Judges (Re-run)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. 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 into insight and unique I am your host here in the studio. 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 show's producer, the great one and only Nate Pyfer What's up, Nate? You're looking good tonight wearing your hoodie. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Got the hoodie. Taking shots at the media. I've got my beard. I'm ready to roll. [00:00:53] Speaker A: I'm ready to rock roll. So question for you, Nate. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:00] Speaker A: How's Eastward coming along? [00:01:01] Speaker B: Really good. Always appreciate any new listeners to that project Eastward. It's a religious toned record, but not like EFY at all actually. But it's a lot of 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 EFY kind of Mormon sounding music, but I don't know. Just released a track a couple weeks ago. It's doing well. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Well, congratulations. We'll have to give it all a listen. [00:01:47] Speaker B: It's the music that you hear coming in and out of this podcast. Yeah. [00:01:51] Speaker A: And where should I listen to? [00:01:54] Speaker B: Spotify, Apple? Anywhere you stream music. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Give it a listen. See what Nate's been working up to so hard. [00:02:00] Speaker B: Thanks, Jason. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:02] Speaker B: What are we talking about today, Jason? [00:02:04] Speaker A: This week, I tell you, I don't know how much longer I can do this. It seems like the last couple of weeks. And it seems like it because it is. We keep getting these massive sections of reading and today's lesson is going to 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 will do my best. I am trying my best to keep up with this content, but if it feels like we are drowning and going through a lot, we are. Just for comparison, we have already gone through more pages of scripture up to this point this year than all of Doctrine and Covenants last year combined. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Wow. [00:02:52] Speaker A: 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 taking it from when Moses and Joshua hand off Israel to their place 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 don't want the Lord as our king anymore. We need our own king. We can't handle ourselves. We tried. We couldn't. We need some more discipline. And then we're going to get into Solomon and David and Saul and kind of work our way through the kings for the rest of the Old Testament. But this bit of history is something we're probably very intimately familiar with over the 300 years. We've got these 12 different kings that are kings. I'm sorry, these 12 different judges that are going to rise up throughout here. And this is very akin to the pride cycle for those of us reading the Book of Mormon. And we get that sense of the nation is righteous. God blesses them, delivers them in warfare. They become wicked, and their enemy kind of persists and destroys them. And they humble themselves 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've got Deborah and Barak, we're going to talk about. You've got Ehud, you've got Samson. [00:04:34] Speaker B: You've got can't wait. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Gideon. Gideon. Gideon. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Where's our morning jacket? [00:04:43] Speaker A: I'll throw it in here. Gideon. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Little marker right here. Gideon, thank you. My morning jacket, for such a great little jam. [00:04:52] Speaker A: So I'm. I'm going to do my best to try to pull in some good insight and unique perspective, as we call it, 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, really happened. And, you know, we'll just try to have some fun with the Book of Judges. So thanks for listening and try to make. [00:05:12] Speaker B: And try to add actual life lessons that you learn from these stories as well, too. Right. Something that we can kind of get out. 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. [00:05:29] Speaker A: 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 drave out the inhabitants of the mountain. And if you think drave sounds weird. [00:05:44] Speaker B: It does. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Yeah. But I got. I'm not wrong this time because I'm quoting it straight out of the book here. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Drave 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 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? If you come to God with chariots and horses, like, are his hands tied? He can no longer be a God. And like, hey, peace, you guys. You've got to do this on your own because I can't be there with you. [00:06:34] Speaker B: I mean, what is the deal with this story? [00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so this, I think, highlights who's writing the Old Testament. This is the book, the scroll of Judah. Judah's the one that we get this account from. And you're going to look at it here, and Judah's going to sit here and list all of the other tribes and where they fell short on 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. So I think you get a little bit of flavoring here. [00:07:11] Speaker B: That's funny. [00:07:12] Speaker A: And I think it's important when we read this, when it says, the Lord was with Judah and he drave 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, 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 drave out the inhabitants. But it's not. It's Judah that drave them out because the Lord was with him but could not. 