When Everyone Does What is Right in Their Own Eyes - Judges 1:1-22 Explained (Session 1)

The Book of Judges begins after the death of Joshua and covers the period between Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land and the rise of the kings. Joshua was largely a story of faith, victory, and obedience. Judges presents a much darker picture of unbelief, defeat, oppression, and repeated spiritual decline.

In this opening session, we introduce the historical setting of Judges and examine the verse that summarizes the book: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). When people reject God’s standard and become their own authority, confusion and moral disorder soon follow.

We also examine the recurring cycle that shapes Judges. Israel enjoys God’s blessing, turns to idols, falls under enemy oppression, cries out in distress, and receives deliverance through a judge whom God raises up. After a period of peace, however, the nation repeats the same pattern.

Judges 1 begins positively when Israel inquires of the Lord. Yet the chapter soon reveals the first small compromises. Judah asks Simeon to accompany them even though God had identified Judah to go first. Israel later adopts the cruel practices of Adoni-bezek, fails to complete God’s commands, and eventually accepts defeat before iron chariots without seeking the Lord for an answer.

The problem was not that iron chariots were too powerful for God. Israel had already seen Him defeat Egypt, part the Red Sea, bring down Jericho, and conquer numerous fortified cities. The deeper problem was that the people were beginning to rely on themselves rather than inquire of God.

This study also considers the historical reliability of Judges, the role of the judges as deliverers, Caleb’s continued faithfulness, and Achsah’s wise request for springs of water.

Join us as we begin a verse-by-verse study through one of the darkest yet most relevant books of the Old Testament.

Scripture: Judges 1:1–22
Series: The Book of Judges — An RTTB Study

  Questions from this session:

• Why does Israel have trouble driving out the Canaanites?
• Was Israel supposed to make deals with the people of Canaan?
•  What happens when we do not go to God at the first sign of trouble?  

Transcript

The Book of Judges

Speaker 2 0:21

Welcome once again to Reasoning Through the Bible . This is Glenn and Steve , your hosts as we go through the Bible . We're starting a new book today . We're starting the book of Judges , and this comes right after Joshua , and hopefully you've listened to that series . If you haven't , we encourage you to go listen to that series on Joshua , because it leads right into this book of Judges . So , again , welcome , and we invite you to join us today as we start this study series of Judges . So , glenn , you want to start us off .

Speaker 1 0:52

So some picture I think is needed before we jump right in with both feet to the text of Judges . To set a context here for where Judges fit in the sequence of the Bible . Book of Judges of course sits right after the events at the end of Joshua . If you read the end of Joshua in the beginning of Judges they flow from one to the other and the Bible is basically in chronological sequence all the way from the beginning in Genesis , through all of the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy , through Joshua and into Judges . So you have basically one flow of a sequential story , even into the next book , ruth , to a certain extent Later in the Old Testament it does not get chronological . In the books of Kings and Chronicles , for example , cover some of the same ground in those two books and then later in the prophets . Those are not in sequential order necessarily . They're organized in a different way . So Judges fits into this sequence .

Speaker 1 1:52

The beginning of Judges . We have the death of Joshua , which is also recorded at the end of Joshua . Judges covers a period from Joshua's death to the time of the Kings . That's the gap that it's covering here in the book of Judges , roughly about 300 years , and it ends roughly around 1000 BC and the content and the message of Judges is the opposite of what we saw in Joshua . In Joshua we saw a lot of victories , we saw a lot of faith . We saw Israel believing God and having victory against their enemies and driving out the Canaanites . And we have the opposite of that in Judges . In Judges we have a lot of unbelief , we have a lot of defeat , we have a lot of servitude an example of what happens when they disbelieve God .

Speaker 2 2:41

And Glenn , you also bring up that this is happening right before the time of the Kings . Overall , what's going on ? We see the period of God working with Abraham and working through his family , with Isaac and Jacob , and then we see God working through individual people Moses bringing them out of Egypt , then Joshua taking them into the land , and now this period he's dealing with the individual Judges that he's raising up and will get into the cycle that causes God to have the Judges and then it moves from there into the Kings . So we're seeing a progression as we go through here in regards to God dealing with man and how he is working with man and working with the nation as well .

