Top 12 of CiHD: #12

For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (the first week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.

As we begin our look at the Top 12 Blog Posts of Covered in His Dust, we’re going to begin as any good countdown does — at the bottom! Let’s start with my twelfth-most-viewed blog post. It happens to be “The Redemption Cycle,” a post I published on December 26, 2013. It discusses the big ideas undergirding the book of Judges, and I contest the idea that the cycle represented there should be described as a “sin cycle.” You can read the post here.

In this series, as we look at each post, I want to ask three questions: why, what, and what else? Why do I think this post got so many views; why were others drawn to this post? What do I hope people found when they got here; what do I hope they heard? Finally, what else have I learned about this; what else would I say about these ideas?

WHY THIS POST?

To be honest, one of the things you are going to get every time we do this is a very cynical and objective look at why people hit this post. The truth of the matter is that most of these page views are coming from web searches from people’s favorite search engines. Chances are good that many of these views came from people who were doing an image search for “cycle in Judges” and happened to click on the image that is linked to my blog.

In a similar fashion, I think many page views came from a Google search that had to do with “cycle” and “book of Judges.” As people were looking more into this idea, they were looking for additional material. Particularly on Google searches, my Google-based blog host is one of the first hits, and away we go. So let’s work with this idea: the people who ran across my blog were studying the book of Judges and the idea that there is an ongoing cycle within the literature.

WHAT DO I HOPE THEY FOUND?

I hope they found an idea that challenged the assumptions they were being handed from other sources. By saying this, I’m not suggesting that I hope they heard the right answer in a debate against what they had been taught. I simply mean to say that I hope they encountered an even bigger idea and that it made them think critically about the implications of the theology that serves as the foundation to our biblical interpretation — let alone our doctrine.

When I was handed a worldview that focused on the sinfulness and depravity of man, I found myself stuck in a theology that wasn’t compelling and didn’t inspire me to take up the mission and partner with God. Instead, I found a lot of despair and hopelessness for humanity. The idea that God simply “puts up with us” and with a roll of His eyes He forgives us — yet again — was portrayed quite clearly.

There are many things I can applaud in what I was taught. The fact that Bible teachers were able to show me a literary tool being employed in Judges was fantastic. At that stage of my learning, I hadn’t been exposed to many literary tools; but being handed such a clear and noticeable example launched the beginning of a very critical journey in learning the skills necessary to examine the Text. It was all of the doctrinal assumption that I hope people found critiqued when they got here.

WHAT ELSE WOULD I SAY?

This post really expresses things quite thoroughly and I can’t think of much I would add. I would say I have learned how much scholarship (progressive textual critics, in large part) sees the book of Judges as a parallel record of history to the book of Joshua. What they mean when they say such things is that a redactor later pulled these two stories together and made them read sequentially, but they probably preexisted as different takes on the same period of history. On the one hand, you have the book of Joshua, which tells the story of obedience (for the most part) and God’s help in absolute conquest. However, another historical perspective tells the story of disobedience and God’s incredible patience. These serve as two sides of the historical narrative. For some of us, this may be a bridge too far, but I have been learning much about these theories and find them informative in my ability to think critically about the Text and wrestle with authorial intent.

I would also be remiss to exit this post without recommending Make Your Mark, a book written by a fellow teacher and friend of mine, Brad Gray. While the book focuses on the story of Samson, I find its contents to be helpful as I wrestle with the implications of the stories found in the book of Judges.

A Donkey Herder to Lead Us

As we come closer to the end of the book of Judges, we feel a definite shift in the momentum of the story.

We are confronted with a story about a Levite and his concubine (I know — a blog post ready to be written, but not today) who are traveling through the land of Israel when they need to find a place to stay for the evening. The servant, who could very possibly be a foreigner himself, suggests that they stop in Jebus for the night. The Levite, however, refuses and says they will continue on until they reach a town that is inhabited by Israelites. The Levite is perfectly aware of how foreigners can be treated by pagan nations and has put his trust in the people of God to be people who remember where they come from and take care of the aliens.

When they arrive in the land of Benjamin, an old man invites the travelers to enter his home and care for their needs. During the evening, the people of the town come to take advantage (sexually) of the Levitical guest. The host, in typical eastern fashion, valuing hospitality, urges the men not to make such demands. The host is attempting to save the life of the Levite. By the time the conversation is over, the crowd is distracted by the concubine — whom they rape all night and leave for dead.

This is an ugly story.

But did you notice? We’ve been in this ugly story before.

