from all the earrings that he captures from all of the people that they've overcome. And it turns into a thing that Israel starts to worship and, and he, that says that he starts to go the way of idolatry and, and him and his house are negatively impacted from the decisions that he makes at the end of his life. It's kind of a sad story. That's that's Gideon. Do you want Umer do you want, do you wanna talk Sampson? Speaker 2 00:51:29 I mean, I I've only been waiting for 54 minutes, but sure. All Speaker 1 00:51:33 Right. All right. For 54 minutes, ive I've opened my mouth and I have just gone and gone and gone. Nate, I am going to sit back. Speaker 2 00:51:41 Oh no, you're not Def you're definitely not sitting back Speaker 1 00:51:44 Sampson. Speaker 2 00:51:45 I love Sampson. Speaker 1 00:51:46 What do you love? What do you love so much about Sampson? Speaker 2 00:51:48 I love, can I tell you what I love about Sampson? Please Speaker 1 00:51:51 Do. Speaker 2 00:51:52 I mean, he's just your lovable idiot, right? <laugh> like, he's just truly the dumbest person that somehow was able to, I mean, in his own brutish way, make amends. And we've talked about Sampson before, because Sampson is a, is an interesting case for me because I go, he basically is just this wild child. He's going around just doing things because of his own ego and short temper and this, this whole thing where he's basically, um, you know, putting himself in so many compromised situations to where he finally, he finally gets got and gets all the comeuppance that he's owed, but still God is gonna honor his commitment to him. And at the very end is just, and by the way, too, how funny is that too? That it's like, Samson's like, look, God, my hair's grown back out long enough that I feel like we can at least call this good. <laugh> I pretty much just want to kill everybody in here. <laugh> including myself. Can you help me out with this one? And God's like, sure, here you go. It's just a wild story. And, and it's fun. I'm I've always tried to figure out like, what am I supposed to draw from this? What am I supposed to draw from our, our, our, our lovable idiot. Speaker 1 00:53:28 And, and he's, I mean, he's, he's taken an oath. He's, he's kind of given himself to the Lord and, and the idea that he's not going to shave his head. Speaker 2 00:53:38 And I know, but shouldn't there be anything else that comes along with that commitment to the Lord? Or is it just his grooming? You know what I mean? Speaker 1 00:53:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and he's, he's somebody that gives himself over to passion way too much Speaker 2 00:53:53 In like everything Speaker 1 00:53:54 Before you even get to the story of Delilah, you see how his temper gets the best of him. You see how he's he, his arrogance or pride is something that he's always having to, to battle. Speaker 2 00:54:07 So he goes to get, did he, did he even end up, this is before Delilah, did he end up marrying? Did he end up marrying this lady from, from the other camp or whatever? Or were they just engaged the, Speaker 1 00:54:19 The Philistine, right. And it's at his wedding. He has like a, a riddle where Speaker 2 00:54:23 He's Ari. Speaker 1 00:54:23 He's trying to trick them into Speaker 2 00:54:25 Which, by the way, it's a stupid riddle. Like, I'm just gonna throw this out there. It's it's he goes, he goes, well, what did I eat on the way here? You know, you're like what? That's not a riddle. Speaker 1 00:54:37 And, and he's betrayed Speaker 2 00:54:39 That. I'm just saying though, that's the worst riddle ever too though. Cuz there's no way of like solving it. Like yeah. It's cheap. Like honestly laughy, taffy rappers have better riddles than them of like, you know, what did the dogs say when he was hungry for lunch? Right? Like that's at least you can, you can go, oh, okay, cool. There's a bad pun in here. His riddle was like, well what's in the belly of this lion. You know, you're like that. Doesn't that's not a riddle. That's just, that's just a, that's just a very hyper specific question. And, and yes, by the way, he gets betrayed, throws a temper tantrum and burns it all down. You're just like, bro, you gotta chill, man. Like how is there any other commitment you have to God, other than <laugh> you're grooming like, Hey, I'm not just gonna go and kill everybody all the time. Speaker 1 00:55:31 And, and, and it's almost like he gets a pass because this is the Lord's enemies anyways. Right. They, they were supposed to be destroyed, wiped off the face of the earth. Speaker 2 00:55:39 So then why is he over there marrying Speaker 1 00:55:41 