The Pragmatism of Rot: A Dozen Ways to Fail Text: Judges 1:27-36
Introduction: The Slow Fade of Obedience
The book of Joshua ends on a high note. The people have renewed the covenant. The land has been conquered and apportioned. Joshua, that faithful servant, charges the people to be courageous, to keep the law, and to cling to the Lord their God. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived him. But something happens when that generation passes. Something always happens. The book of Judges opens with a few bright spots of obedience, but it quickly descends into a long, sorry catalog of compromise. And this is where we find ourselves in our text today.
This passage is a litany of failure. It is a drumbeat of disobedience, repeated tribe by tribe. What we are reading is the anatomy of a spiritual collapse. It is not a sudden, catastrophic implosion, but rather a slow, pragmatic rot. This is how nations, churches, and families fall. Not with a bang, but with a series of reasonable, sensible, and utterly disobedient compromises. The command from God was not complicated. It was severe, but it was simple: drive out the inhabitants of the land completely. Utterly destroy their idols and their altars. Make no covenant with them. Show them no mercy. Why? Because God knew that their idolatry was a spiritual contagion, a spiritual pandemic, and the only way to protect Israel was through a strict and holy quarantine.
But the children of Israel, in their wisdom, thought they knew better. They looked at the situation on the ground and decided that God's command was perhaps a bit too idealistic, a bit extreme for the real world. They decided that partial obedience was good enough. They would subdue the Canaanites, but not expel them. They would turn them into a source of cheap labor. It was practical. It was profitable. It was a win-win, they thought. But in disobeying a direct command from God, they were sowing the seeds of their own destruction. They thought they were enslaving the Canaanites, but in reality, they were enslaving their own children and grandchildren to the Canaanite gods. This passage is a stark warning to us. The temptation to compromise with the world, to make treaties with our remaining sins, to manage them instead of mortifying them, is ever-present. And the logic is always the same: it just makes sense. It's practical. But this is the pragmatism of rot.
The Text
But Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its towns or Taanach and its towns or the inhabitants of Dor and its towns or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns; so the Canaanites persisted to live in that land. And it happened when Israel became strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not dispossess them completely. Also Ephraim did not dispossess the Canaanites who were living in Gezer; so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them. Zebulun did not dispossess the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahalol; so the Canaanites lived among them and became subject to forced labor. Asher did not dispossess the inhabitants of Acco or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob. So the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not dispossess them. Naphtali did not dispossess the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; and the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath became forced labor for them. Then the Amorites pressed the sons of Dan into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the valley; and the Amorites persisted in living in Mount Heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim; but the hand of the house of Joseph became heavy, and they became forced labor. Now the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward.
(Judges 1:27-36 LSB)
The Anatomy of Compromise (vv. 27-33)
This section reads like a broken record, and that is precisely the point. The sin is monotonous, repetitive, and widespread.
"But Manasseh did not take possession... so the Canaanites persisted to live in that land. And it happened when Israel became strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not dispossess them completely." (Judges 1:27-28)
Here is the pattern in a nutshell. First, there is a failure of nerve: "Manasseh did not take possession." Then comes the consequence: "the Canaanites persisted." Finally, a pragmatic solution is applied that masks the initial disobedience: when Israel got strong enough, they turned their unconquered enemies into a source of revenue. This is a fatal move. God commanded extermination, not exploitation. He wanted these pagan cultures gone, not put on the payroll. By putting them to forced labor, Israel was integrating the cancer into their own body politic. They were making a covenant of convenience. They disobeyed God's clear command for the sake of economic advantage.
This reveals a fundamental failure to trust God. God promised to provide for them in the land. Their inheritance was a gift of grace, to be received on His terms. But they decided they needed a little something extra, a little boost to the economy that cheap Canaanite labor could provide. They valued the work of Canaanite hands more than the promise of God's hand. This is the essence of worldliness: looking to the systems of man for the security that is only found in God.
The litany continues, tribe by tribe. Ephraim "did not dispossess" the Canaanites in Gezer; they just lived among them (v. 29). Zebulun did the same, and also put them to forced labor (v. 30). Asher went even further. Not only did they fail to drive the Canaanites out, but the text reverses the picture: "So the Asherites lived among the Canaanites" (v. 32). They became tenants in their own inheritance. They were so comfortable with compromise that they settled down as the minority party in the land God had given them. Naphtali follows the same sorry pattern (v. 33). The refrain is "did not dispossess." It is a sin of omission, a failure to carry the work of God through to completion. Partial obedience is whole disobedience.
