Medicine Hat Joe

Week 10 Judges

Jael is part of the Deborah story. I’ve read about her before and it’s easy to come away feeling kind of bleak. I slow down this time; concentrate.
Jael was married to a guy named Heber. Heber was a Kenite who’d cut ties with the Hebrews, left their territory and made an alliance with a Canaanite king named Hazor and his general – Sisera. This made Heber a pro-Canaanite, pro-Sisera guy (which wasn’t too bad a choice if you were choosing up sides).
Eventually Sisera and Barak went to war. Barak’s over-matched force miraculously won the battle. Sisera escaped: (he) ran to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because Heber’s family was on friendly terms with King Jabin of Hazor.
That was a very bad choice for Sisera. Jael disregarded her husband’s treaty; disregarded eastern hospitality. Sisera was an enemy. She killed him.
A reader’s temptation is to see Jael as a treacherous barbaric cunning betrayer and murderer. But I’m not so sure.
Deborah had predicted this: the Lord’s victory over Sisera will be at the hands of a woman. And in Deborah’s Song of Victory Jael is hero-ized as an Israelite champion.
If I was reading the bible with the goal of correcting its un-contemporary-sounding and unsavoury atrociousnesses it would be one thing. Jael might end up a biblical Medusa.
But I’m not. So I won’t be too quick to say she is.

Note: quote from Judges 4:17, 4:9 (NLT), Deborah’s Song is in 5:24-27

Week 10 Judges

Deborah wore two unexpected hats. She was a judge, and she was also a prophet. She lived during the unhappy aftermath of Israel turning their backs on the Lord and being subjugated by a Canaanite commander named Sisera who ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.
Eventually Deborah called on a Naphtalese soldier named Barak to rescue Israel. She gave him a prophetic guarantee that if he recruited a ten-thousand man army from Naphtali-Zebulun he would defeat Sisera.
Barak was likely a talented-enough warrior but he was also reluctant. Maybe he did the strategic-math and 10,000 infantry vs. 900 chariots + foot-soldiers looked like a competitive disadvantage. Or maybe he didn’t have confidence in the prophecy – a promise in the central hills of Ephraim was different than standing in the north-country looking across the Kishon River at Sisera’s army. Or maybe he was afraid. Maybe all three. He told Deborah: I will go, but only if you go with me!
It was a weird thing to admit in a swaggering tough-guy world. He knew it. Deborah knew it. And even though she agreed to go she told him: since you have made this choice, you will receive no honor. For the Lord’s victory over Sisera will be at the hands of a woman.
Barak went. He won the battle. But in the end it was a woman who defeated Sisera.
The surprise was that the woman wasn’t Deborah.

Note: quotes from Judges 4:3, 8-9 (NLT)

Week 9 Judges

I’ve finished reading Judges chapter one before I realize it hasn’t said anything about judges or judging. The whole chapter is a bunch of miscellaneous tidbits of information – I go back and count about twenty of them.
Of the twenty the most interesting one is the story about Achsah. Achsah is Caleb’s daughter. Caleb is battling to carve out his inheritance and when he comes to a place called Kiriathsepher he wants help. As an incentive he offers that whoever captures Kiriathsepher can marry his daughter Achsah.
A man named Othniel captured Kiriathsepher. And so he got to marry Achsah.
Then two things happened. First: when Achsah married Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for an additional field. So Caleb gave them the land. Not long after Achsah came to her father with another request: you have been kind enough to give me land in the Negev; please give me springs as well. And so Caleb did.
I get a feeling of decisiveness with Achsah. She seems strong ambitious family-interested determined practical. She gave Othniel good advice, and then took initiative again to benefit her family even more. She was a woman living inside her cultural fence. But seemed to be testing its limits too.
I don’t know how many power couples there are in the bible. But I think Othniel & Achsah are good candidates.

Note: quotes from Judges 1:14, 15 (NLT). The Achsah story is also told in Joshua 15:13-19. Achsah is spelled Acsah in NLT.