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 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, in the stage of history, chariots had just become like the new great weapon. And who was able to wield them and have them obviously had a great advantage. In the valleys and in the plains, chariots don't stew so well, or at least back then, climbing mountains and hills and going over rocks. So Israel had the guerrilla warfare in the mountains going really well for them. And some of these areas that were in the valley below Israel looked at and kind of wussed out on. Okay, 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, lest the land becomes uninhabited and overrun with beasts, 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 Judges, they're going to list all of the different tribes where not that they could not, but they absolutely refused to. They would not. So verse 31. Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of echo, verse 30. Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, and 29. Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer. So this idea that not only it's not that they couldn't in these instances, it's that Israel absolutely refused to this is where the Lord steps in, Chapter two, verse one. And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you into the land which I swear unto your fathers. 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, which why have you done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as a thorn in your side, and their God shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto 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 did possess the power to drive a lot of these people out. They had the strength. The Lord was with them. They had the number, 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 them into vassal 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 kinship. And so they start intermarrying and start worshiping their gods and start to defile themselves through these relationships that when they had the advantage, they were soft in not chasing them out, but also they sought for money 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 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. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Sweet. [00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:11] Speaker B: Let's get to Samson. [00:12:12] Speaker A: Samson. [00:12:13] Speaker B: I mean, unless you got something else about this, this is cool and all, but we need to get to Samson. [00:12:17] Speaker A: The only thing I would add, it seems like in the Bible and all of these things maybe just frame this context like this. Nephi saw in a vision that Laman and Lemuel and their seed were going to be fighting against his seed and ultimately 400, 500, 600 years later, be the cause of the destruction of his people. That Laman, Lemuel's 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. There's something about having opposition in all things and having these people counterbalance them out. And as the angel says, you know, you've done this, and because you've done this, this is going to be a thorn in your side that's going to serve to humble you and counterbalance your existence. And that's what the Book of Judges is all about. Okay. [00:13:14] Speaker B: All right. [00:13:14] Speaker A: That's all I'll say on that. [00:13:15] Speaker B: All right. But what about Samson? [00:13:17] Speaker A: Samsonite? [00:13:18] Speaker B: Are we not going to Samson yet? [00:13:22] Speaker A: 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 baal. And I feel like it's worth talking about BAAL for a second. Is that all right with you, Nate? [00:13:37] Speaker B: Let's do it. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Who is BAAL in the Canaanite religion? They have. They have different gods. You have Mot, who's the God of death, baal, 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 compare it to Greek mythology. Yam is like Poseidon, BAAL is like Zeus, and Mot is like Hades. And you can see this kind of play out in a lot of different mythologies, even Norse mythology, kind of this idea of Thor, this God of thunder, baal. Jehovah is associated very closely with baal. He is called the 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 thunder, with Baal and Canaanite mythology. Like Exodus 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 mean, it's all throughout the whole thing, all the way down into New Testament. The Sons of Thunder. Boanerges, right? [00:14:52] Speaker B: Was it James and John? [00:14:54] Speaker A: That's correct. [00:14:54] Speaker B: The Sons of Thunder, baby, that's it. I should have called instead of eastward. I should have just called that band the Sons of Thunder. [00:15:01] Speaker A: Sons of Thunder. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Okay, let's keep going. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Book of Revelation, even into the end of the New Testament, you still have God speaking with the voice of thunder and the voice of lightnings and the voice of thunders. You see it in Doctrine and Covenants when they're talking about thunderings speaking for the Lord. So there is this close association with him. BAAL becomes the king. BAAL actually gets slain and has to rise back up from the dead. [00:15:29] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:15:30] Speaker A: And defeats Mot. Death. And he defeats Yam, and he becomes the king of the gods. [00:15:36] Speaker B: Wow. [00:15:37] Speaker A: So they're very similar arcs 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. [00:16:01] Speaker B: Okay. [00:16:03] Speaker A: And the people worship baal. BAAL is a Semitic word that means Lord. And it's very interesting when the Lord says, later on in the Old Testament, he says, thou shalt no more call me Baali. 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 my morning Jacket. [00:16:44] Speaker B: That's what Gideon, the song. Is that what you're talking about? [00:16:47] Speaker A: No. Rabbi Sacks. [00:16:49] Speaker B: Jonathan Saxon. I love Rabbi Sacks. [00:16:52] Speaker A: He had such a wonderful insight on this. For so many years, Israel keeps, for whatever reason, finding it very easy to worship baal. We're going to see it when they build the altars to baal. We'll see it with Gideon. We're going to see it with Elijah. Remember when he has the competition with the priests of BAAL and he floods it with water and the fire comes and consumes it, and then he slays the priests of baal. So BAAL is going to 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 Baali, my Lord, but you shall call me Ishi, my husband. