{"id":54942,"date":"2019-05-05T13:35:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T10:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=54942"},"modified":"2022-11-28T14:31:03","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T12:31:03","slug":"who-shall-go-up-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/who-shall-go-up-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Shall Go Up First?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[402,792,594],"acf":{"old_id":"54942","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34245,"related_cahpter":"212","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"By failing to see the promise of their own potential, they doomed themselves to fail at living up to it","content":"

The book of Judges opens with a question.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it came to pass after the death of Joshua, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying: ‘Who shall go up for us first against the Canaanites…?’ (1:1)<\/span><\/p>\n

The previous book started after a leader\u2019s death, too. But then it was God, and not Joshua, who initiated the conversation. The fact that the Israelites take charge and initiate the next step in their story, not to mention that they do so as a group and not under the guidance of an individual leader, is exciting. It seems to herald the dawn of a new stage in our history, were we the people can be the authors of our fate. (I’m indebted to Yael Ziegler,\u00a0Ruth: from Alienation to Monarchy<\/em>, for this point).<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this grand backdrop, it is easy to interpret the Israelites\u2019 question as a quest for leadership: \u201cwho shall go up first,\u201d they ask. Who will lead us forward in this exciting time, we hear.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the rest of the chapter makes it clear that this wasn\u2019t their intention. The Israelites interpret God\u2019s answer that \u201cJudah shall go up\u201d (Judges 1:2) strictly as a matter of chronological order. Not until King David will the tribe of Judah take responsibility for all the Israelites. For now, Judah deals with its lands first, then leaves most of the other tribes to deal with theirs in turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

They fail, with disastrous consequences. The children of Israel learn idolatrous practices from the Canaanites they failed to vanquish, and God retaliates by allowing other nations to subjugate them. The community who collectively asked \u201cwho shall go up first\u201d collapses into separate tribes, too weak to defend themselves. Instead of taking charge of their own destiny, they are locked into a vicious cycle of idolatry-subjugation-redemption, where individual leaders save them, but by God\u2019s initiative and command.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the seeds of this tragedy lie in the narrow interpretation the Israelites gave to their own opening question. They asked as a collective, but were concerned with their divisions, not with their united role. Instead of asking \u201cwho should lead us as we step up to the mission of our age\u201d they asked who should toil first. Their later divisions and weakness were a natural consequence of this mindset. By failing to see the promise of their own potential, they doomed themselves to fail at living up to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book of Judges revisits the Israelites\u2019 question towards its ending, where the people ask again \u201cWho shall go up for us first\u201d (Judges 20:18). This second repetition brings the question\u2019s undertones of divisiveness into sharp relief, because the Israelites ask it in a gathering where they are \u201c knit together as one man, friends\u201d (Judges 20:11)\u2026 and preparing to eradicate one of the Israelite tribes. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Israelites\u2019 failure to see themselves as a united nation in the beginning of Judges reaches, then, its natural culmination: the Israelites step up – to tear themselves to shreds.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":54943,"id":54943,"title":"jud1-ascend","filename":"jud1-ascend.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/jud1-ascend.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/who-shall-go-up-first\/jud1-ascend\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jud1-ascend","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":54942,"date":"2019-05-05 10:35:08","modified":"2021-10-03 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