Judges - It was a total mess

Without re-telling the whole story of Samson, here are some highlights and early warning signs that his life was doomed, and contributing factors

Bad parenting?
1) He did not respect his Nazarite vow, made by his mother before his birth.
2) He disobeyed his parents, had a whiny and bad temper and they gave in to his request to marry a woman from on the street.

Disobeyed God's laws
1) He touched a dead animal and ate honey from its carass. I thought this was forbidden in the rules in Levitiicus
2) Delilah. He gave up his own secret to

He was a brute and an immature troublemaker
1) Making a difficult riddle to stump his wife's clan
2) Stealing linens and armour from soldiers he killed in a random attack just to take their stuff.
3) Tied fox tails together and let them light up the whole camp on fire.

Towards the end of the book, it keeps repeating the same thing. "There was king, Israel did as he pleased."

Judges - Ehud, Deborah, and Gideon

The book of Judges is all about military conquests, and the strengths and weaknesses of Israel's army. A few stories that stand out in Judges 1 to 7.

Ehud
He's a pretty sneaky guy, killing the really fat King of Moabites by luring him into a private conference and stabbing him with short knife that totally got engulfed by the king's fat layers. It's a pretty graphic description.

Deborah
She issues a command from the Lord to Barak to go out take out the armies of Jabin king of the Canaanites led by Sisera. Of course he wants Deborah to go with him too, which meant Barak would lose the honor of killing the enemy to another woman. In verse 4:21 and 5:26 it describes pretty graphically how Jael shoved a tent peg through Sisera's head while he lay asleep. Deborah and Barak write a victory song; Israel has peace for 40 years.

Gideon
An angel of the Lord visits Gideon to tell him to fight a winning battle against the Midianites. He is a bit afraid so he tests God with the wet fleece and dry fleece miracles. When he finally believes, God asks him to reduce his troop size so they cannot boast the victory by military might alone. 22 thousand men are afraid so only 10 thousand remain. Another selection process leaves only 300 men who will go on to fight with Gideon.

The test was on how the men approached the water for drinking. There were those who lapped water with their hands to their mouth (300) and the others knelt down to drink. Someone told me that God used this as a character trait to identify who had "tactical intelligence". Basically the ones who lapped water from their hands, still had their eyes up had "situational awareness". The ones who knelt down to drink water were probably more naive and trusting of their environment and did not use their eyes to look around and stay alert. In the end, the attack on the Midianites camp took place at night, with loud noises and bright lights that caused such confusion that the enemy forces were attacking each other in the confusion.

Time and time again, the Israelites follow other gods, building altars to Baal and building Asherah poles. God made their enemies rule over them so they had to fight hard under the leadership of righteous Judges for the land God had already promised. To claim the Promiseland, all God wanted was for them to keep his commandments. They just didn't get it.