Judges vs. Kings

As I reflect on this year's election season, I don't like my choices. The criteria normally use to pick has been flipped on its head. I have picked though, and I picked according to my conscience, and I hope God guides you the same.

On days when I get confused in this type of way, I look into the bible to see how God had it planned out. The bible records several government methods, judges, kings, conquerors, dictators, and more. But then I started digging deeper into about how some of these came to be.

Looking at Genesis, God's plan involved raising up folks who feared him (judges) to lead the people. He found these people when they were needed. For example, when God heard the people cry out for help in Exodus, He empowered someone to fit the need, Moses, and then Joshua. Before these two, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, could be defined as judges as well.

Most of the explicit judges are found in the book of Judges. As you know Samuel was the last official judge, whom God empowered to anoint the kings that the people had requested.

The Israelites began asking for a king years before, back when Gideon was judge. Gideon wisely turned them down. But the Israelites kept asking God for kings. Again, I dug a little deeper to figure out what was going on here.

With God's chosen judges:

• You never knew where the judges would come from. They had different qualities.
• They came from different tribes and regions. For example:
  • Levi
  • Judah
  • Benjamin
  • Ephraim
  • Naphtali
  • Manasseh
  • Issachar
  • Gilead (Manasseh)
  • Zebulun
• They had different backgrounds
  • The mantle was passed based on the needs of the situation
  • God was able to showcase underrepresented members of society
    • Left handed
    • Women
    • Illegitimate children
• Because the power was local, I think there is some evidence that each individual felt more personal responsibility for their actions
• With the judge model, when someone sees a need, they are empowered to respond to God's prompting to rise up and act

Alas, after a while with this uncertain method, the people wanted a king and a known succession plan. I guess they felt insecure with God's choices. They didn't like not knowing where the next leader would come from. They wanted to be like everybody else.

With the Kings:

• God chose the first one (seed)
• First, God chose the person who the people thought looked like a king (Saul was really tall, and handsome)
• Saul's conversion didn’t stick, and God decided to choose someone else, this time based on what God values. He chose a lonely, artsy teenager who was ridiculed by his older brothers and knew suffering.
• With the king succession, the responsibility for raising up the next set of leaders is on the king's shoulders, so the people know what to expect (or so they think)
• The kings exploited the people, because they are guaranteed power
• The people felt they could off load some of their self-responsibility to these new empowered royal family
• The people expect someone else to do whatever needs to be done. The can say "Save us!" and "It's all your fault!" instead of taking personal responsibility.
• There was a planned succession… ish... Not all of the kings followed the rules, and sometimes they were killed inconveniently
• The people had a false sense of security with this, they thought they could see the future, or at least who will be in charge.

Obviously, there were great kings. But there were some really rotten ones too. I have a spreadsheet that I will put up in a future post regarding them.

But who are the Judges? Most of this was pulled / interpreted from Judges, but also Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, and 1 Samuel.

Judge	Clarification	Qualities	Spirit of the Lord	From	Reign
Abraham		Faithful. Made lots of mistakes
Isaac		Meditated
Jacob		Wrestled with God
Moses		Educated, not a good speaker		Levi
Joshua		Brave, dedicated		Judah
Othniel		Spirit of the Lord came on him. POWERFUL	Came on him in power	Judah	40 years
Ehud		Left handed, trumpet player		Benjamin	80 years
Shamgar		Killed with an oxgoad, may be contemporary with Deborah? See Judges 5:6			Reign
Deborah		Woman, prophet, song writer		Ephraim	40 years
Barak	Sub-Judge	Took guidance / inspiration from a woman		Naphtali	Reign
Gideon		Sneaky. Good at hiding things. Least. Trumpet player, fleece tester, scout. Grudge holder, punisher, high expectations of kids, declined kingship. Polygamist	Came on him	Manasseh	40 years
Abimelek	Anti-Judge	Mass Murderer		Manasseh	3 years
Tola		Qualities		Issachar	23 years
Jair		Qualities		Gilead / Manasseh	22 years
Jephthah		Bastard child, warrior, historian, rash commitment maker, child sacrificer, Shibboleth/Sibboleth	Came on him	Gilead / Manasseh	6 years
Ibzan		60 kids?!?! Sent his daughters away?		Benjamin	7 years
Elon		Qualities		Zebulun	10 years
Abdon		40 sons, 30 grandsons		Ephraim	8 years
Samson		Strong, riddler, womanizer, cruel to animals, guerilla warfare, berzerker	Came on him powerfully	Dan	20 years
Samuel	Last Judge	Never let God's word fall		Ephraim

I believe God prefers to work through people. Even when there were Kings, God would raise up people who were faithful to him as prophets, but He allowed the Israelites to tie his hands and gave them what they asked for.

Translated to our system, we get to choose between a couple of folks who think they are judges, and the people get to elect one to the kingship for a few years. Because our hearts are hard, we get into all sorts of trouble, as has been happening since the garden.

I hope God won't give us what we deserve in this next election, but that God will set our hearts to choose wisely, and grant the chosen person the grace needed to overcome their own personal demons. I wouldn't want to see the spirit of Hitler in control of our country, that won't work out well for anyone.