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Is that just because he just didn't want it? The Lord didn't want to be confused, confusing at all. [00:17:43] Speaker A: 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 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, an overseer. As this power, like, 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. Don't call me your overseer. It's not. This is supposed to be an intimate partnership between you and me. Stop cheating on me for this. And think about this also, Nate, in terms of the choice in the Garden of Eden, this idea that how do you become God? On one side, you have a choice to become power, to seize power, to take the shortcut to become mighty 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 that being the path to. And kind of looking at that dichotomy between Baali versus Ishi and BAAL versus Jehovah. [00:19:44] Speaker B: Okay, I love that. [00:19:46] Speaker A: So just. [00:19:47] Speaker B: I'm really glad we talked about that. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Just. Just a little sidetrack. 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 think that's all I needed to say on that. [00:20:04] Speaker B: What about Samson? [00:20:05] Speaker A: Samsonite? All right, we're getting there. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. You know, you get to that section in the Book of Mormon and you have some whole chapters dedicated to somebody talking all about their life and their story and what happens. And then you get to Omni, where one chapter, all of a sudden you're talking about five people within one verse. That's the judges. Some of these judges get more page space than others. So some of these we're not going to really talk about much, especially where we have so much to talk to, to talk about. And so I'm going to skip over, over a little bit of this. Let's just mention quickly the story of Ehud. He's left handed. And Israel starts worshiping. BAAL starts to become more like their neighbors. And so the Lord stops protecting them and they become conquered. And when they're conquered, the king Eglon is ruling over them. And the Lord raises up Ehud to deliver them. And Ehud comes to Eglon and says, I have a gift for you. And I think it's significant that they're saying he's left handed 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 they talk about the dagger. It's fairly long. He comes in, he tells the king, I have a secret message for you. So the king dismisses all of his servants and I think it's kind of fascinating. They have a key to the building, the chamber in which the king is in. So they have a key and he locks it from the inside. And he asks him what this message is that he has. And Ehud pulls out a dagger and thrusts 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 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? No, dirt. The Hebrew word dirt. It's just a kind way of translating it. Really, really. It's, it's excrement that's coming out. [00:22:35] Speaker B: It's gruesome. [00:22:36] Speaker A: It's terrible. And he. And 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 keep waiting this game until it becomes too late. They break in the doors and they find their king is dead. Meanwhile, Ehuds escaped, prepared Israel and their armies, and ends up delivering Israel that day. And they're happy and they rejoice, and they live 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. They use judge. The book is called the Book of Judges. The Hebrew word for judge, though. And you notice that when it says the Lord raises up someone to judge Israel, they're 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. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Okay, well, that was a gruesome story. [00:24:08] Speaker A: 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 disappearing. [00:24:15] Speaker B: Is there anything that we can learn from this? [00:24:19] Speaker A: I told you, there's a lot of weird stories. [00:24:21] Speaker B: All right, let's keep going. [00:24:23] Speaker A: There's. There's a lot of weird stories and judges. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Let's keep going. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Deborah. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Deborah it is. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Deborah's a prophetess. She judges Israel, and she asks Barak to kind of take charge and lead the armies and do this. I love the story of Deborah because as a professor of mine pointed out, the Bible appears to be a manly book written by manly men doing manly things. And women don't really get a good fair shake in the Bible. They don't appear very often. A lot of times you don't hear much about them. But in this story, you're going to have Deborah playing a very strong leading role, and the men in this story are going to be particularly weak. So it's interesting, and I think this is intentional as it's showing this dynamic of a switch. We talked about this with Balaam and the talking donkey as they kind of had this role reversal. So Deborah is going to Barak and says, I need you to redeem Israel. And he's like, I'll only do it if you come with me. Can you come hold my hand? Like, 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 here is another case in point, because Israel is going to battle with a large army of chariots. The enemy king is riding 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 don't know, the Lord has obviously redeemed them from Egypt and the chariots. And in this case, he's going to redeem them, and they're going to win the war with these guys in their chariots as well. [00:26:15] Speaker B: It's not their first rodeo with horses, no chariots. [00:26:20] Speaker A: So the enemy king is Sisera. And this is the Canaanites that have been oppressing Israel from their wickedness. And as they have the advantage, Sisera jumps off his chariot and runs away. And he comes into a camp, and this is not an Israelite camp. This is again, an outsider. And he goes into the tent of a woman, Jael, who's there, and he asks for help. So here you have this strong king begging some woman for help 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 them that there's not a man in the tent. And even that's a little bit. What's the right word for this? Humiliating. I mean, somebody comes and 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 saying that, yeah, there is no man in this tent. 