INDIVIDUALS VS THE MAJORITY

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Judges Chapter 18

- The tribe of Dan has not received an inheritance so they send men to spy the land they want to get!

- The men spend the night at the house of Micah!

- They meet the young Levite and ask him questions!

- Then he answers them to go in peace and that God is with them!

- Then the spies spy the land!

- When they come back, they tell everything what they see!

- So 600 Danites get ready to fight!

- Then they go to the house of Micah!

- The five spies go to the house of Micah and take the carved image, the ephod, the teraphim statues and the metal image!

- And they ask the young priest to go with them!

- Micah realizes he can’t do anything against the Danites so he lets the priest go with them!

- They destroy the city of Laish and burn it and rebuild it and settle in it and call it Dan according to their father’s name!

 

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Judges Chapter 19

- A Levite takes a concubine as his wife!

- But she is unfaithful to him!

- And she goes to her father’s house!

- She remains there for 4 months!

- Then the Levite goes to see his wife to bring her back!

- He stays there for three days!

- His father-in-law asks him to stay another day!

- The next day it is the same!

- And he finally leaves with his wife!

- They get closed to Jerusalem and spend the night at Gibeah!

- They sit down in the public square of the city!

- But nobody offers them to stay overnight!

- Then an old man who only lives in the city for a while offers them to spend the night at his house and he takes care of them!

- Some men come to the house and want the man to have sex with him!

- But the old man refuses!

- And he offers his daughter and the man’s concubine!

- But they refuse and take the concubine and abuse her all night!

- In the morning the woman comes back to the house and dies!

- So the man cuts her in 12 pieces and sends one piece into each territory of Israel!

- Then the men of Israel take counsel to know what to do!

 

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Judges Chapter 20

- Israel gathers before God at Mizpah!

- The men of Israel ask the Levite what has happened to his murdered woman!

- As a consequence the men of Israel want to go against the men of Gibeah because of what they have done!

- And they want the men who have acted badly to put them to death!

- But the Benjaminites refuse!

- And they want to fight against Israel!

- So Israel goes to Bethel to inquire of God!

- And God tells them that Judah must lead them!

- And the Benjaminites kill 22,000 men of Israel!

- And Israel is ready to fight again!

- And the Benjaminites kill 18,000 men of israel!

- But God tells Israel to go again against the Benjaminites!

- It seems to be that the Benjaminites are going to win again!

- But Israel retreats so all the Benjaminites leave Gibeah!

- And 10,000 men of Israel go to Gibeah!

- The fighting is heavy!

- And God defeats Benjamin!

- 25,100 Benjaminites are killed!

- Then Israel burn Gibeah!

- The Benjaminites flee but the men of Israel follow them and 18,000 Benjaminites are killed!

- The rest flees into the wilderness!

- Finally 25,000 Benjaminites died this day!

- And Israel stricks the cities of Benjamin and they burn cities!

 

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Judges Chapter 21

- All the men of Israel swear the oath not to give their daughters to a man from Benjamin as a wife!

- All Israel comes to Bethel to cry out and weep because of the loss of Benjamin!

- And they make an oath that anyone who has not come up to God at Mizpah was to be put to death!

- They learn that the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead have not come!

- So 12,000 men are sent to kill the inhabitants, men, women and children!

- Only the 400 virgins are not to be killed!

- They tell the survivors of Benjamin to go to Shiloh because there is a festival there every year and set an ambush and get women for them!

- The men of Benjamin do it and they go back to their inheritance and rebuild their cities and settle in them!

- All the men of Israel go back to their homes!

- And the chapter ends by the words there was no king in Israel and everybody was doing what was right in his own eyes!

 

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Conclusion of the book of Judges

- Israel didn’t obey God because they made a covenant with the inhabitants of Canaan and they didn’t destroy their altars!

- As a consequence, God let the inhabitants of Canaan stay in the land to ensnare Israel to spiritual prostitution!

- God would choose men to save Israel from time to time!

