Chapter Four - Joshua & Judges

CHAPTER FOUR

Joshua & Judges

WE LEFT OFF with Moses dead.
Now it’s Joshua’s turn to lead.

God gives him the ultimate pep talk:

“Be strong and courageous.”
“Do not be afraid.”
“I will be with you wherever you go.”

And then tells him to conquer Canaan, the land promised to Abraham.
Problem is, people already live there.

That doesn’t matter.

God makes it clear:
This is a holy war.
And everything that breathes must die.

Jericho is the first target.

God gives some bizarre instructions.

March around the city once per day for six days.
On the seventh day, march seven times.
Blow trumpets.
Shout.

The walls collapse.

They rush in.

Everything inside is slaughtered.
Men. Women. Children. Animals.

Only a prostitute named Rahab survives, because she hid Israelite spies.

From there, Joshua wages total war across Canaan:

Cities are burned.
Kings are hung.
Whole populations are "devoted to destruction.”
That’s the phrase used, and it comes up a lot.

“They did not leave alive anything that breathed.”
(Joshua 10:40)

God even steps in directly. At one point, He throws down hailstones to kill fleeing enemies. Another time, He makes the sun stand still so Israel can kill longer.

No metaphor.
The sun literally stops moving in the sky.

After years of conquest, the land is divided up among the 12 tribes.
Joshua dies.
Everything seems stable.

It’s not.

Now, welcome to Judge.
The darkest, most depressing book in the Old Testament.

It follows a brutal cycle, repeated over and over.

1. Israel sins.
2. God gets angry and lets enemies conquer them.
3. They cry out.
4. God raises a judge (military leader).
5. The judge saves them.
6. They sin again.
7. Repeat.

Each time it gets worse.

Ehud is a left-handed assassin who stabs a king so fat the blade disappears into his stomach.
Deborah is The only female judge. Strategic, decisive, and respected.
Gideon starts afraid, ends victorious, and eventually builds a gold idol.
Jephthah promises to sacrifice the first thing he sees if God gives him victory.
He wins. His daughter comes out to greet him. He sacrifices her.

And then there's Samson.

The strongman. The disaster.

He has supernatural strength… as long as his hair stays uncut.

He marries Philistine women, touches corpses, and drinks wine. Breaking every vow.

Eventually, he falls for Delilah, who sells him out.
She cuts his hair.
He’s captured, blinded, and enslaved.

At the end, hair regrown, he brings down the Philistine temple. Killing himself and thousands.

And just when you think it can’t get darker…

The book ends with two final stories.

A guy named Micah builds a shrine with stolen silver.
He hires a Levite as his personal priest.
Eventually a whole tribe, Dan, steals the idol and the priest.
They kill a peaceful people and settle there.

Yes, the tribe of Dan begins with theft and murder.

A Levite and his concubine stop to stay in a town called Gibeah.
The men of the town want to rape him.
So he offers them her instead.

They assault her all night.

In the morning, she collapses at the door.

He finds her.
He tells her to get up.
She doesn’t move.

So he puts her on a donkey, goes home… and cuts her body into twelve pieces.

He sends one piece to each tribe, as a message.

This sparks a civil war.

Thousands die.
The tribe of Benjamin is nearly wiped out.

The surviving men of Benjamin, now without wives, are allowed to kidnap women from a festival to keep their tribe going.

That’s how the book ends.

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
(Judges 21:25)

That’s not hyperbole.
That’s how the Bible ends this chapter of its own story.

No leadership.
No stability.
No peace.

Only blood, failure, and moral collapse.