The Benjamites, however, did not drive out the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites. – Judges 1:21

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 26, 2019): Judges 1

Early on in the Star Trek saga (episode number five), Gene Roddenberry’s creation presents us with a story entitled “The Enemy Within.” As a result of a transporter accident, Captain James T. Kirk is split into two inferior copies of himself, one which is good and the other who is evil. The episode explores the necessity for the good and the bad to exist within us. We want to believe that one can exist without the other, but that might not be true, at least not in the Star Trek Universe. Specifically, the episode theorizes that decision making might be a function of what might be considered the evil portion of us. The ability to say “yes” or “no” in spite of consequences or how that decision might hurt is an important function of what we might consider to be the negative part of us. But, at least according to “Star Trek,” courage originates on the good side. The moral that the creators of the story wanted to leave us with is summed up by Dr. Leonard McCoy; "We all have our darker side. We need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly. It's Human."

Is McCoy right? That would probably be a definite maybe. The good and evil that exists within us are often not found in a specific action, but right and wrong are more often a function of purpose. We often play with the idea of killing and murder. The act of killing someone out of anger is almost universally wrong. The idea is often explored in the television that we watch. A good police officer does not kill the criminal because, in a moment of anger, he can. He might be tempted to kill the criminal in a “who would know” moment but, in the end, the good lower their weapons and turn the criminal over the judicial system. But killing in self-defense is rarely considered to be wrong. And one scenario that again finds itself into our television drama’s is that moment when the bad person is about to kill someone, and the good person takes the shot, killing the criminal before he can complete his crime. It does not seem to be the act that is right or wrong, but rather it is the purpose that lies behind the action.

The book of Judges asserts that the Jebusites remained in control of Jerusalem throughout the time of the Judges, and even into the time of the Kings. The blame for the Jebusite presence is laid at the feet of the Benjamites. In our reading, we have placed the stories at the end of Judges before the stories at the beginning. And part of the reason is logistical. Israel’s civil war left the tribe of Benjamin decimated, too decimated to provide for the stories in the 1 Samuel, which includes the story of the first King of Israel, Saul, who happens to come from the Tribe of Benjamin. There needed to be time for the tribe to recover before the stories of the first King make sense. And so we move the stories at the end of Judges to the beginning to provide the necessary time required for the tribe to recover before the time of Saul.

But that might also might give us a reason for why the Benjamites failed at the task of removing the Jebusites from Jerusalem. The tribe was just in the beginning of their recovery from the war; they simply did not have the men to take on the Jebusites. And the longer the Jebusites remained in Jerusalem, the harder the thought of removing them became.

The trap that we can fall into is in believing that the Jebusites remained in control of Jerusalem because removing them was unimportant. But that is probably not true. Diversity can be a strength. But the problem goes back to our discussion of purpose. If the Jebusites were willing to support the purposes of Israel, then their presence might not have been a problem. But that does not seem to be true. The Jebusites were a problem because they were the enemy within who pursued their own purposes, content in the knowledge that Benjamin, and Israel, were too weak to do anything about it. Instead of serving the purposes of the nation, they remained a threat in the heartland of the nation.

Even after Benjamin recovered from the war and gave one of their brightest to be the first king of Israel, the Jebusites remained in control of Jerusalem, and the threat would not be removed until David decided to make the city his own.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Judges 2