Author Archives: Joseph Malekani

Judges 20 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com 400,000 men armed with weapons of war assembled at Mizpah. Mission? Punish the perpetrators of extreme wickedness of chapter 19 at Gibeah. Everyone is in apart from Benjamin, who actually refuses to surrender the wicked men of Gibeah. Civil war ensues.This type of wickedness deserved the kind is punishment that IsraelContinueContinue reading “Judges 20 Commentary”

Judges 19 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com This chapter records a horrifying incident that would make the Sodomites envious. You don’t want to read it twice. Man without the King is a complete mess. Since Israel really doesn’t want the LORD as her King, the LORD would allow Israel to install a king. The human kingship doesn’t exactlyContinueContinue reading “Judges 19 Commentary”

Judges 18 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com The chapter begins with what seems like a disclaimer. The human author seems to reflect on the sad events of these last pages of Judges with an explanation: in those days Israel had no king. The prophetic understanding would be that Israel had no King of kings. We have a priest;ContinueContinue reading “Judges 18 Commentary”

Judges 17 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com We should not be fooled by the lip service to the name of the LORD by the characters in this chapter. They have clearly forgotten the first two Commandments. We have encountered this kind before: people having a very vague picture of worship but still proceeding with their worship. The worshipContinueContinue reading “Judges 17 Commentary”

Judges 16 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com  Chapter 16 winds down the story of Samson. What a story! It is a nice Sunday-school story but every grown man knows men don’t have to be this dumb. Samson is an embarrassment to the menfolk. There can be an easy conclusion to the story: with his hair, Samson is strong;ContinueContinue reading “Judges 16 Commentary”

Judges 15 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com One can decide to focus on the awesome strength of Samson and never get disappointed. Imagine the strength of a single man who rounds up a pack of 300 foxes! Most men will have problems catching one chicken! It took three thousand men from Judah to ask him to surrender toContinueContinue reading “Judges 15 Commentary”

Judges 14 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com His father and mother replied, “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” Indeed, isn’t there an acceptable man or woman among the brethren? Must you go to the nightclub to get a spouse?In DeuteronomyContinueContinue reading “Judges 14 Commentary”

Judges 13 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. This statement here and in several other places in this book gives us an impression that Israel had a see-saw relationship with the LORD. We can doubt this view. Israel’sContinueContinue reading “Judges 13 Commentary”

Judges 12 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com Ephraimites confront Jephthah with the complaint that Jephthah didn’t involve them in his battles against Ammon. We first met this kind of reaction from the Ephraimites when Gideon defeated Midian. Gideon’s wisdom had pacified the situation. Jephthah is not Gideon and so the outcome of the confrontation is very different. CivilContinueContinue reading “Judges 12 Commentary”

Judges 11 Commentary http://www.lovingscripture.com The story of Jephthah is similar to Abimelek’s. Both are born under similar circumstances. You would expect Jephthah suffered abuse from other family members before he was eventually driven out. That is the difficulty that men subject their children to when they decide to have children in that way. The LORD,ContinueContinue reading “Judges 11 Commentary”