Him? So you get, you, you get a pass and yeah, he's, he's playing both sides of the deal. Because again, you have this, this outsider that, that he's turning away to, he's turning, he's selling himself. He's cheating on the Lord in a sense, and going to an outsider rather than the Lord and, and, and selling his soul for not. Speaker 2 00:56:02 So he throws a temper tantrum takes off the father of this woman is like, okay, well I guess you gotta still be married to somewhere. So then he comes back and is like, what, how dare you marry her off to somebody else? What bro, you left <laugh> and through a temper tantrum Speaker 1 00:56:23 And burned and burned all the, Speaker 2 00:56:25 And burned everything to the ground. Then he gets mad and starts killing everybody again. You're just like bro. Speaker 1 00:56:33 And, and there he, he Speaker 2 00:56:34 Was, he, he wasn't very smart, right? Like we can, we can safely conclude that he wasn't very smart. Speaker 1 00:56:41 The story does not put him in great light and yet he's a hero. Speaker 2 00:56:45 That's what I mean. Speaker 1 00:56:48 And, and, and one little interesting thing that, that I, that I do pull out of this Speaker 2 00:56:53 Please Speaker 1 00:56:54 Is, is when he slays everybody with the job bone of an answer, Speaker 2 00:56:57 I know it's just great. Speaker 1 00:56:58 And, and the Hebrew word for JobOne for what it's worth is Lehigh. Speaker 2 00:57:04 Oh, interesting. Speaker 1 00:57:05 And, and I find that very interesting because you know, when you say someone's Jing you a lot or, or, or you call somebody a JobOne, it means that they have a, a gift for talking. And so when you look at Lehigh going, going to the book of Mormon, when his son's kind of rebel and his FA their, their father spoke to them in the valley of layman with such great power and authority that they, they could only obey him, like he had a gift for speaking. And, and that was something like, you look at Malo and chillion who were named for weekly and sickly. And then you look at Lehigh, what's a characteristic. If you're gonna name him anything. And his name is Jawbone. I I'm sorry. I know it's a little bit of a tangent that are you Speaker 2 00:57:45 Away, are you to suggest that this knucklehead went and talked to them to death? Speaker 1 00:57:50 No, I'm not, but it is interesting that he slays them with the Jawbone and the idea that the pen is mightier than the sword. And, and, and to kind of take that point, Speaker 2 00:57:58 Home, passive aggressive letters, Speaker 1 00:58:00 He, he almost takes that the wrong way, right? If the pen is mightier than the sword, then he takes the pen and kills everyone with Speaker 2 00:58:04 Stabs, its everybody Speaker 1 00:58:05 With it, right. Speaker 2 00:58:06 This dude. But there, this dude, there Speaker 1 00:58:09 Is, there is some symbolism of slaying them with a Jawbone and this, this idea of being able to, to talk and, and pacify or win a war with words. Speaker 2 00:58:19 Yeah, this is not Sampson Speaker 1 00:58:20 And, and Sampson takes that and, and, and totally misreads it and literally slays them with a Speaker 2 00:58:27 Job bone, which again, I would love to witness this, like, you know, I have this, I have this like, uh, there's this dream of mine, that in the next life you can go back and you know, actually like watch various things through history. You know what I mean? Some like interesting stuff. They're like, I don't wonder what that look like. Samson taken out like a whole group of people with, with the a jaw bone. I'm like, I do kind of wanna see what that looked like. In fact, I wanna watch it with Sampson. I wanna be like Sampson brother. I, I mean, I hope he made it so that I can just put my arm around me. Just be like, you love a idiot. Like let's watch this together and just see what on earth is happening. <laugh> so they catch him. No. So, so then he, so then he gets with the Lila and this whole thing just doesn't make any sense to me other than he's just not very smart. And that is, what's the source of your power. Well, it's this and they try to do that. And then he just laughs it off. He's like, no. And then she gets mad. She's like, why are you lying to me? The question should have been, why are you trying to get me killed? Speaker 1 00:59:35 He, yeah. He's Speaker 2 00:59:36 But instead it's like, okay, but now tell me for real, he's like, okay, this is, this is it for real. And then they try that again. And she's like, why are you lying to me? And he is like, uh, I don't know, instead of, uh, excuse me, why are you trying to get me killed Speaker 1 00:59:53 His