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Judges 1-13:

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Judges 1-13:

Israelites Fail to Drive Canaanites from the Land:

Some of the tribes of Israelites “dwelt among the Canaanites.” (Jdgs. 1:33)  In Israel’s disobedience, the Angel of the Lord spoke out against the Israelites:

“Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land which I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my command. What is this you have done?  So now I say, I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you, and their gods shall be a snare to you.”  When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept.” (Jdgs. 2:1-4)

The angel of the Lord was still with the Israelites, but He delivers the bad news to the Israelites because of their disobedience and failure to drive the Canaanites from the land. 

The death of Joshua:

“And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten years.”(Jdgs. 2:8)  Joshua died“in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash,” which is located in the modern West Bank area, southwest of Nablus.  

Israelites worship false gods:

“And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals; and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; they went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were round about them, and bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.  They forsook the Lord, and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.” (Jdgs. 2:11-13) The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.  So, the Lord consequently abandons the Israelites to subjection of the Canaanites and their false pagan religions, particularly Baal and Ashtaroth.  

The Lord raised up Judges to help Israel:

 “Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the power of those who plundered them.  And yet they did not listen to their judges; for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed down to them; they soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so.  Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.  But whenever the judge died, they turned back and behaved worse than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them; they did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.”  (Jdgs. 2:16-19)  The Israelites dwelt amongst the Canaanites and intermarried, and worst of all, “they served their gods.” (Jdgs. 3:6)  

Jael, a type of Church, kills by the type of the Wood of the Cross:

“But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, till it went down into the ground, as he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died.” (Jdgs. 4:21)  Origen deemed Jael a prefigurement to the Church, by which the devil is defeated by the wood of the Cross.  He stated: “The woman Jael, that foreigner about whom Deborah’s prophecy said that victory would be had ‘through the hand of a woman’ (Jdgs. 4:9), symbolizes the church, which was assembled from foreign nations  . . . She killed him with a stake, then, which is to say that she overthrew him by the power and cunning of the wood of the cross.” (Origen, Homilies on Judges)

The Flesh and Bread Offering of Gideon:

Gideon makes an offering to God of flesh (i.e., meat) and bread (i.e., unleavened cakes). This was a prefigurement to the Eucharist: “Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and there sprang up fire from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.” (Jdgs. 6:21)  Gideon then pulled down and destroyed the pagan altars to Baal and Asherah.  

Israel’s Idolatry Continued:

“Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will deliver you no more.  Go and cry to the gods whom you have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your distress.” (Jdgs. 10:13-14)

Samson and the Nazirite Vow:

The Angel of Lord prophesied the birth of Samson and his vows as a Nazirite.  These threefold Nazirite vows included: (1) No contact with dead bodies; (2) No strong wine or drink; (3) No razor upon his head, no shaving of his hair.  

“And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son.  Therefore beware, and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for lo, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a Nazirite to God from birth; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” (Jdgs. 13:3-5)

Some have hypothesized that John the Baptist, and even Jesus Himself had taken the Nazirite vows.  

The Angel of the Lord:

This is the oft repeated instances in the Old Testament of the Lord or the “Angel of the Lord” appearing in human form as a man.  These are the pre-incarnate appearances of Christ in the Old Testament, “and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field.” (Jdgs. 13:9)  The Angel of the Lord answers her husband that He is the one who appeared to her, “And he said, “I am.” (Jdgs. 13:11)  The Angel of the Lord uses the name of God for Himself, “I Am,” or the translation of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH.  This is the preincarnate Christ.  

Manoah and his wife then offered a “flesh and bread” sacrifice to God: “the kid with the cereal offering, and offered it upon the rock to the Lord.”(Jdgs. 13:19)  The Angel of the Lord then ascended to Heaven in the flame of the sacrifice upon the altar. Manoah and his wife fell on their faces recognizing that they had seen the Lord saying, “for we have seen God.” (Jdgs. 13:22)  They recognize that the Angel of the Lord was, in fact, God, and from a New Covenant perspective, He was the preincarnate Jesus. Interestingly, like the disciples on the Road to Emmaus, they recognized the Lord in the flesh and bread sacrifice, with its obvious Eucharistic connotations.  She then bore a son, Samson.

