In this video listen to Judges 17 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.

In Judges 17 we are now in the so called appendix of Judges. The last five chapters of Judges don’t cover any more actual judges, but they do provide a window into what life was actually like during the time of the Judges. If you needed examples of how corrupt Israel was becoming, here they are. This part of the Judges does not continue chronologically from the previous chapter. We are jumping back from Sampson to much earlier.

According to Josephus this story took place during the reign of the very first Judge Othniel, the nephew of Caleb. We are now quite likely about 300 years earlier than Sampson. This whole chapter represents what seems like sincere behaviour toward God combined with very little understanding of what God actually requires. The ...