Daily Lesson for August 21, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Judges chapter 18 verses 1 through 7:

In those days there was no king in Israel. And in those days the tribe of the Danites was seeking for itself a territory to live in; for until then no territory among the tribes of Israel had been allotted to them. 2So the Danites sent five valiant men from the whole number of their clan, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, to spy out the land and to explore it; and they said to them, ‘Go, explore the land.’ When they came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they stayed there. 3While they were at Micah’s house, they recognized the voice of the young Levite; so they went over and asked him, ‘Who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here?’4He said to them, ‘Micah did such and such for me, and he hired me, and I have become his priest.’ 5Then they said to him, ‘Inquire of God that we may know whether the mission we are undertaking will succeed.’ 6The priest replied, ‘Go in peace. The mission you are on is under the eye of the Lord.’

7 The five men went on, and when they came to Laish, they observed the people who were there living securely, after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and unsuspecting, lacking nothing on earth, and possessing wealth.

Those following this story from yesterday’s Lesson already know how shamelessly for-hire the priest in today’s story is (to catch up on the series go here: http://ryonprice.blogspot.com/2018/08/daily-lesson-for-august-18-2018.html?m=1).  Now the priest gives a favorable report to five scouts from the Danites who had been sent to spy out land to be taken from the quiet and peaceful people of Laish. “Go in peace,” the priest tells the spies. “The mission you are on is under the eye of the Lord.”

Yet such an oracle is not without irony and perhaps even duplicity. They do go in peace to rob and pillage at war.  Yet they do not necessarily go with God’s blessing. They go, according to the priest’s words, “under the eye of the LORD”.

They are under the eye of the LORD, under the watch of God. The Danites are meant to receive their part in the Promised Land. But the oracle does not say they have the LORD’s blessing to take it from a peaceful people. And the LORD is now watching. 

This is going to get worse, before it gets better. And so we’ll see just where a people who hire on priests for profit actually end up. 

And we’ll hear the refrain again:

“There was no king in those days; and everyone did as they saw fit in their own eyes.”