Redeemed, Not Redacted
Redeemed, Not Redacted
Judges 19:30
And all who saw it said, “Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak.”
Had the inspired scribe who wrote Judges 19 left verses 1-29 blank, or had the scroll been blacked out by a latter monk in the way a government classified document gets redacted by FBI agents, we’d still surmise from the stunned reaction of these people in verse 30 that the empty space on the parchment, or the black wall of permanent ink covering the script is not as cavernous and dark as the events concealed beneath.
These people are correct in their shared historical memories, aren’t they? And that’s saying something, too, because there have been a catalog of dark deeds blotting the pages of Israel’s progression toward the Promised Land. Chapters stained by priests sculpting golden calves and godless mobs attempting to stone God’s anointed leaders and judges constructing ephods and fornicating with enemy prostitutes; yet these seem like muddy marsh puddles compared to this stinking cesspool of iniquity. We’ve read through Exodus together, and Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and Joshua, and we, too, can attest as witnesses to what these shellshocked Israelites proclaim: such a thing has never happened before. Which is precisely why our response should be the same as theirs. We, too, in order to move forward, must consider in all somberness what to take from it.
One thing’s for sure: this detestable crime should end any lingering notion in any Jewish person’s mind that God chose Israel on the basis of their purity. This should forever silence that better-than-thou spirit some of Abraham’s descendants still hold over their pagan neighbors. The blood crying out from the ground of their hometown should be a wake-up call—a pivotal moment where Levites trade their metal idols for sackcloth and ash, where would-be judges make Nazirite vows from the heart and not just the head, and where all people, young and old, rich and poor, rend their superiority complex and come as beggars before God.
Friend, we don’t need a Pauline Epistle to reveal our inner wretchedness and utter need for grace. We’ve got enough blacked-out pages from our own family histories to tell the story a thousand times over. Oh, but thanks be to our Lord for painting those pages red!