When I first read these
passages my first thought was how much fighting there was in these
chapters. It would so nice if everyone would just get along and follow
God’s commands. Needless to say there were a few things that stood out
for me from these 2 passages.
At the beginning of Chapter 8
I couldn’t understand at first why the Ephraimites and the the officials of
Succoth refused to give Gideon and his army food? I read in a commentary
that these leaders felt left out because they Gideon did not ask them to join
the battle but they were left “to clean up the escaping Midianites (the
gleanings)”. Gideon explained to them they were the ones who captured the
enemy’s generals and that that this couldn’t be compared to anything Gideon had
done. Many times the “behind the scenes” jobs are often thought of as the
less desirable because a lot of times these people are often forgotten or feel
unappreciated. Most of these jobs that no one necessarily sees are
extremely important. I need to remember this lesson in my own life when I
feel like a job that I might be doing seems unimportant.
It was disappointing to me
when I read in Chapter 8:30-31 that even though Gideon had many wives he also
had a concubine. With his concubine he had a son Abimelech. In my
Life Application Bible it stated “Gideon’s story illustrates the fact that
heroes in battle are not always heroes in daily life. Gideon led the
nation but could not lead his family”. As can be seen in Chapter 9 there
were a lot of family problems that happened because of this relationship.
The most shocking for me was when Abimelech had his 69 brothers murdered as he
wanted to become King. Abimlelech’s goal was to have power and this
unfortunately controlled and unfortunately as a result there was a lot of
bloodshed and the only way this bloodshed could be stopped is with his death.
1 comment:
Definitely a lot of fighting and bloodshed in this passage!
One thing that surprised me was that there was no immediate action of judgement when Jotham uttered his curses. Jotham had to wait 3 whole years before he was vindicated by their deaths. 3 years?! A reminder that God works on His timetable not mine.
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