- But most of the time they would commit spiritual postitution!

- And the book of judges ends saying there was no human king in Israel and everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes!

- In fact, we can say the same everywhere in the Bible!

- In the Bible, Israel was used to committing spiritual prostitution!

- And humanity has always being used to spiritual prostitution!

- Let’s say spiritual prostitution is a specialty of humanity!

 

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- What is the connection between the book of Judges and the books of Samuel?

- In Judges we get spiritual prostitution and everyone was doing what was right in his own right!

- In Samuel we are told about Samuel’s father who goes to worship and to sacrifice to God in Shiloh from year to year!

- Let’s say it is a kind of ritual!

- And Hannah prays God because she is barren and she asks God for a son she will give to God in exchange like a Nazirite!

- And God listens to her!

- We just get simple examples of faithfulness!

- And Hannah respects her vow to God!

- And when Samuel start his service for God, we are told that the word of God had become rare and his visions were not widespread!

- In fact, God seems to be away because Israel keeps committing spiritual prostitution!

- But there is still some kind of faithfulness!

- But nothing special!

- Think that the two sons of Eli are priests and they don’t care about God!

- And they act badly!

- And God doesn’t do anything!

- He lets the situation getting worse and worse!

- There is mainly a spiritual desert!

- But then he starts to speak to Samuel who is a boy!

- Think of that: no one is worthy to be honored by God!

- Except Samuel who is only a child because of his mother!

- And he tells him what is going to happen to Eli and his two sons in due time!

- But Samuel must be taught and take the lead and Israel!

- He is going to become the high priests and the judge in Israel!

- So first Samuel’s mother did the first step toward God and God the second and a lot more!

 

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- Superficiality of humanity vs Deepness of some individuals!

- And they are lights for us!

- There are two ways!

- Light vs darkness!

- We can choose which one!

- One is easy, the other is a lot more complicated because it is necessary to make efforts to understand the Bible!

- Just free will!

- An oasis among the desert!

 

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- Israel didn’t do anything to make things change!

- Eli did the same with his two sons: nothing!

- What does humanity do: nothing!

- But God acts!

- And God continues to appear to Samuel in Shiloh!

- Judges and the book of samuel same continuity!

- IN Samuel 7:2 we are told about 20 years before All Israel begins to seek after God!

- And we are only told about starting!

- You can imagine the rest by yourselves!

- Samuel 7:15-17 tells us that Samuel spent his life judging Israel in Ramah and every year he would traveled to bethel, Gilgal anMizpah!

- Chapter 8:1-3 tells us that Samuel appointed his sons as judges for Israel but they acted badly not like Eli’s sons but badly!

- As a consequence, Israel asked for a human king!

- He did according to what Samuel told him for a while!

- Gradually he chose the wrong way and God rejected him!

- And Samuel would not speak to him about God’s will anymore!

- Why should it be different?

- Man’s tradition vs God’s word!

- I like when chapter 12:22 tells us God will not abandon his people!

- No but his people will abandon him as usual!

- And the next verses speak about being swept away!

- But people usually read the beginning and not the end!

- Unfortunately the end is more important than the beginning!

 

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- In Chapter 12 Samuel warns Israel!

- They did evil but they can follow and serve God faithfully with their heart!

- But that’s free will!

- Always free will!

- And doing evil is also free will!

- In Chapter 13 Samuel reproves Saul!

- Saul’s evil is free will!

- All the time Samuel warns them but they don’t listen!

- But he keeps warning them again and again!

- No way to say we didn’t know!

- No you did it and you kept doing it!

- It is as simple as that!

- In Chapter 15 Samuel reproves Saul!

- And Saul is rejected as king!

- Is that so difficult to change?

 

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- Saul doesn’t care!

- He keeps doing according to his will!

- And Samuel anoints David!

- But like in the case of Israel and humanity, God is patient!

- And David becomes close to Saul!

- He becomes his harpist!

- David defeats Goliath!