naivety? I mean they, to your point kind of a lovable idiot. Speaker 2 01:00:00 Yes. Speaker 1 01:00:01 Who's blinded by his own passions, LUS desires, Speaker 2 01:00:05 What he's doing and then ends up getting blinded by actual people. <laugh> just say like, yes he's, he's, he's initially he's initially mentally blinded and then he is physically blinded, beaten up. This whole thing is great. But here's my question. How long did his hair have to grow back out before he was able to be like, okay, God, um, um, can we, can we go and get that deal between us going again? Like, like, was there a certain length Speaker 1 01:00:38 And was it really the length of his hair or was it the length of time? It took him to really humble himself from what he's been through. Speaker 2 01:00:46 There you go. There's the lesson to learn Speaker 1 01:00:48 Because he kept, he kept giving into his passions and he kept being willing to sell himself for the self, for that immediate gratification. And every time he did and he would get hot or whatever, it got to the point where he was blinded by his passions, to where he was physically blinded because of what he did. And, and because he was physically giving up into, to all of this, he ended up selling his own freedom and, and changing himself. That that is the path. That is what happens when you go down that road, the consequence is Speaker 2 01:01:28 Slavery. It's agency. It's your it's you're giving up your agency. Speaker 1 01:01:32 And the only way to break yourself from that, just, I mean, going back to, to something that we keep harping over and over and over again, this idea, if you want to be like, God, I don't know something about Samson speaks to us, this idea of power. You know, we, we like this guy that can just slay 50 people with the Jawbone. And we look at the hero and, and this idea of God is this guy. He's God, because he's powerful. He can smite anyone. He doesn't have to put up with garbage from anyone. He can just raise his finger and someone's dead. That's the idea of power, right? Well, he keeps thinking, that's the way to become like, God, in fact, Sampson is a Hebrew word for one like the son who who's like and shish the son. If you think of the son as an image of God, someone who is like, God, but not like God like Michael, Michael is who is like, God, but Sampson is who is like the son, this brilliant, what you see, that's this flash, this brilliance. Speaker 1 01:02:32 I am like, what I think God is what I see and perceive God to be this brilliant light that I can't even stand looking at. Cuz it burns my eyes. I am going to, to strike my enemies down. I am going to be bold. I am going to be strong. I'm gonna be all these characteristics that we associate with God in this very proudful arrogant. This is what it means to be God. And in the end he learns no it's controlling those passions. It's controlling that temper it's controlling and being humble. That's what it means to be like, God. Speaker 2 01:03:06 And then the final, little, just little mini symbolism in there too though, is that it was good at the end in all of that, that he was willing to, you know, for us, we do it symbolically, but he was able to basically bury his old broken, um, unrighteous self with God's help. Speaker 1 01:03:27 He found his life by giving his life Speaker 2 01:03:30 That's right. And he, he, he buried, he buried the old Samson and hopefully, uh, hopefully, you know, like Darth Vader found a redemption on the other side. Speaker 1 01:03:43 Well, I know time wise, we've probably just about spent everything we have. Speaker 2 01:03:48 Oh we're way past Speaker 1 01:03:49 There, there are still so many great stories in the book of judges guys, if you want to go in and dive in and read some of it, if you want our take on some of these stories, let's continue this conversation. Please feel free to reach out to us. Hi, at weekly deep dive.com or post on the website or, Speaker 2 01:04:05 Or just hit us up. Speaker 1 01:04:06 Yeah. Just however you wanna reach out to us, reach out to us. I mean judges, it's it's 300 years of history and, and all of these crazy stories of how they're redeemed over and over again. So I'm, I'm just gonna leave it with this if you want to continue the discussion. So do we, we just only have so much time in the podcast, please reach out to us and we would love to keep that, that discussion going. Okay. Speaker 2 01:04:33 Awesome. Um, anything else we need to talk about this week? Speaker 1 01:04:36 No, I, I think, I think we've covered about as much as we can in, in the time that we have to Speaker 2 01:04:41 Do it next.