The lesson of history, as well as Scripture, is that violence is necessary to eradicate evil. It took the violent death of Jesus “to destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14), and it’s taken the violent death of many of Jesus’ followers since to prove in their lack of fear of dying that “Jesus truly did destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8).

But the Israelites only recognized the need to eradicate evil when they were hit hard by it – when evil easily deceived them into rejecting God and God then “gave them into the hands” of brutal invaders, Judges 6:1-6.

To which God responded with a reminder, that “I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors” (7-9), to get the point across that eradicating evil in their lives was what he’d got them out of Egypt for, and they would have remained free from the power of evil if they’d “listened to him” (10). 

But they didn’t listen, the result being God initiating and supporting violence, not only against the Israelites by outsiders, but also in the Israelites using violence to drive out the invaders.   

And such was the case here in Judges 6, because in God’s response to Israel crying out to him for help, an “angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon” – an ordinary farmer chap “threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites” (11) – and the angel telling Gideon, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior’” (12). 

Gideon ignored the “mighty warrior” bit, however, because he figured it was God’s job to get them out of the mess they were in, just like he’d rescued them out of Egypt. So he asked why, if God was truly “with” them, he hadn’t rescued them from the Midianites too (13). To which “the Lord replied, ‘Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand’” (14). 

God could have eradicated the Midianites all on his own – just like he’d eradicated the Egyptians on his own – but instead he initiated and supported Gideon being a “mighty warrior” using his own strength too, so that Gideon, in the savage, feral act of killing in a violent world, would also get the point that the only way to deal with evil was to totally crush it. But God demanding “Such massive slaughter – why?”….(next blog)

Pride had made the Asherites blind to evil. It was the same problem for all the Israelites in Canaan, who recklessly “did evil in the eyes of the Lord,” Judges 4:1, and only after God brought trouble on them did they wake up and resist evil instead (Judges 4 and 5). But not the Asherites, who felt safe and secure in their riches and location (5:17), and therefore in their pride could not see, or even care about, the need to resist evil.

Until, that is, the Israelites recklessly did evil again in Judges 6:1, and this time God handed them over to the Midianites, whose power for the next seven years “was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds” (2). The Midianite invasion eventually “so impoverished the Israelites” – by ruining all their crops and killing all their livestock – that “the Israelites cried out to God for help” (3-6).

The clear lesson being, that when nations built on God’s values recklessly reject those values, the pattern of God’s response is to invade those nations with oppressive powers – in the hope, though, that those nations come to their senses and get back to “listening” to him (10), and he will then “snatch them from the hand of all their oppressors” (9). 

That’s the lesson of Israel, and it got through to the Asherites who repented of their pompous, uncaring attitude, and this time they responded to Gideon’s “call to arms” (35) to save the nation. But God had to make things really bad for the Asherites’ pride to be shattered, which makes one wonder if that’s what God is doing with the nations proudly dismissing him today as well. 

Because according to Paul what happened to Israel is just as relevant for us today (1 Corinthians 10:11), so when nations built on biblical values today are also being heavily oppressed by invaders both ideologically and literally, is God at work again to shatter our elitist attitude to his laws and ethics, to get us back to realizing those old values that built our countries were right after all? 

Paul also said the times of ignorance are over and it’s time for “people everywhere to repent,” Acts 17:30. So it’s repentance that God is after, but with Israel it took violent oppression by others to get them to that point, and violence on their part to rescue them too. But “Why does God initiate and support violence so much?”….(next blog)

When it was time for God to deliver Israel in Judges 4, it wasn’t the tribe of Asher he called on. 

And we find out why in Judges 5:17 – it’s because “Asher remained on the seacoast and stayed in his coves.” And that wasn’t good because for twenty years the Israelites had been “cruelly oppressed” by the Canaanite king Jabin and Sisera his army commander with his nine hundred iron chariots (4:2-3). And when God then sent Israel into battle against Jabin (4-6) to rescue them, the Asherites, to put it bluntly, “simply didn’t care.”  

They stayed home instead, safe in their seacoast fortifications and rocky hideaways. It’s not surprising, then, that Deborah, the prophetess “leading Israel at that time” (4:4), was thoroughly put out by the Asherites callous lack of concern for their fellow Israelites – and she said so publicly in her victory speech in Chapter 5 (verse 17). 

And it wasn’t because the Asherites didn’t have their share of fighting men ready for such an occasion too. At one point during the Israelites’ journey to Canaan they had 41,500 fighting men (Numbers 1:40-41), which must have increased in number considerably by Judges chapter 5. 

But it illustrates the second thing that happens as to what pride can lead to. In the last blog pride caused the Asherites to forget that it was God who’d rescued them from Egypt and God who’d given them this paradise on the seacoast of Canaan with its immensely rich soils and abundant metals in the rocks (Deuteronomy 8:11-18).

