Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all of Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites. (Judges 7:23) This may seem rather incidental to the biblical account, but I wanted to highlight a characteristic of Israeli life during the time of the judges. We think of the Israelites marching out of Egypt - a million strong - all thinking and acting as a unified body. Tradition tells us there were twelve tribes, but our tendency is to see them as Israel rather than individual tribal groups.
In Judges we see a glimpse of what is more likely the truth. These were scattered tribal groups who were at least somewhat settled into their inherited land holdings. If one of them was threatened, we may like to think all the rest rallied to their assistance, but reality is that they were a little more pragmatic than that. Different tribal groups had their own leadership and when they received a call for help, they would take into account: Am I threatened? Will I be threatened if our neighboring tribe falls to an enemy? If there was a direct threat to one's tribe, or if the threat was to a next-door neighbor, then they were motivated to do something about it. But what if the threat was on the extreme far end of Canaan? Fohgeddaboudit!
When asked for help, do we roll up our sleeves? Or is our first question, What's in it for us?
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