Sunday, August 31, 2008

Lucky Charms

Micah the Ephraimite offers a young Levite to be the spiritual leader of Micah's perverted sense of Yahwehistic worship. Micah offers the young Levite with a nice annual payment plan for his religious service to Micah's own personal shrine to Yahweh. The young Levite is given a whole new wardrobe, and a living allowance. The state of worship in Israel is as such that neither of these parties see the incompatibility of the system of worship they just set up.



Levites had no allotment of land, and they had the monopoly on the priesthood. Micah now assumes that with his arrangement that he will be able to manipulate Yahweh like a Canaanite would try and manipulate his god. The religious system looks a little Yahwehistic, but in actuality it is completely pagan.


On the young Levite's side, he was simply a "laid back" professional minister following the path of least resistance and waiting for an opportunity to open up.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Micah the Ephraimite

One of the major undergirding themes of Judges is that the book – having been written in the monarchical era – testifies that the tribes of Israel were capable of reprehendable Yahwehistic worship without a King to lead them into that behavior.

Dagon

Dagon seems to have been a grain god of the Canaanites. It seems that the Philistines assimilated Dagon into their religious system. Dagon was ascribed to being the father of Baal by the Philistines.

As far as we can stretch a statement here, Dagon was also given an ability of military power over the area of which the Philistines resided. Dagon seems to have been risen to a status of being a high (if not the highest) deity by which the Philistines could communicate with, and Dagon was presumed to be the provider for their security and prosperity.

If Samson had minded his P's and Q's, then it would have been the Dannites that were singing praise to Yahweh, instead of the Philistines singing to Dagon, but Samson's hair growing back a little, and God bestowing on him power one last time, Samson destroyed the one's that sang a praise to Dagon.

The main undertone of Judges is the God (Yahweh) was building a nation out of the tribes he started with Jacob. One would like to see the transition into a full cohesive nation faster, but it seems to have taken centuries after Joshua to secure that.

Finished Reading Samson

The story of Samson was is really old, and the style of literature is unique and very different than what we encounter today. Samson's kind'a an idiot, spoiled brat maybe, but he winds up killing many of the upper class of the Philistine society - which of course would weaken the cultural group over time, and David eventually put the last nail in the coffin.

God, uses different people to do what He wants done. It seems that if Samson had been more devout throughout his life, that he could have unified the tribes of Israel, but he played the dumb jock through most of the story. The story basically illustrates that God works things towards his objectives despite poor decision making on the part of anyone he decides to specially endow with gifts of one kind or another.

At this point I don't know what comes of the tribes after Samson. It will be interesting to find out. However, I have to take a detour through Ruth. It is weird how Samson seemed to have it easy and takes gifts for granted, while I will see soon Naomi suffer tremendously for no apparent reason. Why one and not the other? Who knows.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Samson Kills a Lion



Samson always comes off as a himbo (man verision of a bimbo) to me. He was headed down to go get his "Miss Right" the Philistine with his parents, and somehow he got sidetracked from walking with them, and he killed a lion with his bare hands (the lion comes into the story in a major way later on). Samson sounds a lot like David in some respects, but I alway had this dumb Conan the Barbarian image of Samson - David seemed to have more brains with his brawl.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Samson Goes to Timnah



Samson gets the heebee-jeebees, and goes down to Timnah, and finds a Timnite woman that he finds to be much to his liking to the point that he wants to marry her.

Timnah was a border town on the edge of the tribal region of Dan, and that of the Philistines. Timnah was about six miles from where Samson lived.

Samson's pick of a mate was more of a cultural issue, than an ethnic issue with his parents. The Israelites were more culturally assimilated into the Canaanite culture than the Philistine.

Could Samson Kick Goliath's Butt

If it had been Samson in stead of David to contest Goliath, then wouldn't it have been a better fight? No..., wait, Elisha verses Goliath - that would be cool.

But in the end, Scripture is always pointing out that it is the power of Yahweh through the individual that creates the victory.