[One-Verse Meditation]

Judges 2:2 (NIV) “And you shall make no covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars. Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?”

[Meditation]

The lament delivered by the angel of the LORD, “Why have you done this?” is a very familiar question. It reminds us of the first question God asked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after humanity’s first failure: “What is this you have done?” (Genesis 3:13).

This question allows us to see on the same plane the image of the first people reaching for the forbidden fruit and the image of Israel, who broke God’s covenant for the love of Canaan. Both incidents reveal that the essence of sin is ‘not trusting God,’ or in other words, ‘not knowing God.’ “…[they] did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10).

But God’s story does not end in lament and judgment. Right in that place of failure, salvation begins. God covered the shame of the first people with ‘garments of skin,’ and for the failed Israelites, He sent ‘judges’ to save them.

The garments of skin, which imply a substitutionary death, and the judges, who delivered Israel from the mire, are both types that point to Jesus Christ. I mean the grace of the Cross, which completely covers our sin and shame and delivers us from the oppression of sin.

Therefore, the love contained within “Why have you done this?”—this paradoxical love that earnestly calls out to His people—is a grace too great to bear.

[Prayer]

Lord, you do not leave us in our failure. You surely raise us up—through the Cross, which is full of Your love. And so today, we look to heaven and begin a new day with thanks and joy. Amen.
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[Daily Reading]

Judges 2:1-17