Speaker 1 3:25

Honestly , getting into the book of Judges . There's some parts of this that if I had a choice I'd probably not teach . There's some ugly stuff here in Judges . We almost feel like after you teach it you want to go take a shower . It's just really some gross things that happen in this book . If you're just reading it for the first time , you almost think what in the world is going on here . But what ends up tying it together and where it becomes meaningful and what's going on is the very last verse in the entire book . The last verse in the book of Judges is chapter 21 , verse 25 . And it says in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes . Everyone did what was right in his own eyes . What happens when everyone does what's right in their own eyes ?

Speaker 2 4:16

Your standard is what you think is right . Your standard is not going based off of what God says is right , as everyone has what's right in their own eyes . You also end up with a lot of different standards rather than one standard .

Speaker 1 4:32

Because nobody has a compass , nobody has a true north , nobody has a way of determining what's right . It's everybody doing what's right in their own eyes and it repeats this theme in different books of the Bible . It twice . In Proverbs it says the same thing there is a way that seems right to a man but in its end is the way of death . It says that in Proverbs 14 and again in Proverbs 16 . It also says in Proverbs the way of a fool is right in his own eyes . In Proverbs , chapter 12 . So bluntly , if we want to be a fool , then we trust our inner guide . If we want to be wise , trust the Bible .

Speaker 1 5:10

Every now and then you'll hear people in different teachings say oh , look inside , look to your own guide , look to your own conscience . And the Bible teaches just the opposite . The Bible teaches that if we look inside of us , what we see is a lot of ugliness . The Bible says the human heart is desperately wicked . Who can know it ? What we really need is a true guide . We need to look to the Lord for guidance or else you end up like in the book of Judges everyone doing what's right in their own eyes .

Speaker 2 5:41

And Glenn the fact that there are all of these salacious things that we're gonna go through and speak of here and work through shows the veracity of the scripture , Because if you're writing a history of your own nation , you don't put all the bad stuff in it . The Egyptians , for instance , whenever they wrote their history , interpret the hieroglyphics . All the battles that they have in their hieroglyphics are of the Egyptians winning . They don't have any of the battles of where they lost . The fact that these things are here that we're gonna talk about and that are written talks about the true nature of scripture and how it is that we can trust it .

Speaker 1 6:27

In the book of Judges we've got every type of sin basically known to man . There's a religious evil , there's sexual evil , there's ethics problems , there's political evils , personal evils , family evils . Matthew Henry , one of the commentators of the old days the phrase he used was that Israel was wretchedly corrupted . And it's true . This book presents what happens when we lose sight of a holy God that gives us a standard for life and we follow our own path you mentioned a while ago . There's a pattern that falls throughout this book and it's really presented here , and it's not just our opinion , because it tells us the pattern , but it's the cycle repeats several times in Judges and throughout the rest of the Old Testament , and the cycle is very straightforward Israel is enjoying God's blessing , but during that time they abandon God and worship idols .

Speaker 1 7:19

They walk away from God and worship idols and because of that God allows the enemies to come in and oppress them . The pain of the enemies coming in and oppressing them causes Israel to repent and turn toward God and throw out their idols , and at that point God raises up a deliverer who comes in and pushes the enemies out and gets rid of the idols , and at that point they enjoy God's blessings again , and then the cycle repeats . So the cycle repeats at least six or seven times in the book of Judges . They're a period where they're enjoying God , but they fall off of the straight path and they follow these horrible idols and then , because of the pain of that , they cry out repentance to God , and God raises up a deliverer .