- And Israel speaks in better terms of David compared to Saul!

- And Saul becomes jealous of David!

- And Saul tries to kill David!

- And he will try to do it many times!

- He can see that God’s spirit is with him!

- And Jonathan, Saul’s son, and David become friends!

- And Jonathan will warn David against his father!

- And he will tell him in case of danger!

- And David marries Saul’s wife!

- But Saul will keep trying to kill David!

- He won’t change his mind!

- He doesn’t care about God even if he is king because of God!

 

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- In Chapter 19, we can see how Saul’s hate for David grows and at the same time Jonathan’s love for David increases!

- And Jonathan speaks well of David to his father!

- And he brings David back to his father!

- And David keeps serving Saul!

- Till Saul tries to kill him again!

- We see all the time the same mistake from man!

- He always wants to follow the wrong track!

- Always the same stubbornness!

- I will do as I want!

- And David has to escape again to survive!

- And God pushes Saul to try to kill David!

- But as usual he can escape!

- God is preparing the end of Saul!

 

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- In Chapter 20, we are told about the difference between Jonathan and his father Saul!

- Jonathan knows God is with David!

- He knows he will become king!

- His friendship with David is more important than becoming a king!

- Jonathan keeps assuring David that he will do everything to protect him and to warn him whenever possible!

- They make a covenant between each other so that David will about Jonathan’s household if he dies because of his loyal love to David!

- Finally Jonathan tells David to flee because Saul wants to kill him!

- Here we have a good example of a father who acts badly and a son who does the contrary!

- That’s what we call free will!

 

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- In chapter 21, David asks the help of a priest Ahimelec!

- At first, Ahimelec is afraid!

- David invents a story and he asks for some bread!

- He gets holy bread reserved to the priests!

- He also gets a sword, the sword of Goliath!

- And he keeps going away from Saul!

- A servant of Saul is there!

 

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• At the end of chapter 21, David goes to the Philistines to King Aʹchish of Gath!

• And to be accepted among them he acts insane!

• Thus gradually David learns how to survive by playing tricks!

• We can imagine how useful it will be when he becomes king!

• But power corrupts!

• And you start to forget your youth!

• And you start to think you can do whatever you want!

• And you start to forget Yah·weh!

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Remember:

• If you think like today’s people, you will never understand the Bible!
• They used to write differently!
• They used to speak differently!
• They used to think differently!
• They used to act differently!

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• In Chapter 22, we see David who keeps following Yah.weh!
• He goes where he is told to go by Yah.weh’s prophet!
• On the contrary, Saul does according to his own will!
• He keeps going away from Yah.weh!
• When he is told about Ahimelec, he wants him and all the priests of his father’s house to be brought to him!
• And he accused him of conspiracy!
• He doesn’t care about what Ahimelec says!
• And Saul tells his guards to kill Ahimelec and all the priests of Yah.weh!
• He opposes Yah.weh, he fights Yah.weh!
• And he thinks he won’t have a very bad end!
• This attitude is so usual!
• And then people are surprised when they have a very bad end!
• How blind!
• But so was Israel!
• And Judah !
• And mankind!
• And as if it was not enough, he strikes Nob the city of the priests and destroys everything!
• Men, women, children, infants and animals!
• But he will pay for that and his sons too!
• Yah.weh’s justice!
• And Yah.weh’s day won’t be different!
• Yah.weh’s justice!
• It won’t be any surprise even if for the majority it will be a surprise!
• But it is written everywhere in the Bible!
• Always the same warning!
• And they don’t listen!

 

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• In Chapter 22, after the murders of the priests, one son of Ahimelec can escape and goes to David!
• And David tells him that he will be under his protection!
• David adds he is responsible for the murders because he saw Doeg and he knew he was going to tell Saul!
• Thus David assumes his responsibilities!
• He is a man of honor!
• But he will become king!
• And gradually he will lose this quality!
• It is something difficult to get!
• But when you get power, it is also easy to lose!
• It is like accurate knowledge!
• It is hard to get it!
• You need to study the Bible a lot!
• Because the Bible is multidimensional!
• But it is difficult to understand that!
• People usually prefer to stay at the surface!

