Judges 21Generational Blessings/Curses and Kidnapping

 Good Tuesday morning, we made great progress yesterday on our exterior house remodel, three windows replaced, and some exterior insulation added. Today, rainstrips and siding will start in two areas. All should be complete well before Thanksgiving at this pace! At one point, my darling bride had tears of joy to see the new window in the kitchen looking out at the wooded hillside. The old window was quite dated and drafty. It was a garden window from the early nineties and had too much hardware blocking the view of the oaks, elms, and cedars, even a couple of misquites! It is untouched land packed with trees and wildlife, and a wonderful forest floor from decades of foliage falling and not being removed each year.

 Madeline likes to have her Bible time there at that window, sitting at the little barley twist table from her late mother’s home. The chairs at that table are from the market in New Orleans, purchased by her grandmother probably in the 1930s. My grandfather’s grandfather’s clock is just to the right of that window; repeated intentionally, as I am the fourth generation to have this train station clock. Next to the clock is Madeline’s granddad's picture and their marriage license. Heritage has more importance than we give it today; somehow, we have lost the meaning of all that in the last few generations.

 We will see some of that importance in Today’s Daily Bible Challenge as we close out listening to Judges 21. We will also see some pretty barbaric behaviors that are pretty much indefensible. If you dig in a little more, you will find that the patriarch of the tribe of Benjamin was blessed/cursed to become what his future heritage would become. His father’s blessing was that he would be a wolf/predator. Well, such lifestyles tend to create generational curses, yet heritage was so important to all these tribes that they refused to let the tribe of Benjamin be left to disappear from the twelve tribes. That is where the barbarianism will show its ugly face!

 Moms and dads, be careful what you speak over your children, at any age, it may just come true! Just because junior is a little aggressive from birth doesn’t mean that is his destiny. Speak God’s destiny over him and then see if he doesn’t fulfil that! Our heritage is still very important, but we just ignore it these days! Back then, you were attributed as still living through your future offspring. According to the Hebrew traditions of this concept, your offspring could even be punished for your crimes. This concept was later dubbed Corporate Personality by Biblical scholars. According to the book of Judges, Benjamin did these things in chapters 19-21, yet it was really his descendants; Benjamin had been dead for some 400 years at this point.

 Well, this was long-winded, but I hope it opened your mind to a new concept in studying the Bible! We will start a new book tomorrow (Ruth), but for today, click the link below to listen to Judges 21, and listen to stories of kidnapping young girls and sacking whole towns to steal their daughters. Yeah, right, the Bible is a boring old book!


https://www.blueletterbible.org/audio_video/popPlayer.cfm?type=nasb_n&b=7&c=21