Speaker 2 8:04

So as we see this cycle and we study it in regards to the nation of Israel , we also start to see that it's a reflection of us as individuals and how we can also have that type of a cycle that we go through with God and how he can also come and deliver us out of that cycle . But yet sometimes we just turn right back again and go back to something that we were doing and it's against God . So there's learnings on the individual basis as we go through here , related to this cycle that we see from Israel .

Speaker 1 8:37

Right , real easy to point our fingers at Israel from a long time ago , but reality , as you just said , is our own lives experience the same thing . So , it's a lesson for all of us . Thank you .

The Book of Judges

Speaker 1 8:47

In the book of Judges , when it calls a judge , it's not really a judge in the sense of what we use the word judge today . They're not deciding between two parties that have a complaint against each other . It's really a deliverer , a conqueror , it's somebody that has raised up as a leader that will help drive out the enemies .

Speaker 1 9:07

And there's at least 12 men and one woman who are in this book where they talk about some of them . They spend a lot more time than others . A little bit about dating the book , just really quick , and when we were doing Joshua we talked about this for some degree . But it's good to know the context of approximately when it was written and the reason why we bring this up , just for to inform our listeners . There is some people that date these books way , way late during the period of the Babylonian captivity , hundreds of years later , far removed from the land of Israel . The claim is that it was written as mainly a religious text to try to hold together a religion that they had brought with them from Israel , and some people even go as far as to say these people never existed . It was just a fictional religious text that was created in another land at another time to hold the Jewish religion together . What we're trying to point out is that the text doesn't support that the original claims the scholars came up with those claims of it being way late under Babylonian captivity . There's really not a lot of evidence for that and there's certainly not a consensus amongst the scholars on when these things happen , but what we can tell from the text , and that's what's important here . For example , it says in chapter 21 , verse 25 , in those days there was no king in Israel . So it implies the time of the kings . It implies this was written during the time of the kings of Israel . Also in chapter 1 , verse 21, . It has a very key verse .

Speaker 1 10:44

Judges 121 says the Jebusites , which were one of the Canaanite tribes . The Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day . Now this is key because it has a Canaanite people along with Benjamin , who's one of the tribes of Israel , being in Jerusalem at the time of the writing of the Book of Judges , and this tells us that the Babylonians had not come in and driven everyone out because those two tribes were still there . So either it's true what it says is that the Jebusites and the people of Israel are still in Jerusalem at the time of this writing or it's a fictional account and the whole things a lie .

Speaker 1 11:29

It's just a fictional religious story . You can't have it half inspired and half true , because the writer of the Book of Judges claims that these people were still there in the land at the time . Now we know if we just follow the history through 2 Samuel , chapter 5 , king David comes in and drives the Jebusites out of Jerusalem . So we can then have a window of time , maybe not down to the year , but it's in between the time of Joshua and the early part of the Kings , which is David was the second King , so sometime around the time of David they compiled this Book of Judges in all likelihood , and it was probably written from the accounts that were already there . Again , the book is past tense , so it was written after these events , but it was accurate history recorded from the land and we can trust our Bibles .

Speaker 2 12:24

Also , archaeological finds here in the recent years also attest to some of this .

Speaker 2 12:29

There were letters that were found that were written from Canaanite cities that match the ones that talk about that the Israelites had not taken over Ashkelon , as one of them , for instance , and those were under the control or under the guidance of the Egyptians . And they have these letters that are not letters like we have in Papyrus , they're on clay tablets that were baked . But they see this and they found this , a city in Egypt and there's like hundreds of these tablets that they've seen , and among these tablets it mentions that the people of the Habiru's are marauding and attacking us from the hill country and that they're asking for help , for the Egyptians to come in and help them . Habiru sounds a lot like Hebrew , we see that and it matches where it says that some of the Israelites that were in the hill country they couldn't take over the lowlands because they couldn't take them back from the Philistines . There were certain cities that they couldn't take . Archaeological evidence also dates this as to the happenings that were going on at the time .

Speaker 1 13:31

So that's all I have for an intro . Any other intro things before we just jump right in .