Week 9 Joshua

Yesterday I was thinking about the twelve tribes, wondering if the family glue would hold them all together.
Today I was thinking about a different family division that looked like it had the potential to put a dent in national unity.
Reuben Gad and half of Manasseh had their huge land grant on the east side of the Jordan River. It was negotiated by Moses and on the surface looked like a workable and manageable split. But under the surface it seemed like it could be trouble.
Anyway RG½M decided to build a huge altar right by the river. As soon as the other 9.5 tribes heard about it they were up-in-arms and said: the whole community of the Lord demands to know why you are betraying the God of Israel. So RG½M were seen as betrayers!
But RG½M told the 9.5s that they had their own concerns looking down the road: we have built this altar because we fear that in the future your descendants will say to ours, ‘What right do you have to worship the Lord, the God of Israel?’ They figured the 9.5s might lock the religious door.
In the end cooler heads prevailed; unity was maintained.
But some fear and mistrust and disunity is already simmering between Israel East and Israel West and how that might pan out is something I’ll need to look out for.

Note: quotes from Joshua 22:16, and see all of 16-20; and 22:24, and see 24-29 (NLT)

Week 9 Joshua

Last year I was impressed with the land holdings that went to Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh.
This year I’m not as impressed with how things have developed for Benjamin Simeon Zebulun Issachar Asher Naphtali & Dan.
For one thing their land allotments are sketched out pretty thinly. Benjamin’s is described in eighteen verses but none of the others get more than nine. Which seems short compared to the sixty-three Judah got in chapter fifteen.
Another thing I noticed is that the lands of Zebulun Issachar Asher & Naphtali all have clear borders spelled out. For instance: the boundary of Zebulun’s inheritance started at Sarid. From there it went west, going past Maralah, touching Dabbesheth, and proceeding to the brook east of Jokneam. In the other direction, the boundary line went east from Sarid to the border of Kislothtabor, and from there to Daberath and up to Japhia… (and so on). Pretty specific. But there are no border markings for Simeon or Dan – they’re only given a list of the towns they’ll get. In fact Simeon’s tract wasn’t even an independent territory – the tribe was plunked in the middle of Judah’s land.
Reading Joshua I’ve mostly been getting a feeling of all-for-one-and-one-for-all. But I can also see where fractures might develop; where conflict might come along.

Note: Benjamin is in Joshua 18:11-28; S-Z-I-A-N-D are in 19:1-48. The Zebulun quote is from 19:10-12 (NLT). And my map shows the Z-I-A-N Quartet clustered in the north country.

Week 9 Joshua

Land Distribution time had arrived so a delegation from Judah came to Joshua with their claim. And Caleb came with them – the Caleb who spied out the land. So I know who I’m dealing with.
He’s called Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite. I wonder: if Caleb was a Kenizzite why did he come with the Judah clan? Was he or wasn’t he Judah-ite?
I flip back to the Twelve Spies Story in Numbers 13. One spy was chosen from each tribe, and each spy was a tribal leader. I look down the list and in third spot – listed as Judah’s man – is Caleb son of Jephunneh. So it definitely looks like he was Judah-ite.
But why is he called a Kenizzite?
I get out a word book and check Kenizzite. It’s only used four times, three of them about Caleb. The other time is when the Lord promised Abraham land that included the territory of the Kenite and the Kenizzite – non-Israelite country for sure.
It doesn’t make it easier when a few minutes later I read that Caleb had a brother named Kenaz. My word book says a man named Kenaz – a different Kenaz but same name – belonged to the Esau-Edom family. Is an Esau-family link even possible?
I already think the bible is pretty complicated, and my take-away today is that it’s sometimes maybe more complicated than I already think it is.