This story mirrors the story of Sodom and Gomorrah so closely one has to check and make sure they are two different stories. And if you remember, this idea of hospitality in the ancient Middle East is a major, major deal to God.

The Levite knows this and is enraged by their actions. He takes the body of the murdered concubine and cuts it up into twelve pieces and sends it to all twelve tribes of Israel, spreading the word of what has been done in one of the towns of the LORD’s own people. The people of Judah will end up marching against the tribe of Benjamin and, eventually, enacting punishment for the ways of the Benjamites. Then they make a pact to ensure that the remaining Benjamites have wives to preserve their line and not cut off a descendant of Jacob forever.

This is a momentum shift in the story. We aren’t just dealing with a people struggling with how to follow God. We are now seeing the people of God become so bad they mirror the horrible acts of Sodom — acts that caused God to come down and rescue the oppressed. Instead of partnering with God at the crossroads of the earth, being people who trust the story, this nation of Israel is beginning to become what I will call the ANTI-story. They are losing the plot and starting to do everything contrary to their call. They are starting to look like the very Canaanites whom they dispossessed.

This story is followed up by the book of 1 Samuel, which begins with the story of Eli and his sons, a family of priests. The sons have taken up residence at the entrance to God’s tabernacle and are sleeping with the women there (a likely indicator for an introduction of the practice of shrine prostitution) AND they are taking advantage of those who come to sacrifice to YHVH. If you remember the roles of the priests, they are there to help people navigate their atonement and put God on display. But Eli’s sons are being the ANTI-priests; they are the ANTI-story.

There is a momentum shift in the story of God’s people. They are forgetting their call to be a kingdom of priests who put God on display and they instead want to be like all the other nations around them. So, when they come to ask for a king to rule over them, this is their sin. The request for the king is not the problem. We know this by reading Deuteronomy 17:14–15.

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.

It’s not the request for a king that displeases God — it is the kind of king they want. Listen to what they say in 1 Samuel 8:

So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

And again a few verses later:

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”

Then Samuel said to the Israelites, “Everyone go back to your own town.”

They have forgotten the story.
“… such as all the other nations have … Then we will be like all the other nations …”

They are supposed to be different. They are supposed to put God on display. They are supposed to be a kingdom of priests.

And so God gives them the kind of king they want — but not without trying to give them a message at the same time. God chooses a man who is good-looking, head and shoulders taller than the average man. Saul is the man who looks impressive to the eye (does this remind you of a particular desert tree?) and appears to be mighty, just like all the nations around them.

But we are introduced to Saul as he is chasing some lost donkeys. He loses the donkeys and decides to go and see the man of God instead.

Saul is a donkey herder. And not even a good donkey herder — he loses donkeys!

Are you catching God’s tongue-in-cheek teaching lesson?

Who is Israel supposed to be? Sheep.

And who is supposed to lead sheep? A shepherd.

And so if God chooses a donkey herder to be their king, what is God saying they are? Stubborn and stiff-necked like jackasses.

And not only this, but what tribe is Saul from? Benjamin. The tribe with a big nasty history of disobedience. The stench of the Benjamites’ sin is still in the nostrils of Israel. This is God’s way of saying to the Israelites: You can have the kind of king I choose or the kind of king like everyone else. One of those will work out well for you and the other will not.

Will Israel hear the voice of their Shepherd?

This introduction to Saul will typify the kind of leadership and story we will read about with him. Saul, who will always be in it for himself. Saul, who won’t know how to lead God’s sheep to green pasture. Saul, who, instead of leading people through the “valley of the shadow of death,” will sit in a war camp while his people cower in fear under the taunts of a mighty giant.

This is no shepherd. And he’s no leader.

He’s certainly not a priest.

He’s a donkey herder.

Ruth

 And so now we come to the story of Ruth.

The story begins with a woman named Naomi traveling with her husband and sons to the land of Moab to escape a famine. This move alone raises multiple questions. Why would you go to Moab? If one were to grab a map and look at the location of Moab, they would realize that the land of Bethlehem is right across the river from the land of Moab.

If there is a famine in Judah, then there is a famine in Moab.

So why go to Moab? There’s a possibility that it could be a statement about trusting another god’s story. Could it be that the family is tired of waiting for the LORD to provide and is convinced that putting their trust in the gods of Moab will be a better call? Of course, the exact opposite could be true. The one place that you go during a famine in biblical times is the land of Egypt. Because of the flooding of Egypt, the Egyptians always had food during times of famine. However, God had told His people never to go back to Egypt for their provision. So, it could be that Naomi’s family travels to Moab because they are obeying God’s command not to go to Egypt.