Interesting, then, that as their love for God diminished so did their love for neighbour. The parallel with today is unnerving, as nations built on biblical values are going the same route, first of all in rejecting God and Christian values, which has created an elite bubble of rich people who simply don’t care what their fellow citizens’ concerns are. 

But there’s hope, because In Judges 6:33, when “the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern people joined forces and crossed the  Jordan” into Israel, Gideon “sent messengers throughout Manasseh calling them to arms and also into Asher,” and this time Asher did respond and did care (35). So “What made Asher repent?”….(next blog)

From the Asherites we learn that pride can lead to two things – the first one being that God began to slip their minds, because, as Moses explained in Deuteronomy 8:10-14, when they’d got all they could possibly need and want physically in money, homes and security “your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God.”

In other words, they’d get to thinking, “Who needs God?” They’d even get to thinking that it was by their own cleverness and strength (17) that they’d ended up “lacking nothing” (9), when it was totally God who’d got them out of Egypt in the first place (14-16), and God who’d got them into their beautiful, rich land in Canaan as well (7-9).

And what was the point too, of God dragging them “through the desert for forty years” (2) to teach them “that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of the Lord” (3) if that was only meant in the past and it didn’t matter anymore? 

Which is a highly relevant question for us today, because for those of us finding ourselves in countries built on the biblical values of law, justice, morality, concern for the vulnerable, strength in the family, community and serving, all of which clearly explain why our countries grew and prospered – then why of late are our governments, academia and media rubbishing our past and condemning it as inherently corrupt and in need of being destroyed and replaced?

Is it any coincidence too, that those doing the rubbishing are noticeably from among those who have everything they need physically (just like the Asherites), who believe they can make life successful on their own strength (just like the Israelites), who think God and his word are antiquated nonsense, and they much prefer a world where you can do what you like without consequence – which was exactly the world the Asherites and Israelites preferred too (Judges 21:25). 

Sounds like history repeating itself. In which case so could the outcome predicted by Moses in Deuteronomy 8:20, that “Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.” And historically there’s proof of that, because great (and proud) empires have come and gone. It’s worth a look, then, at the second thing that happened to the Asherites because of pride, that also got an angry response, when “They simply didn’t care”….(next blog)

In Deuteronomy 33:24, Asher is described as the “most blessed of sons.” And truly blessed his descendants were too. Physically they were given everything a human could dream of in the land they were allotted in Canaan. Rich soil for producing the finest wine, olives and wheat, access to the riches of the Mediterranean Sea, contracts with royalty for their exotic foods and the highly prized Tyrian purple dye, and a beautiful land of date palms and beaches. A paradise. 

What more could one wish for? Well, in verse 25 Moses did offer more, when he told the Asherites, “The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze, and your strength will equal your days.” This was a promise of security as well, pictured by the strength of the locking system on their city gates. To keep the gates firmly closed, a bar of wood or metal would slot into brackets held in place on the gates and gate posts by metal bolts – providing fortifications strong enough to give the Asherites security “equal to their days,” or as long as they were resident there. So not only were the Asherites promised prosperity, they had security to protect that prosperity too. 

Which was good to know because as a coastal tribe the Asherites were vulnerable to invasion from both sea and land, and the Phoenicians had already set up city states like Tyre and Sidon on their Asherite land too. And the Phoenicians were a power to be reckoned with. They were skilled shipbuilders and canny sailors that had enabled them to build a trading empire that reached as far as the Atlantic Ocean. 

But God had guaranteed Asher’s safety and their prosperity, so again, what more could one wish for? 

Well, there was one more thing: humility, because pride would wreck everything. Or as Moses phrased it in Deuteronomy 8:11, “Be careful,” because when life has been good (12-13) – as it certainly was for the Asherites – “then your heart will become proud” (14), and “You say to yourselves, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me’” (17). The danger then being that they’d lose their awareness of God as their provider (18) and “follow other gods and bow down to them” instead, to which God also says in verse 19, “I testify against you today that (if you do that) you will surely be destroyed.” 

And destruction came too, because in Judges 4:2, “the Lord sold the Israelites into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan,” but it’s in the Asherites’ response to God that we see just “What pride can lead to”….(next blog)   

Imagine being Jacob’s eighth son Asher and your Dad tells you in front of your brothers that you’re going to be the rich one. “Asher my boy,” he says in Genesis 49:20, “your food will be rich and you will provide delicacies fit for a king.”

The tribe of Asher got the same good news from Moses too: “Asher is the most blessed of (Jacob’s) sons,” Deuteronomy 33:24, “let him be favoured by his brothers and let him bathe his feet in oil.” Again, it sounds like the Asherites are destined for a life of plenty and luxury. 