Leviticus 8-10:

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Gradations of Holiness:
Only the priests could enter in beyond the altar.  Sacred space could not be polluted.  Leviticus offers many “object lessons” reflecting the holiness and distinctness of God.  The sanctity of the presence of God is reflected in the symbols and objects of the Tabernacle.  The farther one goes into the Tabernacle, the higher the gradation of holiness and sanctity of the sacred object and the sacred space.  Once the Tabernacle is consecrated it is no longer called the Tabernacle, but now the “Tent of Meeting” or the “Meeting Tent.” Now, God will meet with His people. The name change is due to the fact that it is now an active, sanctified and consecrated sacred space, where God will commune and fellowship with His people, Israel.

Consecration of Aaron as High Priest, and his sons:
The ordination ritual of the Levitical priesthood followed certain steps: (1) washing of water; (2) vesting of Aaron the High Priest; (3) Anointing with oil on the priests, Tabernacle, altar and sacred objects; (4) vesting of Aaron’s sons; (5) Sacrifices for ordination; (6) Ordination banquet of flesh and blood sacrifices.

Priestly Ordination:
Aaron is girded with a tunic, a sash, a robe; they placed an ephod on him; a breastpiece on him, with the “Urim and Thummim” in it; a mitre on his head, attaching a gold plate, a sacred diadem on the front of the mitre over the forehead.  To enter into sacred space requires sacred attire. Over his forehead was inscribed: “Holy to Yahweh”.  The High Priest was the representative of the whole nation of Israel.  You do not enter into the presence of God in shoddy attire, so God in fact instructed Moses and Aaron how the High Priest was to dress in His presence.  The High Priestly attire in fact sounds a lot like the attire worn, later by Bishops and the Pope.  This is not coincidental.  The priestly vestments of the Old Covenant Levites are carried over into the New Covenant episcopal garb.  In the rite of ordination, the High Priest was anointed with oil and consecrated from head to foot.  They threw blood on the altar (God), on the people (Israel), and on the priests. This harkens back to the Sinai Covenant (Ex. 24) where they performed similar rites.  At the end of the ordination and consecration rituals: “And fire came forth from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat upon the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on their faces.” (Lev. 9:24)

Urim and Thummim:
These are mysterious stone objects placed in the breastpiece of the High Priest.  They were apparently used as a divination device to discern the will of God.  (ie, Thummim means “innocent” or “yes” and Urim means “curse” or “no.”  It was a subjective and imprecise process.  1 Samuel 14 shows Saul casting them down to try to discern God’s will. This was a time before there were any scriptures.  For 13 months they stayed at Mt. Sinai.  There was no Old Testament, Torah, and certainly no New Testament.  There were not yet any prophets or kings.  This was an early stage of God revealing Himself to His people and revealing His will.  The Thummim and Urim would progressively give way to more divine knowledge with the Scriptures, and the prophets, and eventually to the very Word of God’s Incarnation with Jesus Christ, who will be face to face with His people.

Banquet of Flesh and Bread:
This theme of “flesh and bread” is carried throughout the Old Covenant and into the New, preparing Israel for the arrival of the Eucharist, the flesh of Christ hidden under the appearance of bread.  “Boil the flesh at the door of the tent of meeting, and there eat it and the bread that is in the basket of ordination offerings, as I commanded, saying, ‘Aaron and his sons shall eat it’” (Lev. 8:31)

Deaths of Nadab and Abihu:
Two of Aaron’s sons offered “strange fire” or “profane fire” before the Lord that had not been authorized. Because they did not follow protocol, “fire therefore came forth from the Lord’s presence and consumed them, so that they died in His presence.” (Lev. 10:2)  Being in the presence of God is a fearful and dangerous thing, something we should not take lightly.  Church, in the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ, is a holy thing. It is the new sacred space.