 

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• In Chapter 23, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah!
• So David asks Yah.weh if he must fight against them!
• And Yah.weh tells him to go!
• But his men are afraid!
• So David asks Yah.weh a second time!
• And Yah.weh tells him to go!
• There we can see that David tries his best to follow Yah.weh’s will!
• He does not do it according to his own will!
• But when he becomes king, gradually he will start to act according to his own will and not according to Yah.weh’s will!
• And then he will get into big trouble!
• We must not forget the example of David!

 

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__________________________________________________________________________

Remember:

• If you think like today’s people, you will never understand the Bible!
• They used to write differently!
• They used to speak differently!
• They used to think differently!
• They used to act differently!

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Remember:

Biblical Hebrew has a very small number of words, about 8,000, and around 1,700 of those words are hapax legomena (being said once) in the Hebrew Bible. Modern Hebrew has about 100,000 words. For comparison modern English has over 450,000 words, and Spanish has just over 175,000 words. Standard English dictionaries typically have about 200,000 words, whereas Spanish dictionaries have about 80,000 words.

This means words often have multiple meanings determined by context.

Although yom is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word yom can be used in different ways to refer to different time spans:

• Point of time (a specific day)
• time period of a whole or half a day:
  • Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness),
  • Sunrise to sunset
  • Sunset to next sunset
• General term for time ( as in 'days of our lives')
• A year "lived a lot of days"
• Time period of unspecified length. "days and days"

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The Greek language is ranked as the richest in the world with 5 million words and 70 million word types. According to Dr. MacDonald, only 600,000 Greek words are used today, making the Greek vocabulary the largest in the world and 3.5 times bigger than the English vocabulary.

Though there are 138,607 words in the Greek New Testament, only 5,394 are unique.

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• In Chapter 23, Saul knows that David is in Keilah!
• And he thinks that Yah.weh has handed him over to him because he has trapped himself in the city!
• How is it possible to think that way?
• Yah.weh has rejected him!
• David has always escaped his attempts to kill him!
• People always make a film in their heads!
• But if you don’t make Yah.weh’s will, you can forget it!
• Same with mankind!
• On the contrary, David asks Yah.weh what the leaders of Keilah will do and if Saul will come against him!
• And Yah.weh tells him what’s going to happen!
• So David leaves the city with his men and escapes!
• Finally, Saul hears about David's escape so he doesn’t come against him!
• Two completely different attitudes!
• We should remember this episode!

 

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__________________________________________________________________________

Remember:

• If you think like today’s people, you will never understand the Bible!
• They used to write differently!
• They used to speak differently!
• They used to think differently!
• They used to act differently!

__________________________________________________________________________

Remember:

Biblical Hebrew has a very small number of words, about 8,000, and around 1,700 of those words are hapax legomena (being said once) in the Hebrew Bible. Modern Hebrew has about 100,000 words. For comparison modern English has over 450,000 words, and Spanish has just over 175,000 words. Standard English dictionaries typically have about 200,000 words, whereas Spanish dictionaries have about 80,000 words.

This means words often have multiple meanings determined by context.

Although yom is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word yom can be used in different ways to refer to different time spans:

• Point of time (a specific day)
• time period of a whole or half a day:
  • Period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness),
  • Sunrise to sunset
  • Sunset to next sunset
• General term for time ( as in 'days of our lives')
• A year "lived a lot of days"
• Time period of unspecified length. "days and days"

__________________________________________________________________________

The Greek language is ranked as the richest in the world with 5 million words and 70 million word types. According to Dr. MacDonald, only 600,000 Greek words are used today, making the Greek vocabulary the largest in the world and 3.5 times bigger than the English vocabulary.

Though there are 138,607 words in the Greek New Testament, only 5,394 are unique.

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