Do what is Right

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).”

The history of the Kingdom of Israel started with this period of four centuries of the rule of the Judges.  To put that into perspective, four hundred years ago, the Mayflower had landed at Plymouth just five years before.  To sum up the first two chapters of Judges, the people who had experienced God’s power to liberate them from 400 years of slavery in Egypt (and all the mighty miracles that entailed) did not have enough faith to believe He could lead them into the Promised Land and were made to die in the desert.  Their children entered Canaan and conquered parts of it, but failed to kill or drive out the inhabitants.  And their children, the grandchildren of those who had been slaves, turned to other gods.  

The first part of the verse at the top is quoted four times in Judges.  Over the ensuing 400 years, Israel turned more and more to evil.  Lest you think this hyperbole, Judges 19 embodies the Israelites’ descent, where a man and his concubine are trapped by some men from the tribe of Benjamin.  They demand the man be sent out so they can rape him.  Instead he sends out his concubine and they rape her to death.  This horror scene is eerily similar to what happened to Lot and his family in Sodom just before God destroyed that city with fire and brimstone.  The point here is that the Israelites should have known better.  The Sodomites had no direct relationship or interaction with God.  The Israelites did.  For the people of Sodom: “ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse (Romans 1:20).”  

Not long after this rape, Samuel is raised up as the last Judge of Israel.  Although he was honest and good, his sons were not, and the people begged him to appoint a king for them.  1 Samuel 8 details the conversation between God and Samuel and between Samuel and the Israelites.  Verse 7: “the Lord told him: “…it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”

Samuel goes on to tell the people all the ways a king will make their lives miserable, drafting their sons into his army, taking their daughters to be his servants and taxing them to make himself rich.  And finally, “you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

And for the next four hundred years, the Kings of Israel (generally) get worse and worse.  I believe the point of this story arc is that a) we need saving from our sinful desires; and b) a human king, a human-led government, will not save us.  When God walked with Adam, he still ate the fruit.  When Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Law, the Israelites were down below, crafting the golden calf.  The forty years in the desert following the cloud and eating the manna, every day reminded of the real presence of God, did not stop them from rebelling.  When they were given the Promised Land, they devolved into an evil far worse than the Sodomites, who acted similarly, but in ignorance.  The kings utterly failed to make them a Godly nation and the Prophets ran for their very lives.  Exile put the Law in the center of their lives, but love of God and neighbor were far from their hearts.  

Everyone tends to do what is right in their own eyes.  I think life is this strange and difficult balance.  I am convinced there is an absolute standard of what is right and what is wrong.  Killing, divorce, lying, stealing and so forth are wrong.  But sometimes we must kill.  Sometimes the least bad way is to get a divorce.  Sometimes, one must steal a loaf of bread to feed one’s family.  Sometimes, one must lie to save a life.  Always, we must love our neighbor for who they are now.  And yet we must never be satisfied with who we are now.