As those who’ve known me for any reasonable length of time know, I don’t believe there’s really a wrong way to read the Bible. (Except for not reading it at all or reading verses without regard for their context, of course.) We need to both deeply read single books of the Bible and read the Bible in big chunks. Both are essential to our experience of Scripture. Why? Because they feed off of one another. Together, they help us identify patterns and themes through individual books and across Scripture.
This is hardly a novel idea, of course. It’s the starting point of basic biblical theology. But what it lacks in novelty, it makes up for in its ability to inspire us and help us see the richness of God’s Word.
The Contrast and Conflict
Consider, for example, what you find when you trace a key theme of the book of Judges. In many ways, Judges serves as a prologue of sorts to the books of Samuel. One of the key ways it does this is by setting up the conflict between David and Saul as its narrator contrasts the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
For example, Judah is shown as taking the lead role in the continuation of the still incomplete conquest of the promised land (Joshua 1:19-20). “The Lord was with Judah,” the narrator wrote, as they drove out the mountaineers and Hebron was given to Caleb. But the very next verse contrasts Judah with Benjamin, highlighting the latter’s failure to drive out the Jebusites (1:21).
Later, as Israel’s Judges are introduced, Othniel, Caleb’s nephew, was depicted as the most faithful of all who appeared between Joshua and Samuel (3:7-11). Meanwhile, aside from the cleverness of the story of Ehud, the narrator says little good about Benjamin at all. In fact, by the end, Benjamin is depicted as the epitome of apostasy, as wicked as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah (Joshua 19:1-21:25; Genesis 19).
And who would go to fight against them first? Judah (Judges 20:18).
The Conflict Over a Kingdom
First Samuel intensifies the contrast and conflict between Judah and Benjamin. Saul, a Benjamite, served as the first king of Israel and, despite his early victories, failed to obey the Lord. He looked the part, being more handsome and taller than all the other Israelites (1 Samuel 9:2), but his heart did not belong to the Lord. David, meanwhile, was a shepherd, the youngest child of Jesse’s seven sons, and hardly looked the part of a king (despite still being a good-looking young man). Yet, he was the one who God said was “a man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14 NKJV; Acts 13:22).
As David found favor with the people, Saul became jealous of him and determined to kill him. David, though forced to flee, refused to harm the jealous king. Despite being anointed as king by Samuel, David would not lift his hand against Saul. His time would come; the Lord would judge between them. But David would spare Saul, the Lord’s anointed, even knowing that Saul would not show the same courtesy (1 Samuel 24).
The Ceasefire Before the Storm
One of the reasons I find this theme so fascinating is because it’s not fully resolved in 1-2 Samuel. Now, I want to be careful here because there is a sense in which the rivalry does end in these books. After all, Saul dies (1 Samuel 31), and despite a failed attempt to take the throne by Saul’s son Ish Bosheth, David is finally made king over a united Israel (2 Samuel 2-5). After securing his throne, David even seeks out Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, to show him kindness. And out of that kindness, Mephibosheth is welcomed to regularly eat at David’s table (2 Samuel 9).
So, yes, there is peace between Judah and Benjamin when David’s kingdom is established. And even through the divided kingdom and into the Babylonian exile, Judah and Benjamin remained together. Yet, this isn’t the end of the story. There is something more. A final, deeper resolution of the animosity between the two—between the Son of David and another man named Saul.
Where Their Striving Truly Ceased
Saul was a Pharisee, highly educated in the Law, and zealous about keeping it. He saw Jesus’s disciples as a danger with all their talk of their crucified and risen Messiah. He heard Stephen’s preaching, and when the crowd stoned and killed him, he approved of it (Acts 8:1). And he didn’t just approve—he joined in. Saul terrorized the early church, breathing out murderous threats and seeking to arrest them (Acts 9:1).
And then something astounding happened: Saul became one of them.
And not just one of them. The zealous persecutor of the church became its champion. Saul, also called Paul, traveled far and wide to proclaim the news of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to those among whom Christ was not known as the apostle to the Gentiles. His letters to the churches make up nearly half of the New Testament. And in one of those letters, he includes this small detail: Paul, this “Hebrew of Hebrews,” was “of the tribe of Benjamin” (Philippians 3:5).
Deposits of Grace Waiting to Be Discovered
Charles Spurgeon once said, “The deeper you dig into Scripture, the more you find that it is a great abyss of truth.” He was right about that, of course. Scripture is inexhaustible—we can never exhaust all of its riches. And this is the beauty of reading deeply and widely. Through it, we find rich deposits of God’s grace running all throughout the book, just waiting to be discovered. Good news that enriches our experience of God’s Word, and let’s us see the beauty of God’s redemption story playing out through every page.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