Their destiny was set the moment Asher was born too, when “Leah cried out, ‘How happy I am. My women friends call me happy too.’ So she named him Asher,” Genesis 30:12-13 – Asher meaning “happiness.” The hint was there right from the start, then, that God had a great life in mind for Asher. He’d be rich, happy and “favoured by his brothers” too, suggesting that Asher was also generous, happily sharing his bounty with the rest of Israel.  

The Asherites were well positioned to be generous too, because they were given some of the richest soil in all Canaan in a narrow but beautiful strip of land along the coast from the city of Sidon in the north (in southern Lebanon today) down to the slopes of Mount Carmel in the south (in northern Israel today). These well watered lowlands were perfect for vines, olive trees and wheat fields, producing wine, oil and wheat of the highest quality. The ten mile long valley of Asher was so fruitful it was called the ‘fat valley’. Not only, then, would the Asherites be totally self-sufficient, they would also provide rich foods and delicacies “fit for a king” (Genesis 49:20).  

Fit for two kings too, according to 1 Kings 5. In a trade between king Solomon and king Hiram of Tyre, Hiram “kept Solomon supplied with all the cedar and pine logs he wanted” (10), and in return “Solomon gave Hiram 20,000 measures of wheat (125,000 bushels)….and 20,000 baths of pressed olive oil (115,000 gallons) year after year” (11). Such quantities and quality of wheat and olive oil “fit for a king” would suggest the Asherites as the source. The “baths” of olive oil would also tie in with the olive oil being so plentiful the Asherites could “bathe their feet in it” (Deuteronomy 33:24). 

Their land produced enough to keep them rich and happy and in favour with both the king and their peers. So “What more could one wish for?”….(next blog)

The tribe of Gad, along with the tribe of Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh, made a terrible mistake when they ditched the “God of their fathers,” 1 Chronicles 5:25, and “prostituted themselves to the gods of the peoples of the land” they were in, instead. 

But how did they fall for these other gods in the first place? According to Judges 2, it began when the Israelites lost sight of their history. In verse 10, a “generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel” – much like our western nations today losing sight of our Christian heritage and the basic Christian values that enabled our nations to lead the world in law and justice.

The result of losing sight of our history is similar to that of Israel too. When the Israelites “abandoned the God of their ancestors, and went after the gods of the people around them” (12), God’s response in Judges 10:13-14 was: “Well, since you’ve abandoned me to serve other gods, I won’t rescue you anymore. Cry out to the gods you’ve chosen instead, and let them save you when you’re in trouble.” 

And that’s the situation we find ourselves increasingly in today. As we abandon the biblical values that built us, we seek to fill the gap with gods of our own making to save us from all our human ills. Like all the ‘isms’ we’re now stuck with: Socialism, Secularism, Nationalism, Materialism, Globalism, Utopianism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Atheism, Wokism, Environmentalism, and all the man-made religious ‘isms’ too, that we identify our lives with, devoutly follow, fiercely defend, depend on for meaning and purpose, and seek to enforce on others.

So we’re experiencing what Israel experienced, that when the biblical God is abandoned for “images made by man’s design and skill” (Acts 17:29) the ‘isms’ take over. For the Israelites it was Ba’al(ism) and Ashtoreth(ism) that took over (Judges 2:13). But, fortunately, Judges 10:15-16, when the Israelites woke up to what they’d done, they ditched all their gods and turned to God to rescue them, and in response “God took their troubles to heart.” And whenever they turned to him like that he always responded. 

Will our western nations cotton on to that too, then? Because the promise that God will respond is as real today as it was for Israel (Acts 17:26-31). Which ties in with the next son of Jacob, “Asher: the rich one”….(next blog) 

The Gadites were given the lesson in how and why nations succeed and flourish. It was given to them by Joshua right after they’d proved themselves faithful to their promise to Moses, to not return to their homes and families east of the Jordan River until the entire country west of the Jordan was safely in Israelite hands. 

“So,” Joshua told the Gadites in Joshua 22:4, “now that the Lord your God has given your brothers rest as he promised, return to your homes in the land that Moses gave you on the other side of the Jordan. “But,” verse 5 – and here came the lesson – “be very careful to keep the commandments and the law that Moses the servant of the lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.”

And at this point in their history the Gadites were determined to do just that, and demonstrated it visibly by building an impressive altar (10) as “A witness between us that the Lord is God,” verse 34.

With an attitude like that their potential was enormous, because the “Lord would give them rest on every side,” Joshua 21:44, he’d also “hand all their enemies over to them and not one of his promises to them would fail” (45). They had God’s total backing. 