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 he's exhausted from running away from this battle. So here you have this king again, just like you have Barak on this other side, who's supposed to be strong in character, and yet 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 the strong character and begging for this woman, this Gentile woman, to save him, to cover him up. And you can almost look at this again, this covering atonement. Make an 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 stake and drives it through his temples and murders him in her tent. [00:28:32] Speaker B: That went to 10 fast. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that took a nasty turn pretty quick. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Okay, so what's the deal? [00:28:37] Speaker A: And then she goes out to Barak and says, hey, I've delivered the king in your hands. And so Deborah, the prophetess, 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 so here you have the story of this guy who debases himself to. Becomes little and small and nothing or whatever. And you have this role reversal again. And I like seeing this role reversal, this idea of this woman, particularly an outside woman, kind of stepping up and taking control of a situation and being elevated beyond her status. And we go back to the story of. Of Rahab again, this gentile prostitute. So she's an outsider on two accounts. She's not part of Israel, and she's not living a wholesome life. She's definitely 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 fringes, kind of these people that tend to be a little bit more rebellious or distance themselves a little bit more from the Lord, from faithfulness. And she works her way not towards the outside, but from the outside, towards the center. And to give you some more context so that you don't think I'm reading too much into this, the Story is going to 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 have two boys, brothers, Machalon and Chilion, which means weakly and sickly. [00:30:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's right. I love those guys. [00:30:44] Speaker A: Yeah. They're not like, what good Israelite mother is going to name her kids weakly and sickly? And they're weakly and sickly physically because they die at a young age from disease, but they're also weakly and sickly in character. And that rather than follow 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, but 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 of kin in Israel to marry and establish herself again, like this Rahab, someone who starts on the fringes but works their way into the core. This is so much a message of Christ. We. When he comes. And they keep expecting that he's going to be saving the core group, the Jews, strengthening the strong. And he says, I'm not coming to the healthy. It's these weak, these infirm that need me, that I'm going to take and bring them in and make them strong. But not only that, oh, go ahead. [00:32:03] Speaker B: Weakly and sickly. I'm just saying that's such a funny thing. But it makes sense, though, in context. That's who Christ came for. So it is. [00:32:11] Speaker A: And I think Israel, they regularly find themselves in a situation where they become weakly and sickly. And so God takes another branch from the outside and fuses it in. And you just think of that 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, in 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 Tishbite, a Gentile woman who was outside of Israel. So why did God pass over all of Israel to pick this Gentile woman, and think what a famine signifies. Because God says, you can't live on bread alone, but of every word that proceedeth from his mouth, the word of God. So if there is a dearth 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 the 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 Tishbite, 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. Apostasy. Since they've lost their temple, they've lost their rulers, 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 restore this meal, this food. And unto none of those did he appear, but to an outsider. When the Kirtland 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 Jael, this Gentile woman who delivered the king into the hands of Israel, are not these one offs. They. 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. [00:35:41] Speaker B: They went back to what they knew, man. [00:35:43] Speaker A: Back to what they knew. But what's fishing symbolic of? [00:35:46] Speaker B: Missionary work. [00:35:48] Speaker A: Missionary work. And are they catching anything? [00:35:51] Speaker B: Wait, they're not this time, are they? [00:35:53] Speaker A: No, they're not catching anything. So what does he tell them to do? [00:35:55] Speaker B: Oh yeah, toss the nets on the other side. [00:35:57] Speaker A: Toss the nets on the other side. So think, who are the apostles proselytizing and teaching to at this time? The Jews. 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. 