Either way, tragedy ensues for Naomi and her family. After her husband dies, her sons end up taking Moabite wives. Ten years later, her sons die, leaving her and her two daughters-in-law as widows and patriarchal orphans. Naomi decides to return to Israel, encouraging Orpah and Ruth to stay in Moab. Orpah stays, but Ruth refuses, insisting on going with Naomi. Naomi returns, encouraging all of her welcomers to call her Marah.

We’ve run into Marah before. It’s the word that means bitter. Again, depending on how you read the story, this name could cut two ways. Obviously, Naomi could be bitter because God has taken her family away. After seeking to be obedient to God by staying out of Egypt, Naomi could be quite a bitter woman. Of course, if Naomi had put her trust in another god’s story, she may also be making a statement about herself. If you remember, marah can also mean “deliberate, defiant rebellion.” It is possible that Naomi could see herself as being punished by God for making poor decisions.

And either way, she and Ruth show up back home — if you are keeping track — as practical aliens, orphans, and widows. They are now at the mercy of the community of Israel; an Israel, by the way, who we are told is being consistently disobedient to God’s call to bring shalom to chaos (see the repeated refrain of Judges: “At this time, there was no king and everyone did as he pleased…”). Surprisingly, they end up in the field of a kinsman, a man named Boaz. He is a righteous man, following the Levitical call not to cut the corners of his fields.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”  Leviticus 19:9–10

And so Ruth (and Naomi) become the benefactors of Boaz’s obedient generosity. Naomi, seeing him as a righteous man, tells Ruth to pursue a relationship with Boaz, telling her that he is their “kinsman redeemer.” According to the book of Leviticus, a family that is about to lose their inheritance must be saved by a member of their extended clan. You are not to allow a family member to be cut off on account of hard times. The kinsman redeemer is the one who has the right to buy their land and possessions, saving their spot in the larger Israelite community.

Ruth approaches Boaz during the night of harvest celebrations and, while he sleeps, “uncovers his feet.” This phrase is a Hebrew idiom that would refer to uncovering Boaz’s circumcision. Now, contrary to popular belief, there is nothing sexual about this act. What Ruth is doing is uncovering the sign of Boaz’s covenant with God. She is making a clear, Eastern plea for him to do the righteous thing — redeeming her family and buying their part of the community.

Boaz is startled awake (understandably) and sees a woman lying at his feet. He immediately understands what Ruth is asking through her gesture and agrees to pursue redemption. There is a hiccup, however. There is one man who has first rights to redeem Naomi and her family. The next day, Boaz travels to the city gate and encourages the man to redeem Naomi and her land. (He is, however, hoping that the kinsman turns the offer down, therefore giving Boaz the right to buy the property, including the chance to marry Ruth.) The kinsman agrees to redeem the land, but Boaz is quick to point out that the land comes with an old widow and a foreigner to provide for. At this juncture, the kinsman retreats.

You see, Ruth is a Moabitess. She is part of a marked clan. Her descendants will be unable to enter the assembly of the LORD for ten generations (although a lot is going to happen through her descendants). This woman is an outsider. She is dead weight, unable to produce anything of patriarchal value. She is an outcast.

But Boaz wants to affirm her and her mother-in-law’s value. He wants to make sure that they are taken care of and invited into the community. Because that is the kind of man Boaz is. (Sound familiar?)

As an afterthought, this story also speaks to us about redemption. In the biblical world, redemption is not a legal transaction. Unlike our Western theological definitions, redemption doesn’t relate to buying back. Redemption is a patriarchal term. It’s about being a loner, a mumzer, an outsider, a reject — and having some patriarch come along and see you and hear your cry and invite you into his fold. Redemption is a statement about acceptance and provision. “I accept you. I invite you to my table, where you will always be fed, cared for, and loved.”

This is what God does in Jesus. He sees us in our weakness. As we wander through the land as proverbial aliens, orphans, and widows, God sees us and invites us into His mishpucha (household). He declares that we are loved and cared for. He sees us. He pulls out a chair at His table and provides for our needs, declaring that we will never have to worry about where our strength will come from any more. We are a part of His family now.

He is our great Kinsmen Redeemer.

This is a story worth trusting.

Dropping the Jawbone

** This post has been heavily influenced by a teaching given by Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church.

