Lasting Effects

 

Judges 1:21 But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. 22 The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) 24 And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” 25 And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. 26 And the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day.

As we move into the book of Judges, Joshua dies and each tribe and clan takes responsibility for finishing the task of completing their allotment. Sometimes tribes worked together, and that was a good things. All was proceeding well, but... That is the key word to look for in this book, as seen in verses 21 and 25 above. They did not drive out all the wicked peoples as God had commanded them to. We need to recall that God was judging the peoples of the land for their wickedness and using the people of Israel to do so. Their refusal to fully obey was going to have long lasting effects.  The phrase "to this day" can be either good or bad, and often in Judges, and our lives, it is the latter.