Speaker 2 13:36

No , I think go back to our last session on Joshua Joshua 24 , where we go through where they recommitted themselves to the covenant of God . That kind of sets it up as well . They've made this commitment going forward . We're going to see as we start getting into this that that commitment didn't last very long .

Speaker 1 13:54

So , judges , chapter one starts off chapter one , verse one , and I'll just read that Now . It came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord saying who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites , to fight against them ? So right here , at the beginning of the book , it just says after the deaths of Joshua . So it tells us that . But what are they doing right here ? What is their question and who are they asking the question to ?

Speaker 2 14:20

Well , they're going up in there inquiring of the Lord , which is a good thing .

Speaker 1 14:24

This is a good thing and we should learn from this , because throughout the book they stop asking , and right here at the beginning , right about the time of the death of Joshua , they're still inquiring of the Lord . But as we go on , you're not going to see that phrase anymore . You're not going to see in here many times where they go in and ask of the Lord , at least not in this sense . Usually when they're asking of the Lord it's begging for mercy because of the pain they're in . They're not asking the Lord in advance . What shall I do ? They're still right at the beginning of the book , still following God , inquiring of the Lord , and they're asking who shall go up first against the Canaanites to fight against them ? Who does God say should go up against them ?

Speaker 2 15:03

Judah or the tribe of Judah . So he shall go up because what God has given the land to him . Literally , it says I have given the land into his hand , I being God past tense .

Speaker 1 15:17

So from God's perspective it's a done deal I have given

Disobedience in Judges 1

Speaker 1 15:21

. And then in verse three , what does Judah ?

Speaker 2 15:23

do ? He gathers Simeon , his brother , together , says come up with me into the territory allotted me that we may fight against the Canaanites , and I , in turn , will go with you into your territory allotted to you . So Simeon went with him .

Speaker 1 15:40

So when it says Judah and Simeon , these are tribes , these aren't just one person , these are tribes of people . So in verse two , who did God say should go Judah ? And in verse three , what does Judah do ?

Speaker 2 15:53

Hey , let me go get Simeon to come with me .

Speaker 1 15:56

So God didn't say Simeon can't go . So we could play lawyer here and say , okay . Well , he didn't say I couldn't go as Simeon . What did God say ? Judah should go . They're not directly violating God's law yet , but it's the first little deviation and it's already here in verse three .

Speaker 2 16:20

And I want to bring out this also shows the natural tendencies of people to incorporate other friends or other relatives . Abraham did the same thing . When God spoke to Abram and said I'm going to take you into a land that you haven't gone to before , we see , when Abram actually starts to go , who does he bring with him ? Lot , his nephew . God didn't include Lot in the journey , but Abraham did , and then we see the story as it unfolds . So we're also starting to see , as we study scripture , that it's a reflection of the human spirit and the human psyche in relation to how they want to think and kind of get some into those areas where we're well again we'll talk about . Everyone does right in his own eyes . A little bit of deviation , as you mentioned , starts now From a human standpoint .

Speaker 1 17:15

Cooperation's good . I'll help you , you helped me . Nothing wrong with that . It's just that they had just asked the Lord and he said Judah ought to go . Just a slight deviation from what God said . But it's slight deviation , over time is going to turn into a big distance . So in verse four they went up . And how many people does it say ? At the end of verse four , they defeated 10,000 men , 10,000 . Judah and Simeon go up against the Canaanites and they win . Now that should have given them confidence that , oh , we can trust the Lord , because now the Lord's defeating our enemies .

Speaker 2 17:50

Right . And to point out there it says and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Parasites into their hands . So it's still God Yahweh , going before them and giving them their enemies .

Speaker 1 18:01

Now in verse five it talks about this king , adonai Bezek , and they fought against him and defeated his army . But the king in verse six fled and they ran and caught him . And in verse six , what did they do to this king ?

Speaker 2 18:18

Cut off his thumbs and his big toes .

