Trail of Destruction

Gideon won a great victory but he was a moral failure as a husband and father because of his voracious sexual appetite. In addition to multiple wives and 70 sons, he also fathered a son with a concubine.

Abimelech grew up as a pagan worshiper, murdered 69 of his half-brothers and then was made king by the men in Shechem. After his death, God raised up Tola and Jair to be judges, but then the Israelites returned to paganism like a moth to a flame.

The Lord did not want to rescue His adulterous people and eventually allowed Jephthah, the son of Gilead and a pagan prostitute, to become the next leader of Israel. He was a warrior and defeated the Ammonites but he was also a pagan worshiper who became infamous for the human sacrifice of his only daughter.

The Book of Judges was an extremely destructive time for the people of Israel. Abimelech and Jephthah both represented the fruit of sexual immorality. Their fathers were whoremongers and they were affected by the sins of their parents. God recorded these events so that you and I don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past.