Why Did They Not?

Why Did They Not?

Some books of the Bible feel like history. Judges felt like a mirror.

Not long ago, we worked through a question on this show: How do I not? Why does a believer, made new, still do the things he doesn’t want to do? Paul put it this way: “For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” After living in that question for a while, I opened the book of Judges, and the whole thing felt eerily familiar. Not because I knew the stories, but because I recognized the pattern. I’d been reading about it in my own life.

So we dug in.

Read the first chapter slowly, and one phrase keeps coming back like a bell. Did not drive out. Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites. Manasseh did not. Ephraim did not. Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, one tribe after another. Israel had been redeemed out of Egypt. They had crossed the Jordan. The LORD was with them. And when they were finally strong enough to finish the job, they put the Canaanites to work instead.

Why did they not? It turns out to be the same question as How do I not?, asked about a whole nation, and the answer is the same answer, written larger.

We’ll walk through Judges 1 verse by verse. We’ll go back to a night in Genesis 15, when Abram slept and God made a covenant by himself. We’ll trace a pattern of rest given and rest lost across the whole Old Testament. And we’ll end with one Man who finished what neither the nation nor the individual ever could.

This is Why Did They Not?

Notes for Episode: Why Did They Not?

Episode Link: https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/why-did-they-not/