Speaker 1 18:20

Okay . So first of the kind of gross things that happened , now , what were they supposed to do ? According to God's commands back in Joshua and in Deuteronomy ? They were supposed to annihilate him . Supposed to annihilate him , supposed to defeat all of them . So here , they didn't kill him , they left him . And not only did they not kill him , they humiliated this man . Cut off your thumbs and your big toes . You can't really walk right , you certainly can't use your hands , you can't work , you can't grasp a sword , can't grasp a sword . So they basically humiliated this man to the point where now he's hanging around humiliated , and he ends up saying in verse seven what does he say ?

Speaker 2 19:06

He says 70 kings , with their thumbs and their big toes cut off , used to gather up scraps under my table , as I have done , so God has repaid me . So they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there .

Speaker 1 19:19

From a human standpoint . The phrase that comes to my mind is what goes around comes around .

Speaker 2 19:25

What this guy did to a lot of other people got done to him , and it shows the Israelites , in some cases they're adopting the tactics of their enemy rather than annihilating them and doing what God said to do .

Speaker 1 19:38

This is a direct violation of what God said , which was to annihilate them . Instead of leaving this man around to , I presume , people laughed at him , poked fun at him , looked at him down in derision At a very minimal . This man was there when he shouldn't have been and they're adopting these practices that were done by the Canaanites . So we're already seeing some disobedience . Now , if you look down at verse 11 , judah fights against De Beir , which was a city of social and cultural influence , and in verses 12 and 13 , caleb promises his daughter to the man who captures the city , and his nephew captures it and won the right to marry the daughter . That happened here in chapter one . Caleb's nephew has won the right to marry this daughter . Read verses 14 and 15 , we'll learn about this daughter .

Speaker 2 20:34

Yeah , and his nephew's son was Othniel , so 14 says . Then it came about when she came to him that she persuaded him to ask her father for a field . Then she alighted from her donkey and Caleb said to her what do you want ? And she said to him give me a blessing . Since you have given me the land of the Negev , give me also springs of water . So Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs .

Speaker 1 21:01

Now that little two verse passage tells us several things . First of all , the Bible has a very high respect of women . It has a very high respectful view of women . This particular woman , she rides up on an animal , which means she was enough of a social stature . She wasn't walking , she has an animal to ride on , she was involved in the family business . She speaks in first terms give me a blessing and she asked for these springs .

Speaker 2 21:30

And that her dad had given her a field .

Speaker 1 21:34

Yes . So if you're in the agriculture business without water , you're in a bad spot . So she's asking for water is what she's basically asking for to make the business run better . She had enough fortitude to go up to the leader and ask for what she needed for her business . Caleb the leader honored her request . I find this very interesting . Here we have a very forward woman , a very strong woman , a woman that's involved in business . She seems to be an equal part of the family here . She was respected .

Speaker 1 22:10

Bible does not look down on women . I find this interesting . We're also going to meet Deborah here in a little while . I just find it interesting that all throughout the Bible we have this very high view of women . There's one role over in the New Testament that Paul commands that restricts a woman and because of that people take that and have a great deal of issue around it . But the Bible as a whole has a very high view of women .

Speaker 1 22:35

Now the last half of chapter one has a great deal of geographical detail , movements of specific people , and it goes into a lot of detail that I don't think is profitable to just read here . But what we can learn from this is that myths and parables don't include specific geographic details that can be verified by secular history . And let me just reach down in here and read one verse . Judges , chapter one , verse 16 says this the descendants of the Kenite Moses' father-in-law went up from the city of Palms with the sons of Judah to the wilderness of Judah , which is in the south of Erad , and they went and lived with the people . So one of my questions is why is this here If this was just purely a religious text that was written for nothing more than some church or synagogue or some religious institution ?

Speaker 2 23:36

Or to simply bolster Israel's claim to the land .

