The Spirit of the Lord came on Samson and he kills 1,000 men

Judges 15:14-17 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

Then Samson said,
"With a donkey's jawbone
I have made donkeys of them.
With a donkey's jawbone
I have killed a thousand men."

When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was called Ramath Lehi.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

What a poet!

The Witch of Endor brings Samuel back from the dead

1 Samuel 28:8-12 So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. "Consult a spirit for me," he said, "and bring up for me the one I name."

But the woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?"

Saul swore to her by the LORD, "As surely as the LORD lives, you will not be punished for this."

Then the woman asked, "Whom shall I bring up for you?"
"Bring up Samuel," he said.

When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!"

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

This is one of the weirder stories of the Bible

David kills 200 Philistines and to pay Saul for his daughter's hand in marriage

1 Samuel 18:25-27 Saul replied, "Say to David, 'The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.' " Saul's plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines.

When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king's son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, David and his men went out and killed two hundred Philistines. He brought their foreskins and presented the full number to the king so that he might become the king's son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

David only needed to kill 100 Philistines in order to purchase his wife. I guess he was feeling a bit generous, so he killed 200 instead.

David kills Goliath and chops his head off

1 Samuel 17:45-51a David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands."

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Have you ever considered that one of our children's favorite Bible story includes a guy getting his head chopped off?

Abimelech murders his 70 brothers on one stone

Judges 9:5 Abimelech went to his father's home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

That's a lot of brothers.

God curses Miriam with leprosy for speaking against Moses

Numbers 12:1,9-15 Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman).

So the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed. But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous.

Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. “Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!”

Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “O God, heal her, I pray!”

But the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.”

So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

1. Mariam and Aaron spoke against Moses however only Mariam got leprosy. Why?
2. What did Aaron mean by “do not account this sin to us.” He didn’t receive any punishment.
3. If a father spit on his daughter’s face, does she really bare shame for 7 days?

Do not follow other gods or a jealous God will destroy you

Deuteronomy 6:13-15 Fear the LORD your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Is jealousy an attribute we can attribute to God?

Women are to keep silent in church!

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 Let women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.


PERSONAL COMMENTARY

1. Women are to keep silent in church
2. Women are not permitted to speak [in church]
3. Women should instead be submissive
4. If a woman wants to learn something [in church], they should not ask the question there but wait until they get home and ask their husband
5. It is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

When it comes to following verses from the Old Testament, the argument can be made that we are now under the "New Covenant" (even though that would then also make the 10 Commandments null and void). However, this is a scripture located in the New Testament that we totally ignore every Sunday.

God's promise of death

1 Samuel 2:31-33 The time is coming when I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your family line and you will see distress in my dwelling. Although good will be done to Israel, in your family line there will never be an old man. Every one of you that I do not cut off from my altar will be spared only to blind your eyes with tears and to grieve your heart, and all your descendants will die in the prime of life.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

No plans to prosper them and not to harm them here.

Girls of Shiloh kidnapped by the Benjamites for wives

Judges 21:15-23 The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a gap in the tribes of Israel. And the elders of the assembly said, "With the women of Benjamin destroyed, how shall we provide wives for the men who are left? The Benjamite survivors must have heirs," they said, "so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. We can't give them our daughters as wives, since we Israelites have taken this oath: 'Cursed be anyone who gives a wife to a Benjamite.' But look, there is the annual festival of the LORD in Shiloh, to the north of Bethel, and east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and to the south of Lebonah."

So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, "Go and hide in the vineyards and watch. When the girls of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, then rush from the vineyards and each of you seize a wife from the girls of Shiloh and go to the land of Benjamin. When their fathers or brothers complain to us, we will say to them, 'Do us a kindness by helping them, because we did not get wives for them during the war, and you are innocent, since you did not give your daughters to them.' "

So that is what the Benjamites did. While the girls were dancing, each man caught one and carried her off to be his wife. Then they returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and settled in them.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

This is in addition to the 400 virgins spared from a previous conquest and given to the Benjamites as wives. It's a good thing that 50,100 Benjamites men were killed by God in the previous chapter or they would need a lot more women.

Evil for evil

Micah 2:1-3 Woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields and take them by violence, also houses, and seize them. So they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore thus says the LORD: “ Behold, against this family I am devising evil, from which you cannot save yourselves; Nor shall you walk proudly, for it will be a time of evil.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

We have to remember that God sets the rules and those rules set for man does not necessarily apply to him. This passage proves just this point. It is "woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil." However, at the same time, God was "devising evil" against them as a response.

Stone the rebellious son to death!

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

I wonder how many of us would be alive today if our parents obeyed this verse.

Without pity the Lord......

Lamentations 2:2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob;
in his wrath he has torn down
the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah.
He has brought her kingdom and its princes
down to the ground in dishonor.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Without pity?

God's message to Elgon - A sword into his belly!

Judges 3:15-22 Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing.

He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." The king said, "Quiet!" And all his attendants left him.

Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Skip this one if you read the Bible to your children.

Sisera killed with a tent peg through is temple

Judges 4:17-23 Sisera, however, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there were friendly relations between Jabin king of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite.

Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, "Come, my Lord , come right in. Don't be afraid." So he entered her tent, and she put a covering over him. "I'm thirsty," he said. "Please give me some water." She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

"Stand in the doorway of the tent," he told her. "If someone comes by and asks you, 'Is anyone here?' say 'No.' "

But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.

Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. "Come," she said, "I will show you the man you're looking for." So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple-dead.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Judges is quite the graphically violent book so far.

Make any kind of idol and you will certainly be destroyed by God

Deuteronomy 4:25-26 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

God can be provoked to anger and you will "quickly perish" and "certainly be destroyed."

2 Midianite leaders killed and beheaded

Judges 7:25 They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

I think I would have preferred to take their word that these leaders were dead

The Lord routs Sisera and his army by the sword

Judges 4:14-16 Then Deborah said to Barak, "Go! This is the day the LORD has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the LORD gone ahead of you?" So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by ten thousand men. 15 At Barak's advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot. 16 But Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim. All the troops of Sisera fell by the sword; not a man was left.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Interesting how the Lord = Barak and his 10,000 men.

600 Killed with an oxgoad

Judges 3:31 After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

Wikipedia says that an oxgoad is "a formidable weapon sometimes ten feet long."

10,000 Moabites killed the rest enslaved

Judges 3:28-30 "Follow me," he ordered, "for the LORD has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands." So they followed him down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over. At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not a man escaped. That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.

PERSONAL COMMENTARY

This is in addition to the 10,000 killed in Chapter 1.