And God was true to his promise too, because when the Gadites “waged war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish and Nodab” in 1 Chronicle 5:19, “God handed the Hagrites and all their allies over to them, because they (the Gadites) cried out to him during the battle,” and God “answered their prayers, because the Gadites trusted in him” (20). 

But something went horribly wrong, verse 26, resulting in “the God of Israel stirring up the spirit of Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, who took the Gadites into exile” and they lost everything. The reason being verse 25: “they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers and prostituted themselves to the gods of the people of the land.”

The Gadites failed as a tribe, and so did Israel as a nation, when obeying and trusting God felt so out-of-date and non-progressive compared to the novel and innovative gods and religions that other peoples had. Which rings a rather familiar bell in our western nations today, that were built on a respect for and faith in the biblical God, but are now experiencing what happens “When the ‘isms’ take over”….(next blog)

The Israelites really embarrassed themselves when wrongly judging the motives of their chums in the tribe of Gad. 

The Gadites had done nothing wrong too. Quite the opposite: they’d “done all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded,” Joshua 22:2. And what’s more, they’d been highly commended by Joshua, because “For a long time now,” he told them in verse 3, “you have not deserted your brothers (your fellow Israelites) but have carried out the mission the Lord your God gave you.” 

They truly hadn’t deserted their brother Israelites either. The Gadites had voluntarily offered “to arm ourselves and go ahead of the Israelites (into Canaan west of the River Jordan)” and continue to fight alongside them “until every Israelite has received his inheritance” and every enemy had been defeated (Numbers 32:17-18, 21). Only then would the Gadites return to their own homes and families east of the Jordan (26-27) – and without receiving any inheritance of their own in Canaan either (19). 

So the Gadites had thoroughly put themselves out for their fellow Israelites, fighting with them to win their land for them, and without receiving any of that land themselves. And with that job done Joshua “sent the Gadites home” with his blessing, Joshua 22:6-8.  

But that’s when the trouble began, because “When they came to Geliloth near the Jordan in the land of Canaan, the Reubenites, Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh built an imposing altar,” verse 10. Well, that did it, because when the Israelites got wind of this altar, they immediately assumed the worst, that the three tribes, including Gad, had “turned away from the Lord and built an altar in rebellion against him” (16). They were so convinced their judgment was correct that “the whole assembly of Israel gathered to go to war” (11-12) – no questions asked, no facts checked, no consultation done, just charge the Gadites as guilty and feel justified in lopping their heads off.  

How embarrassing, then, when the Gadites explained they’d built this “replica of the Lord’s altar” (28) as “a witness between us and you and the generations that follow, that we will worship the Lord at his sanctuary” (27). They’d built the altar as visible proof that even though they weren’t living alongside the other Israelites they would remain loyal to Israel’s God too (24-29, 34). At which point there was no more talk of war (33). But the Gadites’ story doesn’t end there either, because they also became “A lesson in why nations fail”….(nest blog) 

It was an awkward situation. The Gadites had discovered a choice piece of land for their huge herds and flocks and wanted to settle there rather than head west over the Jordan River and into battle in Canaan, Numbers 32:1. But when they asked Moses if it was all right for them to stay, he did not react well. 

He was hopping mad. He accused them of sitting idly by while their fellow Israelites did all the fighting, which might discourage them from fighting too, and that would risk God getting angry at the Israelites not following his instructions and consigning them to another 40 years of wandering round the desert, and it would all be the Gadites’ fault (6-15). Moses even called them “a brood of sinners” (14). 

Moses was treading on rather dangerous ground, though, having predicted in Deuteronomy 33:20 that Gad would be “like a lion, tearing at arm or head.” He was very fortunate, then, that the Gadites chose not to tear his arm or head off, and they turned to diplomacy instead. 

They did not back down from what they believed was best for their families and their livestock, Numbers 32:16, but they also took into account the tough position Moses was in. Moses had strict instructions from God to take the land God had in mind for them. To ease Moses’ mind, then, the Gadites told him in verse 17, “we are ready to arm ourselves and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place.” They’d be willing to lead Israel into battle and stay in the fight until the job was done.

“So here’s what we’re offering: we’d like to go ahead and build pens for our livestock and fortified cities for our women and children on this side of the river (16), but we won’t return to our homes until every Israelite has received his inheritance (17-18). And, what’s more, we don’t expect any part of that inheritance ourselves since we’ve chosen to settle here instead (19).That’s our promise to you, so do we have a deal?” 

“Agreed on all counts,” Moses replied (20-22), his anger totally diffused, “but you’d better not break your promise because your sin will find you out” (23). Your diplomacy had better be backed up by action, in other words. And happily the Gadites pulled through as promised (Joshua 22:1-9), but that wasn’t the end of the story. The Gadites faced another awkward situation, this time the wrath of all their fellow Israelites because of “Judging motives wrongly”….(next blog)