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 going to be a time when Israel will turn away from the Lord, where it's going to be going to a whore, a prostitute, if you will. As you think of this relationship between the husband, it's going to turn aside. And. And when that happens, the Lord's going to 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 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 apostasy, a dearth of the word of God. And we should expect that 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's played out throughout the Old Testament [00:37:53] Speaker B: dope. [00:37:54] Speaker A: All right, sorry. [00:37:55] Speaker B: That's a lot of great stuff, but when are we going to talk about Samson? [00:37:58] Speaker A: I know, and we're running. We're running a lot of time so far. We still have to talk about Gideon. Okay, can we. Can we talk about Gideon? [00:38:06] Speaker B: We already talked about Gideon. [00:38:10] Speaker A: Gideon and the fleece. [00:38:11] Speaker B: All right. We don't talk about Samson. I'm not going to be very happy. [00:38:15] Speaker A: We can talk about Samson. We can, we can. We can finale up on Samson. Would that be good? [00:38:20] Speaker B: All right. Samson's going to be the grand finale. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Samsonite. Okay, Gideon. What's his. And there's so many stories in here, Nate. I'm sorry. Sorry. Something's got to suffer somewhere. [00:38:33] Speaker B: But it won't be Samson. [00:38:34] Speaker A: But it won't be Samson. [00:38:35] Speaker B: Okay, Gideon. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Gideon. So another. Another judge is raised up to save the people. And 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 because he thinks all the men in the city are going to go after him 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 of the city go to worship and they find out that their altar has 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 slay him for what he did. And the dad actually sticks up for Gideon. So very different from the story of Abraham. He says, look, if he offended a God, then let God stand up for himself. Let God deliver his justice. So Gideon, 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 says, I want to prove that you're an angel of the Lord. Gideon'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. Gideon says, I'll be right back. And it's kind of cool because Gideon is the one who is presenting the gifts or asking for things to be said. He's doing a lot of the thinking on his own. He's not saying, here, God, I want you to show me. And I'm just going to sit back and wait. Says, here, 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 out of the rock and consumes the meat. And he says, there, now you happy? I'm a messenger from the Lord. And so he's happy. He understands that 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 you remember, Nate, this seems about our time. Those old Shamwow commercials. Oh, yeah, baby, the shammies. [00:41:10] Speaker B: Those are the most awkward commercials ever. [00:41:13] Speaker A: I would agree. The thing about chamois, if I'm mistaken, correct me, but are they not made out of fleece? [00:41:22] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. [00:41:23] Speaker A: I think they're made out of fleece. Fleece has a characteristic, a property in which it's very absorbent and it holds water very well. And he lays out this 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 going to lay out this fleece, and if you're going to deliver Israel from the enemy here through my hands, I want the fleece to be soaking wet and the ground to be all dry around it. 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 wrings this out into a bowl and he's the bowl full of water. He's a little shamwow. And he's like, well, okay, wait a second, I'm an idiot. If I took this fleece, which is super absorbent, how do I know that it just didn't absorb all the dew around it 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 inspiration 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. 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? So I kind of look at that as an example of Gideon and his fleece. Like, maybe we're putting too much into it or correlating things that 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 lose your patience with me, God. I'm going to put this chamois 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 somebody. And I know this kind of comes into, are we okay asking God for signs? And how is this different in what Gideon's doing here versus asking people or people asking God for signs today or any other time? Like, if you're God's really God, prove it to me. Show me a sign. Do you have any? [00:44:16] Speaker B: 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's not the question here. I don't need proof for my faith. I'm simply asking, will you give me a sign so that I know what you want me to do? I just feel like that's a pretty different thing than, hey, I'll believe in you. If you give me an actual visitation from an angel, then for sure I'll believe in you. It's like Gideon was already like, yeah, I'm in. I'm on the team. I just need to make sure that I'm understanding what you want me to do better. [00:44:59] Speaker A: Thank you. That's exactly what I was thinking on this. It's not. If you show me, I will believe. He already believed. And what he's going to be doing is leading a group of people into battle. And maybe because he believes, because he even talks about God delivered our fathers before, he's very familiar with the miracles that have happened. He's very, 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 ay when a guy took some silver, some booty 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 BAAL worshipers and saying, hey, I believe in God, and if you're asking me to do this, I'm going to battle with a bunch of BAAL worshipers. Are we going to get wiped out? I'm okay with where I sit, but what about everybody that I'm leading into battle? I don't want a repeat of that nonsense that happened then. I don't know about the hearts of everybody I'm leading. So, yeah, he takes us there. And this is where the story gets pretty cool because he goes with his huge army and somehow he's been able to convince or gain the support of Israel because now they're willing to go to battle with him and The Lord says, you have too many soldiers. I'm going to deliver Israel, but I'm not going to do it just out of manpower alone. Anyone who's afraid, tell them 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 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 out of 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 out of their hands. That's going to be the separating thing. What's the difference there? Why is one different than another? Is there anything to be learned in that, or is that reading too much into it? 