Speaker 1 23:41

simply , I can think of no religious reason for Judges 116 to be there . I can think of none . I looked in my commentaries and I've studied this , other than to simply record history . This was a fact that happened with real people at a real place and a real time . It's accurately recording history . Those are just facts . These aren't opinions . These aren't religious ceremonies . It's talking here . So the reason I bring that up is because there's a great deal of historical fact and geographical truth here . Therefore , when these things are true , then later , when they say here's what the Lord says , and makes claims that are of religious or spiritual nature , we can believe those .

Speaker 2 24:28

A second thing that it does show , though , is that Moses in-law , his father , passed it down in his belief in Moses and who Moses was and the God that Moses worshipped . They had left their area , which was down in Midian , where they were with Moses , and they're now up here with the descendants of Israel who came out of Egypt . It also gives credence to they acknowledged that what happened is something that was great and that the God that was there . It doesn't say specifically they were worshiping God , but they had followed Moses and the people of Moses up there .

Speaker 1 25:05

Now look at verse 19 . It says the Lord was with Judah and they took possession of the hill country , but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots . Okay now , steve , let's remember what has God done for Israel up to this point in the Bible ?

Speaker 2 25:24

Well , just the few verses before , which might be a period of years , but few verses before . He says I have given the land to you , talking about Jesus . And then he went before Judah and Simeon to drive out the parasites that were there as well . So here it is , he's been with them before .

Speaker 1 25:44

He's been with them before many times . Back in the book of Exodus , ten plagues on Egypt . Egypt was the most powerful nation in the world at that time . He defeats Egypt , parts the Red Sea , defeats Pharaoh's army , takes them miraculously through the wilderness for 40 years tore down the walls of Jericho , which was a very strong fortress .

Speaker 2 26:07

We went through that in our study .

Speaker 1 26:09

And not only Jericho , but there was dozens . There were long lists of cities that God had helped them conquer , when it talks about in the book of Joshua . So all of a sudden here , I guess God just can't deal with Iron Chariots , is that what happened ?

Speaker 2 26:27

No , it is a picture , though , of the peaks and valleys in one's life and the things that God comes and works in their life , and they acknowledge God working in their life , they get down and they don't think that God can continue to work in their life . It shows kind of the same thing , related here to the Israelites . So why ?

Speaker 1 26:48

was it that he couldn't defeat these people that had Iron Chariots ? Well , because of the Iron Chariots . God's not powerful enough to defeat Iron Chariots . No , no . What was the reason ?

Speaker 2 26:58

Well , they had gone to him previously and asked him who is it to go up against ? It gives you the essence of they're not longer going to him and asking him to go before them . They're kind of doing things on their own power , through their own power . No , they can't defeat the Iron Chariots .

Speaker 1 27:16

Like , say , the first verse of this book they're still inquiring of God . Is there any indication here on this defeat with these people with the Iron Chariots ? Is there any indication they went to God and asked for what happened .

Speaker 2 27:28

No , you get the indication of hey , we're on a roll here and now . All of a sudden , we can't do this .

Speaker 1 27:35

Back in the book of Joshua . Joshua comes into the land and has victory at Jericho , but then , little AI , he's defeated . What did Joshua then do at that first defeat ? He spent the entire day on his face before God , fasting and praying , saying God why ? And God told them why and told them how to correct it . There's sin in the camp . There's sin in the camp . When they submit themselves before God , then God will give them answers and bless them . And here there's no indication that they went to God and asked for any kind of guidance or prayer . They just accept the defeat and don't go to God and move on . It's showing the depths of how bad they get .

Caleb's Victories and Israel's Failures

Speaker 1 28:20

So then , in verse 20 , caleb defeats the sons of Anak , who were the descendants of the giants that Israel was so afraid of . So now we have this mixed defeats and mixed failures . But as time goes on , the people like Caleb who are faithful are going to be fewer and fewer , and it's going to get uglier and uglier as we get into this book . So that's probably a good place to wrap up for right now . Next time we'll get into the last half of Judges . We'll start at verse chapter one , verse 23 , and we'll learn how Israel makes deals with the people in the country . So that's it for today on reasoning through the Bible . Thank you ,