Judges 1:1-36
Judges 17:6
Judges 2:1-5
Chuck Swindoll in his Study Bible says it this way:
“The time of the judges was a spiritual and national train wreck for Israel. The nation underwent political and religious turmoil as the people tried to possess those parts of the land that had not yet been fully conquered. The tribes fought among themselves, as well, and the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin were nearly wiped out.
The pattern in the book of Judges is clear; The people rebelled through idolatry and disbelief, God brought judgment through foreign oppression, God raised up a deliverer – or judge – and the people repented and turned back to God. When the people fell back into sin, the cycle started over again.”
Dr. Michael Heiser “The Unseen Realm”
“We talk a lot about interpreting the Bible in context, but Christian history is not the context of the biblical writers. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is not Augustine or any other church father. It is not the Catholic Church. It is not the rabbinic movements of late antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is not the Reformation or the Puritans. It is not evangelicalism in any of its flavors. It is not the modern world at all, or any period of its history. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is the context of the biblical writers— the context that produced the Bible.
Every other context is alien to the biblical writers and, therefore, to the Bible. Yet there is a pervasive tendency in the believing Church to filter the Bible through creeds, confessions, and denominational preferences. I’m not arguing that we should ignore our Christian forefathers. I’m simply saying that we should give their words and their thought the proper perspective and priority. Creeds serve a useful purpose. They distill important, albeit carefully selected, theological ideas. But they are not inspired. They are no substitute for the biblical text. The biblical text was produced by men who lived in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean between the second millennium BC and the first century AD. To understand how biblical writers thought, we need to tap into the intellectual output of that world. A vast amount of that material is available to us, thanks to modern technology. As our understanding of the worldview of the biblical writers grows, so does our understanding of what they intended to say— and the mosaic of their thinking takes shape in our minds.”
Warren Wiersbe wrote about this:
‘When God needed someone to deliver His people, He called that person out of one of the tribes and told him or her what to do. In obedience to the Lord, Moses had appointed Joshua as his successor; but later God didn’t’ command Joshua to name a successor.
These circumstances somewhat parallel the situation of the church in the world today. Unfortunately, God’s people aren’t working together to defeat the enemy; but here and there, God is raising up men and women of faith who are experiencing His blessing and power and are leading His people to victory.’