**** (this note added on 9/9/2015) As you will see from the comment thread below, I am feeling the need to add that when I say "heavily influenced", what I mean to say is that this teaching given primarily by Bell (in addition to some other teachers) was given in a sermon which can be heard here. The teaching had a profound impact on my life and settled in my consciousness. When I crafted this post, I did it from memory and after receiving the accusation below, I searched to find the teaching. Please know that I have no desire to take credit at all for Bell's work and claim it as my own.

****** (this note added on 9/29/2015) Just in the heart of full disclosure, it could/should be noted that Rob repeated this teaching yet again on a recent podcast ("RobCast" Episode 39) that was published today.

The last post summarized the walk through the book of Judges. Before we moved on, I did want to jump off on one brief tangent found in the story of Samson. It’s hard not to talk about all of the stories in the book of Judges; how does one skip the stories of Gideon, Deborah, Jephthah, or others? But, much like the author of Hebrews, we need to keep this conversation moving.

But there is one rabbit hole that’s worth jumping down. It really is a sidebar to the larger narrative we’ve been talking about; but every time I have spoke on this lesson, God does some incredible things.

The story of Samson gets complicated when Samson gets tied up with a Philistine wife. This causes tension with the people of Israel as he lives separated from her in the hills of Dan. One night, as he goes to visit his wife, he is told by his father-in-law that, since Samson is never around, he has given his daughter in marriage to another man. In a rage, Samson takes a hundreds of foxes, ties flaming torches to their tails and burns entire fields worth of grain.

Yeah, because that makes sense.

The Philistines come asking about why such an event has taken place and, after finding out the reason for Samson’s actions, kill the father and the daughter. Samson responds by killing “a multitude” of Philistines. Sheesh, this is getting complicated.

The Philistines respond by calling forth their army and marching against the tribe of Dan. The neighboring tribe of Judah brings their army out to see just what is going on. They find that the Philistines are looking for Samson and retribution. Their comment is, “We’re only doing to him as he did to us!” Samson, found hiding in a cave, responds to their accusations by saying, “I only did to them what they did to me.”

Because this is what retribution and revenge look like.

It started with a man and his wife. It then became about grain. Then people died. Then more people died. Now armies are involved.

Revenge always escalates. And revenge is always cloaked by a false conviction that “I’m only doing to them what they did to me.” (By the way, is the “eye for an eye” law making any more sense here? I hope so.)

So, in a sense, it seems to me that the story of Samson is a story about forgiveness.

Samson will be brought, bound by ropes, to the Philistines for judgment. But Samson breaks free from the ropes, grabs the jawbone of an ass, and slays a thousand Philistines.

The story keeps getting worse. And the story will not end will. Who will stop the madness?

Somebody needs to drop the jawbone.

The first step of forgiveness is simply being the one who stops the cycle of revenge. The one person who is willing to say, “No more. No more paybacks. No more killing. No more ‘they deserved it.’ Enough…” is the person who is willing to begin the process of healing. Because the cycle has to stop somewhere. Retribution will know no end until somebody is willing to forgive.

But far too often, we in the Christian world have spoken of forgiveness in similar terms and stopped there. But true forgiveness demands more.

The second step of forgiveness is making the choice that you are going to stop making that person carry that burden around anymore. You can’t just drop the jawbone; that isn’t forgiveness. You have to decide that when you see that person in your mind, you aren’t going to let them have the dark cloud of bitterness hanging over their head in your heart. You have to chase the dark clouds away and allow them to come into the light. Because really, that dark cloud isn’t about their freedom — it’s about yours. Ever since the day you decided to drop the jawbone, that dark cloud does nothing to the other person. It simply builds up in your heart like a cancer, eating away at your soul from the inside out.

Jesus tells this incredible parable in Matthew 18:21–35 about a king who goes to settle accounts and finds a man who owes him well over a lifetime’s salary of debts (which begs the question: What kind of a King lets a man rack up that kind of debt?). He calls the man in, only to have him fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness. In an amazing move, the king forgives the debt and wipes the slate clean. The man then does the unthinkable; he goes out of the presence of the king and runs into a man who owes him three months of wages. He demands payment, and when the man begs for leniency, he throws him in prison. Jesus closes the story by saying that this is how we should forgive our brother.

The king is willing to stop the cycle and drop the jawbone.

The king is not willing to let the debt follow the man around for the rest of his days.

But we’re still not done yet. One final question: In the story of the king, where did the debt go?

If you are like most people, you just said, “It went away. It disappeared.”

