Judges 20:1-48
Prayer: Father, we ask You to make this Word living and powerful in our lives – show us clear and meaningful applications and obedience so that we would not be merely hearers of the Word but doers, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
This chapter continues the story of the corruption of Gibeah and the tribe of Benjamin, with judgment falling on them and on the rest of Israel. This teaches lessons about the covenant, just war, and the difference between punishment and discipline.
The Text: “Then all the children of Israel went out, and the congregation was gathered together as one man, from Dan even to Beersheba, with the land of Gilead, unto the LORD in Mizpeh…” (Judges 20:1-48)
Summary of the Text
Having sent the pieces of his murdered wife to the tribes of Israel, 400,000 Israelite soldiers gathered together at Mizpah to find out what had happened (Judges 20:1-3). The Levite explained that the men of Gibeah had attacked him and killed his concubine and asked them to give their verdict (Judges 20:4-7). Israel made plans to support their army and sent messengers to Benjamin demanding that the men of Gibeah be turned over to be tried for their crimes, but Benjamin refused and gathered together 26,000 soldiers, plus the 700 left-handed slingers of Gibeah (Judges 20:8-17).
Israel inquired of the Lord who should the lead the attack, and the Lord said Judah, and the next day they attacked and were defeated with the loss of 22,000 men (Judges 20:18-21). They wept before the Lord and sought His counsel once more, and the following day they attacked again and were defeated again, losing another 18,000 (Judges 20:22-25) – a loss now totaling 10% of the army. Israel once more wept before the Lord and offered sacrifices, with Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, leading the worship, and the Lord promised to deliver Benjamin into their hands (Judges 20:26-28). For this third attack, Israel set an ambush for Gibeah, and after drawing the main force out of the city, closed the trap and the Lord destroyed them (Judges 20:29-39). The city was utterly destroyed and burned, and the soldiers who fled were tracked down and put to the sword (Judges 20:40-48).
Cutting Covenant
In the Old Testament, the word for “make” covenant is literally “cut” a covenant, going back at least to God’s covenant with Abraham where God passed through the cut-up parts of animals (Gen. 15:9-17). In this sense, every sacrifice was a mini-covenant ceremony, with animals cut up and offered to the Lord (Lev. 1-3, Ps. 50:5). At Sinai, God cut His covenant with Israel: God’s fiery presence came down on the mountain, and the people “cut” sacrifices to seal the covenant (Ex. 19-24).
The meaning was at least two-fold: on the one hand, there is a complete consecration to God in the covenant: God’s fiery presence passes through the parts of the animal and the idea is that God intends to fill and entirely claim His people (cf. Rom. 12:1-2). God wants all that we are. This is what your baptism means. He wants your words, your thoughts, your work, your money, your marriage, your parenting, your household culture, your politics.
At the same time, there’s a warning: In Jeremiah 34, Zedekiah makes a covenant with the people of Jerusalem and as part of that covenant, the men of the city promised to release their slaves, which they did initially and then apparently took them back. God says that when they made that covenant, they “cut the calf in two and passed between the parts” (Jer. 34:18), and therefore God will destroy them because they have broken the covenant.
It seems likely that the Levite is drawing from this imagery when he calls Israel with the pieces of his wife. King Saul will do a similar thing with a heifer in 1 Samuel 11, calling all of Israel to war. The symbolism is that the covenant has been broken and therefore justice must be done, with the threat that if you don’t muster, you will be breaking covenant and complicit with the covenant breakers and liable to the same punishment (1 Sam. 11:7, Jer. 34:20). Covenant is inescapable, loyalty is inescapable: who’s side are you on?
Holy War & Just War
In the Old Covenant, God sometimes supernaturally destroyed horrifically evil peoples (e.g. the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah). Later, God gave special authorization to His people to do this in the land of Canaan because of its great wickedness (Gen. 15:16, Dt. 7:1-2, 20:16-18). The language God used was “devote to destruction” [haram], and Jericho is the clearest example (Josh. 6). This is in a very strict sense what is called a “holy war” – the battle is likened to a whole burnt offering – everything goes on the altar and burned.
