Shadows of Doubt
Judges 2:10b-11 &14-15
And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. … So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers. … And they were in terrible distress.
Remember the analogies we discussed a few days ago regarding a flooded crawlspace and a splintered table in reference to Israel’s failure to drive out all the pagan inhabitants of the land? Well, this is the consequence of that earlier compromise. Maybe it’s been a slow dripping underground and a slow splintering of the wood. Maybe a hundred years have gone by since Joshua’s generation walked this land as giants. Maybe it started out small—like going to the Canaanite ballgames on Saturdays instead of the Tabernacle, or exchanging a few ceremonial feasts for school birthday parties, or setting aside the Torah and taking courses on Canaanite mythology, or offering a little incense on the school altar before class, or throwing out the kosher menu for new cuisine, or getting lax with sexual purity and allowing a little youthful promiscuity into the mix. Nothing big. No sudden, monumental shifts. Just a little drip-drip here and a drip-drip there. A little splintering under the table that goes undetected. Day after day, week after week, year after year, till the house once again is covered in black mold and the table is gashed from top to bottom.
Notice that the transitional phrase here, “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD,” mirrors almost exactly Moses’ statement at the beginning of Exodus regarding Pharaoh. I think that’s a providential nudge that we’re entering the Second Act of Israel’s history. The people of Israel are once again enslaved to sin, once again blurring their unique identities and divine vocations by assimilated idolatry, and the question at this juncture is the same as before: what will God do now? Will He raise up another Moses to clean up the mold and restore the table to its former glory?
Friend, as dark and gloomy as chapters like these are to read, let’s take consolation in the fact that even the deepest, darkest of shadows point back to the Sunrise in the end.