A Brief History of Old Testament Times (Part IV)
Men could not communicate to those who did not know their language and so had to start with their own families, teaching their children the language they knew. Instead of one world empire with the great city of Babylon as its center, wandering families struggled to survive. As each family into grew to a tribe, they established city-states for the common defense. It was at this point that God called Abraham to leave his home for a promised land. He could roam freely without permission from any emperor or king as long as he could defend himself and his family. The city-states had kings that were frequently also the high priest of their religion. In Abraham’s day, the knowledge of God was not lost, though not always strictly maintained. Melchizedek was one of these priest/kings who served “God Most High”, offering a communion of bread and wine. During his wanderings, Abraham, and later, Isaac, might not know if a group of people were God worshippers or not.
As a nation, Israel had to experience the gospel that she would later give to the world through the church. So, Abraham’s great grandchildren headed to Egypt, where they grew into a nation. This was where they experienced slavery and supernatural deliverance by the hand of God. Through the Passover, He taught them that not by family lineage or great morality, but only through the blood of the lamb, were they saved from the angel of death.
As a nation, they learned about failure to trust and obey and its consequences through their failure to enter the land. A generation later, they learned about warfare. By this time, the city-states had grown into tribal nations. Taking the promised land would require them to wage war through faith in God. Once in the land, the tribes lived separate, but mutually peaceful lives, coming together for warfare as the situation required. During this time, they were without a king, doing what each one thought best. The history of this time is marked with the repeated cycle of falling away from God, domination by a foreign tribal nation, repentance and deliverance by a hero/judge whose influence kept them serving God until his/her death. The Bible doesn’t commend these judges for their strict keeping of the laws of Moses, but for their faith in God, sometimes in seemingly impossible situations. The events described in the book of Judges did not necessarily affect the entire nation of Israel, but might involve only a few tribes at a time. They lived this way for around 400 years.
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