Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites. (Judges 7:23)This may seem rather incidental to the story, 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 multitude of a million or more people, all thinking and acting as a unified body. We know there were twelve tribes, but our tendency is to see them as Israel rather than as 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 the truth is they were a little more pragmatic than that. Different tribal groups had their own leadership (even they may not have even been as unified as we might think), and when they received a request for assistance they would take into account, Am I threatened? Will I be threatened if the next tribe over 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 there was the motivation to do something about it. If the threat was on the extreme far end of Canaan, then fohgeddaboudit.
When asked for help, do we stop to analyze how the situation affects us?
So true. I think the farther something is away from us the more likely we are to think 'someone else' will take care of it - and that 'someone else' is usually one of 'them' (whoever that non-us may be) - but oh how it changes when enough dominoes fall to bring it into our back yard!
ReplyDeleteI also really like the 'Aesop's fable' about the trees that Jotham tells here. Worth an illustrated kid's book all by itself.