Brides for Benjamin
Open Your Bible
Judges 21:1-25, Deuteronomy 12:8-12, James 3:13-18
BY Melanie Rainer
“The Hollow Men” is a haunting, exquisite poem by T. S. Eliot. You may have heard the closing lines referenced in pop culture: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”
I reread the poem after walking backward and forward through today’s passage in Judges, the final chapter of a brutal journey. We are trained, when reading stories, to settle into a conclusion not long after the climax. We long to be satisfied. The book of Judges doesn’t do that. Earlier in the poem, Eliot writes the following.
The eyes are not here / There are no eyes here / In this valley of dying stars / In this hollow valley / This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms. // ….death’s twilight kingdom / The hope only / Of empty men.
Eliot’s “empty men” are a helpful comparison as we end our study of Judges. The weight and power of Eliot’s words capture, in ways I never could, the heart-wailing of the tribes of Israel. When death is the only hope for an end, we are left in total darkness.
We know that Jesus is our conquering King, the life and light of humankind. But Judges doesn’t end with Jesus. Judges ends with a “valley of dying stars,” empty men grasping together at nothing. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him” (Judges 21:25). As modern readers, we can read this last verse in Judges and know it’ll all be okay because Jesus is coming. Even though that is true, would you be willing to resist that temptation for closure with me today?
Let us whimper. Let us feel the ache of the ages, the desperation for something we cannot name. The longing for a king that led the Israelites in caustic circles is the same longing that leads us to fill our lives with stuff that distracts and tries to counteract that epic ache.
The inclination to grasp at goodness is the right response to reading the book of Judges. Our hearts are magnetized to light, not darkness. Judges provokes that tension in us, leaving us with an unsettled feeling. It is a historical book, a true tragedy tucked in the middle of the greatest book ever written. And yet, its darkness is unparalleled. Its darkness makes us crave light.
Chiaroscuro is an art technique that utilizes sharp contrasts—light and dark—for dramatic impact. Judges is a book of chiaroscuro. The whole picture of the Bible is made more vibrant, more impactful, more necessary because of these dark corners. We can thank God for the book of Judges, and we can thank Him for wiring our hearts to long for the goodness and light that only He provides.
40 thoughts on "Brides for Benjamin"
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There existed the times in Judges as this. Just like now. We looked around and realized the times of Judges sneaking up on us. We are born on this side of history. Blessed be the nations whose God is the Lord. Whenever God and His Word are not honored, the degenerate spiritual and moral standards, debased social conditions and disordered civil authority are a likely result. Something i saw in my KJV Bible study gave me great hope: had the tribe of Benjamin been totally wiped out, Saul, Esther and Mordecai, and the Apostle Paul would have never been born. To God be the glory. His Grace is with the remnants. May we be the remnants in our nations, that because of even 10, 5 or 1 righteous person, God will preserve. Thanks be to His rich mercy. Be blessed dear sisters.❤
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Hi ladies, my conclusion after finishing this study is that I’m really glad the book of Judges was preserved for us. Despite its horrors, it’s real and it’s no different from the world around us today. The world everywhere is dark, full of death and destruction and people harming others by their selfish and foolish choices. And just like then, the people God called to be light have harmed themselves and others. It is a very clear picture of the results of forgetting God. Seeing the parallels between the world of Judges and our own helps me understand that the war, death, and destruction of our own time isn’t an outlier, and in every generation God has preserved righteous people like Boaz and Ruth.
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That was a great commentary to wrap up this bleak but necessary study. I appreciate the book of Judges for its unflinching portrayal of the darkness of human nature. It provides stark contrast to the light and grace of Jesus’s gift of salvation. We now have a true and forever King. ❤️
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I am praying forTheresa Donley’s recovery and praying for you all. I am so grateful for this study. I recently became a real subscriber and took a ton of notes. It certainly is a tragedy to forget God and we never learn. Praying for the prolife agencies in Ohio and everywhere that offer love and support to women, their babies and their choices.
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TRACI GENDRON…you are in my thoughts and prayers.. sending you so many hugs and love..❤️❤️❤️.
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Judges is hard to read, but I’m glad we did it. The title “The Tragedy of Forgetting God” says it all.
Thank you all for praying for me. Today first thing this morning, I took the dog for a walk, put Pandora on my phone and “Heaven Help Me’ started playing from the beginning! It is a song I heard all the time before Tanner died. Then the first song I heard when I got in my car the day after he died. It brought tears, but comfort.
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