But that’s not correct. Debt just doesn’t go away. In order for a debt to be forgiven, the person that is owed the money must absorb the debt. The king had to absorb that massive debt that he was owed. And this is the painful truth about forgiveness. The forgiveness we never talk about — true forgiveness — comes at a hefty price.

And it’s not fair.

Here’s a quote from Timothy Keller in The Reason for God:

“Forgiveness means refusing to make them pay for what they did. However, to refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is agony. It is a form of suffering. You not only suffer the original loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out of the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death.

“Yes, but it is a death that leads to resurrection instead of the lifelong living death of bitterness and cynicism. … No one “just” forgives, if the evil is serious. … Everyone who forgives great evil goes through a death into a resurrection, and experiences nails, blood, sweat, and tears. … Everyone who forgives someone bears the other’s sins. …

“Forgiveness is always a form of costly suffering.”

How true that is.

As a side note, it is probably worth noting all the things that forgiveness is NOT:

Forgiveness is not admitting that what they did was OK and doesn’t matter.
Forgiveness is not saying that there isn’t a place for boundaries.
Forgiveness is not always forgetting.
Forgiveness is not saying that there won’t be consequences.
Forgiveness is not ignoring the fact that some people are destructive (e.g., if he’s beating you, get out!).
Forgiveness is not saying that they won’t have to answer to the law.
Forgiveness is not calling good what God has called evil.

But forgiveness is letting the jawbone drop to the ground. It is refusing to let the bitterness take root in your heart. And it is deciding that you will shoulder the pain and absorb the debt.

Because it’s the only way that the world gets put back together.

And I believe it’s the truest form of trusting the story.

The Redemption Cycle

The last two posts describe the tension that plays out in the book of Judges. God has asked His people to partner with Him in putting the world back together. He has placed them in the crossroads of the earth (the shephelah of the earth?) in order to show the world that their God is different — their God is not angry, but loving. But in order for this mission to be realized, they are going to have to live in the shephelah, and living in the shephelah is dangerous.

This is a tension that God doesn’t seek to resolve. Not in the book of Judges and not in life. This is the partnership that God invites us into. The book of Judges is simply one place where we see this story play out. Sometimes we see people (like the tribe of Dan) run from the dangers, vowing a life of devotion in the mountains; however, this devoted life is also void of the mission of God. Other times we see the people of Israel in the book of Judges falling into the temptation of being swallowed up by the broken world they are seeking to redeem; we see this in the ruins of Beth Shemesh and numerous stories where the people take on the gods of the nations that surround them.

We even see this in the story of Samson. Samson is a man set apart for God from birth. Destined to be a Nazarite (see Numbers 6), Samson’s role in the community (the tribe of Dan, actually) is to remind the people that they are to be different than the nations that surround them in the shephelah. Samson is a walking billboard that advertises God’s mission to his brothers. However, the tragedy of Samson is two-fold. First, while Samson is a Nazarite (albeit not a very good one), he misses the calling on his life by being so influenced by the Philistines. Constantly tempted by lure of Philistine women, Samson will lose the potency of his calling. Second, Samson does all of this alone. You cannot impact the shephelah alone. The Jews have often pointed out that Samson has no community. He is in Philistia alone. He travels alone. He fights the Philistines alone. He is in the cave alone. This is a recipe for shephelah disaster.

God will eventually use the life (more accurately, the death) of Samson to rescue His people, but I would argue it was not the way it was designed to work. The idea is that the tribe of Dan would be positioned in the shephelah, led by a dynamic leader (Samson), called to impact the world of the Philistines and show them a better way — a better God. But they lose the gravity of their message by becoming lost in the culture of the ones they are seeking to influence.

And whether they are running away from their call or getting lost in the culture, we keep seeing the Israelites struggle throughout the book of Judges.

Scholars and Bible teachers have for ages described the book of Judges using the phrase “Sin Cycle.” The idea is that all throughout the book of Judges, we keep seeing the people go through the same cycle: things are going great, they start to rebel, they become oppressed, they cry out, God raises up a leader, God rescues the people — and the cycle starts all over again (see below).

I have always taught my students that this cycle (more or less) is completely accurate and obvious in the story of the Judges. However, the fact that we refer to it as the “Sin Cycle” betrays our initial assumptions about the truths that lie at the heart of the story. It presumes that the story is about the depravity and brokenness of humanity. But we have, since the beginning of this journey, insisted that the story is about God’s good creation, His insistence that we are accepted and loved, and an invitation to trust the story that God is telling and live in true “rest.”