But remember at Jericho Achan who took some of the “devoted” things, and when Israel went up against Ai, they were defeated (Josh. 7). After Achan’s sin was found out, he and his family were destroyed (like Jericho) (Josh. 7:25). Then, on the second attempt, Joshua planned an ambush attack almost exactly like the one we have here in the third battle of Gibeah in Judges 20.
Putting all of this together, the first two battles of Gibeah indicate that Israel had not reckoned with their own complicity in Gibeah’s sin, and therefore God sovereignly disciplines them by taking a “tithe” of their soldiers: they had not faithfully driven out the Canaanites and they broke covenant going after other gods (Judges 1-2). The fact that Phinehas is mentioned (Judges 20:28), tells us that this event happened early in the days of the Judges (Josh. 24:33), and it underlines the problem running through the whole book.
When Jesus came He taught that because of the gospel and the pouring out of the Spirit, wars of “utter destruction” are no longer necessary or allowed (cf. Lk. 9:54-56). But in a fallen world, ordinary war will still sometimes be required. This distinction was already being introduced in the law of Moses (Dt. 20:10-15, 19-20). Just wars require legitimate authority to use force as well as a just cause (Rom. 13:1-4), specifically the principles of punishing criminals and defending the innocent and weak and judicious with proportionality (Gen. 14:13-16, Ex. 21:22-25, Dt. 19:18-21, Amos 1:3-13), as well as pure intentions for true good and peace (Rom. 12, Mt. 5).
The Lord Jesus rules over all the nations of men, and therefore our wars must be just, and in that sense, holy or else He will judge us and destroy us. The warning stands: with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Do you who say that a man should not commit adultery – do you commit adultery (Rom. 2:22)? Do you who say that a nation should not commit genocide commit genocide against the unborn? Jesus said that it will be easier for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than the cities that refused to believe in Him. Our gruesome slaughter of babies makes the Nazis look tame. And the solution is repentance.
Applications & Conclusion
Every Lord’s Day, we pass the “cut up” parts of the body of the Lord among us. What are we doing? It a proclamation of the broken covenant in Adam: all have sinned. All have “Achaned” and troubled Israel.
It’s also a summons to war against all evil – beginning with your own. Are you on the Lord’s side or on the side of Gibeah? Are you on the side of Jesus or the Devil? If you don’t join the war, you are complicit in the wickedness of the land. But if you join, you must leave all of your wickedness behind. If you bring any of that sin with you into the camp, we will be defeated by our enemies. It is not enough to be “conservative” or “anti-liberal.” We cannot win without God’s blessing.
In Genesis 15, when God made the covenant with Abraham, the most striking thing about the ceremony is that only God passed through the cut parts of the animals. And so when we had broken the covenant, God Himself came and was “cut up” for us on the Cross.
Hell is the ultimate punishment for sin – it is God’s ultimate Holy War, which Christ took for all who trust in Him. But in this world, God still disciplines the sons that He loves (Heb. 12:6ff) – as witnessed by the two initial defeats of the armies of Israel. Sometimes God presses upon us because of specific sins we need to deal with, and sometimes He presses upon us to simply train us in greater holiness – but it is His covenant love – it is His determination to make us holy and happy.
And it is important that we understand and teach this distinction to our children. There is a massive difference between parenting based on covenant loyalty and parenting based on individualistic autonomy. Are your children just other people in your house doing things or are they your body, part of Christ’s body, little saints for whom Christ died? This means intense teaching and correction in the early years but with eyes of faith and hearts full of patience.
Children are little mirrors showing you your own weaknesses and sins, and you can either resent that or you can smile and thank God for giving You exactly what You need and stay in the fight.
Prayer: Father, we thank you for Your covenant faithfulness to us, for sending Your only Son to take the penalty for our covenant breaking, so that we might not be destroyed. Father, we cry out to You for our covenant breaking nation: we know that we deserve Your righteous judgment. But if you had mercy on Sodom when only Lot was there, how much more so, will you have mercy on our land? So we ask for Reformation and Revival. We ask for You to destroy the Sons of Belial in our midst and that You would establish Your justice. Raise up generations of faithful men who raise faithful children, in Jesus’ name, who taught us to pray…
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