Gideon was another judge of Israel. He destroyed a pagan object of worship that his father had made, and then he made his people a new one. He also tortured or killed anyone who wouldn’t give his men free food. The Israelites liked Gideon so much, they wanted him to become their king. But he refused. After Gideon died, his son Abimelek murdered his 70 brothers, and then he was made the first king of Israel.
Continue reading The Story of King Abimelek—In the early days of the land of Israel, there was no king to tell the people what to do. Instead, they were led by “judges”, but the people didn’t listen to the judges; they did whatever they wanted. God didn’t like what his people were doing, so he let Eglon king of Moab take over Israel. Then the Israelites asked God to deliver them from Moab, so Ehud, the judge of Israel, was sent to meet king Eglon. Ehud said he had a secret message from God for Eglon, so Eglon sent all his attendants out of the room for privacy.
Continue reading The Story of Ehud and Eglon—Because Moses did a miracle the wrong way once, God had decided not to let him bring his people into the promised land after all. So when Moses was 120 years old, God sent him to the top of a mountain, where he saw the land from a distance, and then died. God chose Moses’s assistant Joshua to replace Moses as the leader of Israel.
Joshua sent two men to spy out the land of Canaan. They stayed in the house of a prostitute named Rahab, in the city of Jericho. She told the spies everything they needed to know.
The king of Jericho heard that there were Israelite spies in the land. He sent men to tell Rahab to hand over those men who had come to her house. But Rahab hid the spies and told the king’s men that the spies had already left. So they went to look for the spies elsewhere.
Continue reading The Story of the Battle of Jericho—Moses and Aaron had brought the Israelites out of Egypt, a land flowing with milk and honey where they had prospered, and had left them to die in the wilderness. So 250 men of Israel, led by Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and On, came together to oppose them. These men said Moses and Aaron shouldn’t have authority over the rest of the people, because all of Israel was holy. Moses told these men to appear with Aaron before the Lord, and said God would decide who was or wasn’t holy. So they all gathered in front of the tent of meeting.
God told Moses and Aaron to stand back so he could destroy the rest of the Israelites. Moses and Aaron reminded God, once again, that he shouldn’t do that, because not all of them had sinned. So instead, God had Moses tell the rest of the Israelites to stand back so he could destroy Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the rebel leaders.
Moses announced that if the earth opened up and swallowed those men, that would be a sign that God had appointed Moses to lead Israel. Then the earth opened up and swallowed Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and their innocent wives and children. God also killed the 250 rebels with fire. But the other rebel leader, On, wasn’t killed. So he must have been a holy leader chosen by the Lord, just like Moses and Aaron. On was never mentioned again.
Continue reading The Story of the Mutiny Against Moses—Moses sent twelve men to explore the land of Canaan, which God had promised to give to the Israelites, to see what the land and the people there were like. The men found that the land was very good, but it was inhabited by Anakites. To show how good the land was, they brought back a cluster of grapes too big for one person to carry.
The men reported that the land was very good, but it was inhabited by big, strong Anakites in big, strong cities.1 Two of the explorers, Joshua and Caleb, thought the Israelites should go and take that good land for themselves. But the rest of the explorers said they couldn’t do that, because the people there were too big and strong.
When the Israelites heard this, they said it would be better to die in the wilderness than to try to take over that land. They decided to try to kill Moses and go back to Egypt. When the untemptable God heard their plans, he was tempted to kill all the Israelites except Moses and his descendants.
But Moses reminded God, again, that killing all his people would be bad for his reputation. Everyone would think God was incapable of bringing his people to the promised land. When the all-knowing, never-changing, all-good God heard this, he changed his mind and decided not to kill everybody, again.
Continue reading The Story of the Twelve Explorers—