Judg 10:6 | KingComments | STEP | After Jair died, the Israelites again took the first steps on the treadmill of ‘doing what is evil – slavery – calling out to the LORD’, which had already caused so much doom for them. They have learned nothing from it. Are we, who together form professing Christianity, behaving better? Asking the question is answering it. For the sixth time it is said that Israel does what “is evil in the sight of the LORD”. Never before have we seen so many idols united in Israel. Seven are mentioned to indicate the completeness with which the Israelites surrender to them. The land is full of it. There is room for all kinds of false gods, by which the true God is expelled. The living God is exchanged for dead idols. The idols are not added, but they come in God’s place, they replace Him. God now leaves them to themselves, so that they may feel the yoke they have voluntarily taken on by serving the idols. When the feeling of God’s authority over life is lost and this authority is given to other things, idols, God is compelled to make the authority of those other things to be felt. To make the people realize what they are doing and to whom they have entrusted themselves, He surrenders them to the power of the Philistines and Ammonites. The Ammonites We have already paid some attention to the meaning of the Philistines. In the history of Samson we will hear more of them. In the history that follows, the Ammonites will come to the fore the most. They are on the other side of the Jordan and attack from there. They cross the Jordan to also wage war in the land. Ammon is a half-brother of Moab. They were both conceived by their father Lot with his two daughters ( ). Through the line of Lot they are family of the people of Israel ( ). We already met Moab in Judges 3; Ammon is also mentioned there. Here the descendants of Ammon emerge as the enemies God uses to discipline His people. As already mentioned in Judges 3, the name Ammon means ‘independent’. Ammon will prove himself in the next chapter as someone who deals in his own way with the things of God and His people. He gives his own, independent, at first sight logical, statement to assert his right to the land that Israel has taken possession of. We can therefore see in the Ammonites a picture of the mind of the nominal Christians who reason the things of God and reach different conclusions than God says in His Word. In Ammon we see the danger of rationalism, the religion based on reason. If this enemy prevails over the people of God ( ), the result is that the people are deprived of praise (Judah), strength (Benjamin) and fertility (Ephraim).

‏ Judges 10:6

A New Deviation

After Jair died, the Israelites again took the first steps on the treadmill of ‘doing what is evil – slavery – calling out to the LORD’, which had already caused so much doom for them. They have learned nothing from it. Are we, who together form professing Christianity, behaving better? Asking the question is answering it.

For the sixth time it is said that Israel does what “is evil in the sight of the LORD”. Never before have we seen so many idols united in Israel. Seven are mentioned to indicate the completeness with which the Israelites surrender to them. The land is full of it. There is room for all kinds of false gods, by which the true God is expelled. The living God is exchanged for dead idols. The idols are not added, but they come in God’s place, they replace Him.

God now leaves them to themselves, so that they may feel the yoke they have voluntarily taken on by serving the idols. When the feeling of God’s authority over life is lost and this authority is given to other things, idols, God is compelled to make the authority of those other things to be felt. To make the people realize what they are doing and to whom they have entrusted themselves, He surrenders them to the power of the Philistines and Ammonites.

The Ammonites

We have already paid some attention to the meaning of the Philistines. In the history of Samson we will hear more of them. In the history that follows, the Ammonites will come to the fore the most. They are on the other side of the Jordan and attack from there. They cross the Jordan to also wage war in the land.

Ammon is a half-brother of Moab. They were both conceived by their father Lot with his two daughters (Gen 19:36-38). Through the line of Lot they are family of the people of Israel (Gen 12:5). We already met Moab in Judges 3; Ammon is also mentioned there. Here the descendants of Ammon emerge as the enemies God uses to discipline His people.

As already mentioned in Judges 3, the name Ammon means ‘independent’. Ammon will prove himself in the next chapter as someone who deals in his own way with the things of God and His people. He gives his own, independent, at first sight logical, statement to assert his right to the land that Israel has taken possession of.

We can therefore see in the Ammonites a picture of the mind of the nominal Christians who reason the things of God and reach different conclusions than God says in His Word. In Ammon we see the danger of rationalism, the religion based on reason. If this enemy prevails over the people of God (Jdg 10:9), the result is that the people are deprived of praise (Judah), strength (Benjamin) and fertility (Ephraim).