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 got kind of a shortcut, easy way versus something 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. 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'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, we stop. Focus on being prepared and willing to do things, maybe in a harder way, by bringing the water up to our mouths for the moment and trying to get quench our immediate lust and stick our head in the water and do the shortcut. I think there's some value in that. 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 story of Jericho, they're going to have to blow horns and trumpets, and it's again going to be the breath or the spirit, the moving. It's going to be God fighting the battle for them, not them. And to make an incredibly long story slightly shorter than what I've already made it, God delivers Israel, right? These 300 people, 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 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 title. And he kind of looks like George Washington, this figure that says, you know, I'm not going to rule over you. I'm going to turn this down. God is our king. He's the only king we should have. But it is kind of funny because his son's name is Abimelech, and Abimelech is Hebrew for my dad is king. So whether it's referring to heavenly Father as 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 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 creates a golden ephod 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 it says that he starts to go the way of idolatry, 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 Gideon. [00:51:26] Speaker B: Bummer. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Do you want to talk, Samson? [00:51:29] Speaker B: I mean, I've only been waiting for 54 minutes, but sure. [00:51:33] Speaker A: All right, all right. For 54 minutes, I have opened my mouth and I have just gone and gone and gone. Nate, I am going to sit back. [00:51:41] Speaker B: Oh, no, you're definitely not sitting back. [00:51:44] Speaker A: Samson. [00:51:45] Speaker B: I love Samson. [00:51:46] Speaker A: What do you love. What do you love so much about Samson? [00:51:48] Speaker B: I love. Can I tell you what I love about Samson? [00:51:51] Speaker A: Please do. [00:51:52] Speaker B: I mean, he's just your lovable idiot, right? 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 Samson before because Samson 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 whole thing where he's basically, 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, it's 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. I pretty much just wanna kill everybody in here, 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 it's fun. I've always tried to figure out, like, what am I supposed to draw from this? What am I supposed to draw from our lovable idiot? [00:53:28] Speaker A: And he's. I mean, he's taken an oath. He's kind of given himself to the Lord and the idea that he's not going to shave his head. [00:53:38] Speaker B: 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? [00:53:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's somebody that gives himself over to passion way too much in, like, everything. Before you even get to the story of Delilah, you see how his temper gets the best of him. You see how he's. His arrogance or pride is something that he's always having to battle. [00:54:07] Speaker B: 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 the other camp or whatever? Or were they just engaged? [00:54:19] Speaker A: The Philistine. Right. [00:54:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:20] Speaker A: And it says his wedding, he has, like, a riddle. He's going to trick them into which [00:54:26] Speaker B: by the way, it's a stupid riddle. Like, I'm just going to throw this out. There he goes, well, what did I eat on the way here? You know what, that's not a riddle. [00:54:37] Speaker A: And, and he's betrayed. [00:54:39] Speaker B: I'm just saying though, that's the worst riddle ever too, though, because there's no way of like solving it. Like, yeah, it's cheap. Like, honestly, Laffy Taffy, rappers have better riddles than them. Of like, you know, what did the dog say when he was hungry for lunch? Right? Like that's. At least you can, you can go, 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 a very hyper specific question. 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. Is there any other commitment you have to God other than your grooming? Like, hey, I'm not just gonna go and kill everybody all the time. [00:55:31] Speaker A: And it's almost like he gets a pass because this is the Lord's enemies anyways, right? They were supposed to be destroyed, wiped off the face of the earth. [00:55:39] Speaker B: Then why is he over there marrying them? [00:55:41] Speaker A: So you get a pass and yeah, he's playing both sides of the deal because again, you have this outsider that he's turning away to. He's selling himself, he's cheating on the Lord in a sense, and going to an outsider rather than the Lord and selling his soul for not. [00:56:01] Speaker B: So he throws a temper tantrum, takes off the father of this woman, is like, okay, well, I guess you got to 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 and threw a temper [00:56:22] Speaker A: tantrum and burned and burned all the. [00:56:25] Speaker B: And burned everything to the ground. Then he gets mad and starts killing everybody again. You're just