Judges 1 Devotional

Settling for Half the Gift

““Judah shall go up,” answered the LORD. “Indeed, I have delivered the land into their hands.””Judges 1:2 (BSB)

Judges opens with a good question and a clear answer. After Joshua's death, Israel asks the LORD who should go up first to fight, and he names Judah and says he has already handed the land over (1:1-2). At first the promise holds. The LORD is with Judah (1:19), Hebron goes to Caleb as Moses had promised (1:20), and even the defeated king Adoni-bezek admits that God has paid him back for his own cruelty (1:7).

Then the chapter becomes a list that grows heavier with every line. Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali all fail to drive out the Canaanites. Some tribes grow strong enough to put them to forced labor, yet still let them stay (1:28). Nothing in the chapter suggests that God's promise grew weaker. What weakened was Israel's resolve to take hold of all he had given, and the rest of the book shows where that settling leads. God's gifts are whole, and his grace is stronger than the habits we have learned to live beside.

To think about: What sin have you learned to live alongside rather than bringing it to God to be driven out?