But the “Sin Cycle”?  It would seem to me that we aren’t listening to God’s story.

Time and time again, we have encountered a God who insists that our sin doesn’t keep Him from loving and accepting us. Despite our failures, we are not defined by our deficiencies. We are defined by our identity as God’s creation, made in His image, created with incredible potential. No matter our past, we are invited in each moment to partner with God in His great Kingdom work.

So, is it about a “Sin Cycle”?
Or is it about a “Redemption Cycle”?

Is it about my brokenness or God’s goodness?
Do I read Judges and find myself amazed at the foolishness of God?
Or do I stand in awe at His unbelievable patience and faithfulness?

I continue to assert that God is inviting us to trust a good story. As I said before, I believe God has endless, bottomless patience for the person who is trying to walk the path of life well. We will encounter God’s wrath when we start to see people crush the marginalized and downtrodden.

But God has better things to do than let your sin get in the way of what He has in store for you. And the book of Judges proves it.

And I’m glad.

Because I’ve found that the story of the Israelites is my story. I find that as I examine that diagram of the “Sin Cycle,” I see a pretty good representation of what my life looks like. There are days when I feel like the worst chapter of the book of Judges could be a journal entry about my day.

But thankfully, the cycle keeps coming around.

And you’re right, Mr. Bible Teacher — it is about my sin.

But apparently, it’s not.

Because the wheel in the sky keeps on turning (to quote Journey) and God’s rescue keeps coming around.

So at the end of the day, what amazes me is not my stupidity, but God’s bigger, better reality. His amazing grace. His profound patience.

I’m going to call it the “Redemption Cycle.” It’s a truer true.

No Pig Bones

While some folks struggle with the idea of having to interact with the shephelah, preferring instead to take a more separatist approach to the culture around us (this is my struggle, by the way), others will have the opposite struggle.

As for the folks who are more missional, they started back down the mountain and into the hills of the shephelah before they even finished reading the last post. And this is a good thing, because God needs His people in contact with the broken world around them — He needs them to be shining light in dark places. As one of my co-workers put it the other day: “You cannot be a rotem if you aren’t in the desert.”

Well said.

The dig at Beth Shemesh in 2008

But those who are rip-roaring to find themselves an adventure will need to take heed of the findings at the archaeological site of Beth Shemesh. The ancient city of Beth Shemesh sits down in the shephelah at the edge of the Soreq Valley. If you were to look at a topographical view of the land of Israel, you would notice that you cannot penetrate the land of Israel from the coastal plains without traveling through the many valleys that head up into the mountains. This meant that the people who lived there had to establish fortified cities to protect the vulnerability of the valleys of the shephelah.

Beth Shemesh was one of these fortified cities guarding the way into the Soreq Valley. Archaeological excavations have made some very interesting discoveries. As they uncovered the remains, they would often run into evidence of the diet of the people who lived in the city of Beth Shemesh — according to the Text, a city inhabited by the Israelites. Excavations of the time period of the Judges revealed that their meat diet consisted primarily of pork.

And yes, for an Israelite city, this is a very telling problem. They are letting the culture around them influence their walk, rather than the other way around.

One would expect that in David’s day this problem would be much less of an issue, but excavations showed that, while improving, about 20% of the bones in the food waste were pig bones. But the Text will end up telling us that a king named Hezekiah leads reforms in the land of Judah, from boundary to boundary. As it was told to me in 2010, they have yet to find a pig bone in the excavations from Hezekiah’s era.

Because it’s hard to live in the shephelah without the shephelah living in you.

It’s going to be difficult to live in the chaos and bring shalom. So you better remember the desert. And you better remember to take a community with you. But you have to be there in order to partner with God’s great project. You have to be a kingdom of priests for the people of the shephelah.

But you can’t have any pig bones.

The rabbis teach that you don’t defend Jerusalem at the gates of Jerusalem; you defend Jerusalem at Beth Shemesh. And they mean this as a metaphor. If you think you’re going to fight the hard battles of your life and of your will when it gets to the heart, you are a fool. You don’t wait to fight the work of evil when it finally arrives at your door; you fight evil with all of the small decisions you make every day.

To say it another way: Jerusalem falls when you have pig bones at Beth Shemesh.

But it’s hard to live in the shephelah. It’s dangerous and full of temptations. But you can’t run off to the mountains of Ephraim, either. Because God is not interested in abandoning the people of the coastal plains.

The call to be a priest is not without cost, discipline, adventure, and peril.