like, bro, he wasn't very smart, right? Like, we can safely conclude that he wasn't very smart. [00:56:41] Speaker A: The story does not put him in great light, and yet he's a hero. [00:56:45] Speaker B: That's what I mean. [00:56:48] Speaker A: And one little interesting thing that I do pull out of this, please, is when he slays everybody with the jawbone of an ass. [00:56:57] Speaker B: I know, it's just great. [00:56:58] Speaker A: And the Hebrew word for jawbone, for what it's worth, is lehi. [00:57:04] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [00:57:05] Speaker A: And I find that very interesting because, you know, when you Say someone's jawing you a lot, or you call somebody a jawbone, it means that they have a gift for talking. And so when you look at Lehi going to the Book of Mormon, when his sons kind of rebel and their father spoke to them in the valley of Laman with such great power and authority that they could only obey him, like he had a gift for speaking. And that was something like, you look at Machlon and Chilion, who were named for weakly and sickly. And then you look at Lehi. What's a characteristic if you're going to name him anything? And his name is jawbone. I know it's a little bit of a taste. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Are you trying to suggest that this knucklehead went and talked them to death? [00:57:50] Speaker A: 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 home, passive aggressive letters. 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 it. [00:58:05] Speaker B: Stabs everybody with it, right? This dude. [00:58:07] Speaker A: But there, this dude, there's. There is some symbolism of slaying them with a jawbone, and there's this idea of being able to talk and pacify or win a war with words. [00:58:19] Speaker B: This is not Samson. [00:58:20] Speaker A: And Samson takes that and totally misreads it and literally slays them with a jawbone. [00:58:28] Speaker B: Which again, I would love to witness this. Like, you know, I have this. I have this, like, 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. You're like, I wonder what that would look like. Samson taking out like a whole group of people with, with the jawbone. I'm like, I do kind of want to see what that looked like. In fact, I want to watch it with Samson. I want to be like, Samson, brother. I mean, I hope he made it so that I can just put my arm around him and just be like, you lovable idiot. Like, let's watch this together and just see what on earth is happening. So they catch him. No, so then he, so then he gets with Delilah 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? [00:59:35] Speaker A: He. Yeah, he's. [00:59:36] Speaker B: But instead it's like, okay, but now tell me for real. And he's like, okay, this is it for real. And then they try that again. And she's like, why are you lying to me? And he's like, I don't know. Instead of, excuse me, why are you trying to get me killed? [00:59:53] Speaker A: His naivety, I mean, to your point, kind of a lovable idiot. [01:00:00] Speaker B: Yes. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Who's blinded by his own passions, lust, desires, what he. [01:00:06] Speaker B: And then ends up getting blinded by actual people. Yes. He's. He's. He's initially. He's initially mentally blinded, and then he's 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, can we go and get that deal between us going again? Was there a certain length and was [01:00:38] Speaker A: 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? [01:00:46] Speaker B: There you go. There's the lesson to learn. [01:00:48] Speaker A: Because he kept giving into his passions and he kept being willing to sell himself 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 because he was physically giving up into to all of this, he ended up selling his own freedom and changing himself. That is the path. That is what happens when you go down that road. The consequence is slavery. [01:01:28] Speaker B: It's agency. You're giving up your agency. [01:01:32] Speaker A: And the only way to break yourself from that. I mean, going back 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 like this guy that can just slay 50 people with the jawbone. And we look at the hero and this idea of God as 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, Samson is a Hebrew word for one like the son who's like. And Shemesh, 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 Samson is who is like the sun. This brilliant, what you see, this flash, this brilliance. 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 because it burns my eyes. I am going to strike my enemies down. I am going to be bold. I am going to be strong. I am going to 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 is controlling those passions, it is controlling that temper. It is controlling and being humble. That's what it means to be like God. [01:03:06] Speaker B: 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, unrighteous self with God's help. [01:03:27] Speaker A: He found his life by giving his life. [01:03:30] Speaker B: That's right. And he. He buried the old Samson and hopefully, like Darth Vader, found redemption on the other side. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Well, I know time wise, we've probably just about spent everything we have. [01:03:48] Speaker B: Oh, we're way past. [01:03:50] Speaker A: 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, @weeklydeepdive.com or post on the website or just hit us up. Yeah, just however you want to reach out to us, reach out to us. I mean, judges, it's 300 years of history and all of these crazy stories of how they're redeemed over and over again. So I'm just going to 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. [01:04:32] Speaker B: Okay, awesome. Anything else we need to talk about this week? [01:04:36] Speaker A: No, I, I think, I think we've covered about as much as we can in, in the time that we have to do it. [01:04:42] Speaker B: All right, until next week then. [01:04:43] Speaker A: See. Sa.