The Reversal of Fortune (vv. 34-36)
With the tribe of Dan, the situation becomes even more pathetic. The failure to obey doesn't just lead to compromise; it leads to defeat.
"Then the Amorites pressed the sons of Dan into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the valley..." (Judges 1:34)
This is a complete reversal of the conquest. God's people, who were commanded to drive out the inhabitants, are themselves being driven out. The conquerors are becoming the refugees, pushed out of the fertile plains and into the less desirable hill country. Why? Because they did not obey. They tolerated the presence of the enemy, and the enemy, given time, grew strong and pushed back. This is a spiritual law. The sin you tolerate today will dominate you tomorrow. The worldly influence you think you can manage will, in the end, manage you. You cannot make a pet of a python.
The Amorites "persisted" (v. 35), just as the Canaanites "persisted" against Manasseh (v. 27). The enemy is stubborn. The world, the flesh, and the devil do not give up ground easily. If you do not press your advantage by the grace of God and in the power of the Spirit, they will certainly press theirs. The passage ends with a boundary marker: "the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim..." (v. 36). This is a tragic line. It should have been the border of Israel. But because of their disobedience, a foreign border was now drawn inside the Promised Land. Compromise always results in a loss of territory. You give sin an inch, and it will take a mile of your inheritance in Christ.
The Thorns in Your Side
The Angel of the Lord makes the consequences of this failure explicit in the very next chapter. He says to the people, "you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice... So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you" (Judges 2:2-3).
This is the fruit of their pragmatism. The cheap labor they thought was such a clever idea would become a constant source of pain, a thorn in their sides. And more than that, their gods would become a snare. This is exactly what happened. The rest of the book of Judges is a miserable cycle of Israel whoring after the Baals and the Ashtaroth, being oppressed by the very people they failed to drive out, crying out to God, God raising up a deliverer, and then the people falling right back into idolatry as soon as the judge was dead.
They thought they could have the land without the holiness God required. They wanted the blessing of the inheritance without the difficulty of the obedience. But it is impossible. God's blessings are covenantal, and they are tied to His commands. When we rationalize disobedience, when we decide that God's commands are impractical for our situation, we are choosing the thorn and the snare over the blessing. We are choosing slavery over freedom.
No Neutral Ground
The lesson for us is painfully clear. There is no neutral ground in the Christian life. There is no peaceful coexistence with sin. The command of the New Testament is every bit as severe as the command given to Israel. We are to "put to death" the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13). We are to "make no provision for the flesh" (Romans 13:14). We are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). This is the language of total war, not of détente.
And yet, how often do we act like the northern tribes? We have sins that we manage instead of mortify. We have worldly habits that we've put to "forced labor," thinking we can extract some pleasure or benefit from them without being spiritually compromised. We keep a pet sin in a cage in the corner of our lives, feeding it just enough to keep it alive, thinking we are in control. We live among the Canaanites of our old life, thinking we can be friends. But the result is always the same. The sin we manage eventually masters us. The compromise we think is so practical becomes a snare that entangles us. The border of the enemy advances into the territory of our own hearts.
The failure of Israel was a failure of faith. They did not believe that God's way was truly best. They did not believe that He would provide for them if they obeyed completely. And so they hedged their bets. They leaned on their own understanding. Our obedience is a function of our faith. If we truly believe that Christ has purchased our full inheritance, that He is better than any fleeting pleasure of sin, and that His commands are for our good, then we will gladly take up the sword of the Spirit and drive the Canaanites out. We will not settle for a truce. We will not put them to forced labor. We will, by grace, obey completely.
The good news of the gospel is that while we, like Israel, have failed spectacularly, Jesus Christ, the true Israel, did not. He did not compromise. He did not fail. He drove out the enemy completely, triumphing over them by the cross. And He has given us His Spirit so that we can walk in that same victory. The question is whether we will settle for living in the hill country of a compromised faith, or whether we will, by faith, lay claim to the fullness of the inheritance He has won for us.