Bruce Hornsby and Don Henley co-wrote The End of the Innocence in the late 1980’s. Its thought-provoking lyrics and haunting piano melodies have made it one of my all time favorite pop songs. It brilliantly juxtaposes nostalgic metaphors of childhood days with images of adult complication, corruption, and conflict. The skies were blue, mommy and daddy were together, and there wasn’t a care in the world, but sin gradually strips away innocence and spoils life.              

            This song describes what has happened throughout the Book of Judges—sin has stolen the innocence of a nation and has lead to the disintegration of their whole society. After God had delivered his people from 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites resettled in the Promised Land. Under Joshua’s leadership, the nation flourished spiritually and physically, but after Joshua’s death, Israel spiraled into cycles of generational sin.

            Throughout this time, God rose up judges like Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson to deliver his people from foreign oppression and establish peace and prosperity in the land. But these times were short-lived—with the passing of each judge, the periods of peace got shorter and the days of oppression got longer. Israel has slowly abandoned God and adopted the pagan practices of their Canaanite neighbors. They have exchanged God’s laws for the self-centered philosophy of doing what is right in their own eyes. The people of God have committed acts of idolatry, arrogance, narcissism, manipulation, deceit, vengeance, and violence, and the last few chapters of Judges has documented Israel’s descent into total debauchery, where they have stolen, raped, murdered, and massacred each other. There are no laws, no order, no justice, no morals, no ethics, no compassion, no mercy, and no love for God or neighbor!

            In the preceding chapter, we saw how the Israelites united to hold the men of Gibeah accountable for the brutal rape and murder of the Levite’s concubine, but they wound up massacring the whole tribe of Benjamin (men, women, and children). What started out as an attempt to uphold justice turned into a gross miscarriage of justice, and now there were only 600 Benjamites alive and the tribe was on the brink of extinction.

            In the final chapter, the author of Judges concludes the story by showing a nation that has completely given way to anarchy and civil war. Let us take one last look before we say goodbye!

Regrettable Regret (2-3)

            The first thing I would like for us to notice in this last chapter is how the Israelites regretted their preceding actions. After they massacred the Benjamites, verse 2 tells us that they went to Bethel and wept before the Lord. They genuinely regretted that one of their tribes was almost completely annihilated, but they didn’t regret their own sinful actions. Notice how they express this to God, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today we should be lacking one tribe in Israel?” (3) This prayer is really an accusation and their audacity reveals the corruption in their hearts. Instead, of taking responsibility for their own decisions and actions in slaughtering Benjamin, they subtly shifted the blame to God. They knew the answer to their question. Why did this happen? Because they ignored God’s laws and did what was right in their own eyes! This is a classic case of regrettable regret!

            Have you ever done this in your own life? Have you ever regretted the consequences of you sin, but not the sin itself? Have you ever tried to pawn off a personal mistake, bad decision, or sinful action on God? This is like the man who prayed, “Lord, I am really sorry for cheating on my wife, but why did you make my mistress so hot!” The lesson for us is this: Let us live in such a way that we have no regrets! But when we mess up, instead of blaming others or God for our failure, let’s take immediate responsibility for our actions.  

Hasty Oaths (1, 5)

            The second thing I want us to notice is how the Israelites made hasty and unwise oaths.

Verse 1 tells us that when the Israelites first assembled back at Mizpah, before they went to war against Benjamin, they had declared an oath that none of their tribes would allow their daughters to marry a Benjamite man. This passionate wartime embargo against Jewish brides was intended to isolate and punish the Benjamites, but they did not think through the consequences of their pledge. They did not realize that the wholesale slaughter of the Benjamite women would leave the 600 male survivors childless and the tribe would become extinct.

            The second hasty oath they made was that if any tribe did not unite with Israel to fight against Benjamin, those men would be put to death. The purpose of this oath was to ensure that everyone kept their word and that they would have powerful army to march against Benjamin. After the bloody battle, they took a role call and discovered that the men from Jabesh-gilead, from the tribe of Ephraim, did not come up to fight with them. Now because of this hasty oath, they had to inflict more bloodshed on their own people.

            This passage demonstrates the folly of making rash oaths. Proverbs 20:25 says “It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider his vows.” We should never make a vow to God or anyone else that we do not intend to keep. Before we make promises, we need to think through all the ramifications and consequences.

Legal Loopholes (6-22)

            The third thing I want you to notice is how the Israelites searched for a legal loophole to get them out of a jam. Their regrettable actions and hasty oaths put the whole nation in a bad position, and instead of inquiring of the Lord, the elders of Israel devised their own strategy for solving the problem. They came up with a clever ploy to circumvent the oaths they had made to God. As they were planning to punish the people of Jabesh-gilead, the elders commissioned the army to kill everyone in the city (men, women, and children) except for the unmarried virgins. The virgins were to be spared and given in marriage to the Benjamite survivors.

            And that is exactly what they did. When all of the people of Jabesh-gilead were murdered, they found 400 young virgins who had never been married, and gave them to the Benjamites as wives. Do you see their twisted sense of justice? They massacre and kidnap one tribe to save another.

            But there was still a problem—200 Benjamites still needed wives. So, the Israelites developed another scheme to secure more wives. They instructed the Benjamites to go to the annual festival at Shiloh, hide in the nearby vineyards, and wait for the young women to appear. When they came out to dance and celebrate, the rest of the Benjamites were to grab a girl and take her home as a wife. In this way, the Israelites were technically not breaking their oath of not giving their daughters to the Benjamites because they stole them for themselves.

            Well, in the end, the Israelites got exactly what they wanted— all 600 Benjamites got wives. It only took the massacre of a whole town of Jabesh-gilead and the kidnapping and forced marriage of 200 innocent young women from Shiloh.

            When we are not walking with God, we too have the tendency to look for legal loopholes or moral rationalizations to get ourselves out of a jam. Using one law to circumvent another is never justifiable in God’s estimation. How many times have we rationalized sin by saying, “Well, it’s not technically lying. It’s not technically stealing. It’s not technically cheating?” Like the Israelites, technicalities may get us what we want in the short-term, but what is the price we pay for it in the long-run?

Poisoned by These Fairy Tales (23-25)

             After everything that has happened, it should come as no surprise that this story does not conclude with a fairy tale ending. It actually ends with some rather disturbing statements. In verses 23-24, the author of Judges tells us that the Benjamites took their new brides back to their hometowns, rebuilt their houses, and lived there. The Israelites also departed from there and returned to their own land.

            After a grotesque massacre and monstrous kidnapping, everyone simply returned to their homes and pretended like nothing ever happened. On the outside, it seems like “happily ever after,” but on the inside, there is nothing to be happy about. There was no repentance, no restitution, and no reconciliation. When this story ends, we are left with a sick feeling in our stomachs. Therefore, it is appropriate that the book concludes with the refrain that we have seen throughout: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

            Here is where the line in Hornsby and Henley’s song “and happily ever after fails and we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales” is so poignant. This story shows the end of the innocence of a whole culture. It shows us the moral decay of a nation that disregards God. It shows us the disintegration of a society that ignores God’s laws. The Book of Judges is certainly no fairy tale!

            The refrain “there was no king in Israel” is the most tragic line of all. Why? Because there was a king in Israel! God was their king, but they refused to acknowledge him. And unfortunately, the nation of Israel would treat God the exact same way when he appeared in human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Do you acknowledge him?