Now it came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, saying, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have handed the land over to him.” (vv. 1-2)

The Book of Judges begins with the capture of Jerusalem after the death of Joshua. Beginning with Moses, the leaders of Israel served as shadows of the true Leader, Jesus Christ. Moses could not lead the Israelites into the land of Canaan, but Joshua did. The name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua. Yet Joshua did not capture Jerusalem; instead, the tribe of Judah did, according to God’s command.

Out of the thirteen tribes of Israel, God chose Judah to capture Jerusalem. It was not because Judah had done anything better than the other sons of Jacob to earn God’s favour. We know that Judah’s lineage continued through his sexual union with his daughter-in-law, Tamar. Without any good deeds to his credit, God appointed Judah to receive this honour. Our Lord Jesus Christ was born from the tribe of Judah in fulfilment of God’s prophecy.

He also rejected the tent of Joseph,
And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
But chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which He loved.
And He built His sanctuary like the heights,
Like the earth which He has established forever.
He also chose His servant David
And took him from the sheepfolds;
From the care of the ewes with nursing lambs He brought him
To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance.
So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,
And guided them with his skillful hands. (Psalm 78:67-72)

Many people think that Jerusalem is merely the geographical city we can see with our physical eyes. However, the true Jerusalem is Mount Zion, the holy place from which God will rule in the coming Kingdom. That city is not presently on earth. Therefore, it is futile to visit Jerusalem in Israel expecting to receive spiritual benefits simply by being there.

The latter part of the chapter describes how the Israelites failed to drive out all the Canaanites, as God had commanded. Under the conditional covenant, it may appear that Israel’s downfall in the Old Testament resulted from their disobedience, and in that covenantal context, this is true. However, through the death of Christ, God removed the dividing wall between the Israelites and the Gentiles. The distinction between Jew and Gentile was abolished in Christ, as God established the New Covenant.

When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to take possession of it, and He drives away many nations from before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God turns them over to you and you defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them. You shall not make a covenant with them nor be gracious to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them: you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, and they will serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. But this is what you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, smash their memorial stones, cut their Asherim to pieces, and burn their carved images in the fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His personal possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:1-6)

The Israelites’ failure to drive out the Canaanites in this chapter foreshadows Israel’s future under the conditional covenant. These events took place because God intended to teach us about life under that covenant. However, we are no longer under the conditional covenant but under the unconditional covenant. God does not require us to keep the covenant in order to gain or maintain our salvation.

With this in mind, we should reexamine the practices and political positions that many churches adopt regarding the situation in Israel. Many Christian leaders do not seem to distinguish clearly between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament exists for the New Testament. Only the unconditional covenant remains.