Note: see Joshua 14:6; Numbers 13:2-6; Genesis 15:19; Joshua 15:17; Genesis 36:11

Week 9 Joshua

Twelve is a short chapter. And it’s mostly names. Before I start reading I can see – visually and obviously – that the second half of the chapter is a repetitive list of names. Thirty-one lines formatted in a column, all starting with the words the-king-of.
I page forward. Names, names, names. From chapter twelve to chapter twenty-two. Hundreds of them.
After a bit I go back to twelve and start reading. It’s broken in two by geography. The first six verses name the kings east of the Jordan River; the second half is a list of the kings on the west side.
There were only two kings defeated in the Jordan East sector – Sihon and Og. I remember reading about them a couple of weeks ago. I don’t recall most of the place names so I check my bible map, but even though it’s okay it doesn’t locate all of them for me. I see Heshbon the Arnon River Aroer the Jabbok River Pisgah the Salt Sea and the sea of Chinneroth. The names I can find are all east of the Jordan.
The rest of the chapter swings over to the west. I do a quick map scan. The only pattern I detect is that the place-name list seems to start in the south and work north.
Soon land is going to be doled out to landless nomads.
No matter what I think these people were no doubt very interested in what these chapters said.

Week 9 Joshua

The back-to-back stories of the battles for the city of Jericho (chapter six) and the city of Ai (chapter seven) are contrasting stories.
The big and obvious contrast is that Jericho was successfully conquered; Ai was successfully not conquered.
Another pretty striking and unexpected contrast is between the Main Characters. Rahab was a citizen of Jericho. She was a totally non-Israel-ite Jericho-ite who bafflingly decided – against her own home-city and lifelong-culture – to throw in her lot with Israel. There weren’t a million people in Jericho but if there had been Rahab would be the one-in-a-million. She took an independent chancy life-or-death stand. And she was rescued.
In the battle at Ai the Israelite army was defeated. The key player was a man named Achan. Kind of like Rahab he had bafflingly taken a solitary personal decision – but against the Lord – back at Jericho. There weren’t a million soldiers fighting against Ai but if there had been Achan was the one-in-a-million who stole some booty. He took his chance; paid a high price.
In these conquest battles in Joshua it’s easy to get a sense of the Lord operating in the aggregate, taking a kind of broad brush destroy-that-whole-town approach. But with Rahab and Achan you get another sense of the weight attached to each individual taking her-or-his own individual eyes-wide-open decision.

Note: I checked my January-February reading progress. I’ve read 371 out of a total 1730 pages. Means 21.4% read with 16.7% of the year gone. So far, so good.

Week 9 Joshua

There’s an interesting story in chapter five.
Joshua had crossed onto the western side of the Jordan River not far from the city of Jericho. You get the sense he was alone, although the bible doesn’t say that. What it does say is that: he looked up and saw a man facing him.
Nothing spooky about the guy, he wasn’t glowing, Joshua couldn’t see right through him. Since the guy was carrying a sword Joshua asked if he was friend-or-foe and the guy said: I am the commander of the Lord’s army. So then Joshua realized he was talking with someone from another place. An inaccessible-to-Joshua place. And Joshua realized that with this guy – this real non-guy – he would have to move with caution.
Where exactly was the place the guy came from? Hard to say but it was from somewhere where under normal circumstances Joshua couldn’t see him, hear him, or talk to him. I guess the place – in spatial or geographic terms – could have been very close. I guess it could have been a space overlapping Joshua’s space or maybe in a space that extended just beyond Joshua’s sensory-detection range. Wherever it was it wasn’t Joshua’s place.
Where I live I don’t get many reminders about a more-than-just material place. The main focus is just Alberta.
So reading a story like this one helps fill that gap.

Note: quotes from Joshua 5:13, 14 (NLT)

Week 8 Deuteronomy

The day after I finished reading Deuteronomy I read Psalm 48. It begins: great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
I think the reason I paused at great-is-the-Lord is because it’s such a simple and clear comment about the Lord. It’s transparent, it’s undiluted, it’s direct. It’s categorical and unambiguous and precise and explicit. It doesn’t beat around the bush.
I think another reason I paused at great-is-the-Lord is because I’d just finished Deuteronomy. That big middle-section especially – from the end of chapter four through chapter twenty-nine – more than 650-verses – had kind of weighed down on me. What do I make of it all? (There is something to be made of it…the question is what?)
By contrast I don’t have to ask myself what do I make of great-is-the-Lord? An eight year-old boy could read great-is-the-Lord and understand. It’s a completely comprehensible idea told in elementary language.
It reminded me that when I’m reading through some things will make better sense to me than others. I figure that part of a bible-reader’s savvy shows up in recognizing and then negotiating his different reading environments.