It is well known that Western modernity has emphasized freedom from many things, among them capricious rulers, superstition, and religious authority. What is the cost, however, if freedom is untethered from profound commitments to the good, the true, and the beautiful?
Teaching Judges in the political turmoil of the past decade has raised this question for me when I come to a particular verse.
Judges 2:10b reads, “Another generation arose after them which did not experience the deliverance of the Lord or the deeds that he had wrought for Israel.” At that point in the narrative, the Israelites spiral downward, and the book ends with the tribes in a de facto state of war, where “everyone did as he pleased” (Judges 24:25).
What made Judges 2:10 the turning point in a story that had gone relatively well so far? It turns out that we have to infer it from the book of Joshua and the previous material in Judges.
The book of Joshua ends with a stirring, dramatic farewell speech during a covenant renewal ceremony. Like Moses to an earlier generation in Deuteronomy, Joshua recounts the people’s travails and exhorts them to keep the covenant so that all will go well for them.
And it apparently did at first. So, what happened?
From the information we have in the text, it appears that after Joshua died, there was no one who reminded the people of past travails. No one encouraged the next generation to keep the covenant. There was no ceremony in which the people could affirm their commitment.
If we were to continue examining the narrative trajectory of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, then later prophets such as Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah step up to remind people to keep the covenant, but with little success. Why?
I don’t know, but I wonder if one factor is that a vision of covenant relationship is simply not compelling enough. Perhaps it is because the stick is at least tacitly present—do it for your own good. Obey or else.
I do think, however, the Hebrew Bible may contain a more compelling vision of the good. I locate it in Genesis 1, the so-called Priestly creation story.
In this story, God creates the universe in six days and rests on the seventh after declaring everything God had made was “very good,” i.e., in good order, something working the way it was intended to work.
In short, God has created an interdependent ecosystem in which everything is in its place and works harmoniously, an ecosystem for which human beings are commissioned to care.
I find this vision compelling. It is a vision of a good that acknowledges both human distinctiveness (i.e. We are created in the image and likeness of God.) and our connectedness to the rest of creation.
The good, it turns out, is not just my personal good, the good of my tribe or the good of my nation. It is the good of the whole interconnected cosmos.
Contemporary Lessons
What, then, might we learn from Judges today?
Regardless of how one evaluates the presidency of Donald Trump, it is obvious that his time in office has stimulated widespread and often acrimonious debate about the fate of democracy in the United States. Many commentators argue we are living in a time when freedom has become unchained from the traditions and norms that have channeled freedom in more productive ways.
From that perspective, we are experiencing what the Hebrew Bible says ancient Israel experienced: the chaos that arises when new generations are not initiated into the traditions and norms of previous generations.
If that is the problem, then the logical solution would be to improve civic education in this country, which is indeed what some people have started to do. Although initiating and training people in the practices that make for a vibrant democracy is not bad (and something I, for the record, support), I wonder if it is enough.
Without a vision of the human role in promoting and preserving a harmonious ecosystem, does simply appealing to our community’s norms do anything more than reinforce a tribal mentality—even if it is a potentially more inclusive tribe?
I am not sure, although I suspect that is all it will do. Nevertheless, I am convinced freedom released from a more robust and responsible vision of the good will, at best, only serve as a partial response to a larger need.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Professor of religion in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He is the author of Wisdom Calls: The Moral Story of the Hebrew Bible (Nurturing Faith Books, 2017) and Faithful Innovation: The Rule of God and a Christian Practical Wisdom.