Don’t want God to be your ruler? Then try Cushan-Rishathaim, Cushan of Double Wickedness!
Father knows best. Long before it happened, He knew what the Israelites would do if they intermarried with the Canaanites. First, through sheer unbelief, they failed to defeat them. Then, with cavalier indifference, “the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites” (Jdg 3:5). Then, in brazen disobedience, “they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons” (v 6). And then, in open defiance, “they served their gods.” Down, down, down they went. Of course, it didn’t have to be that way. The story of Rahab at the beginning of the conquest, and of Ruth near the end, showed two women who abandoned their false gods and embraced the God of truth. Here’s Rahab’s confession: “the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath” (Jos 2:11). Was this a blind leap in the dark? Of course not! It was an informed step into the light. She had just recounted what she (and all her fellow inhabitants) knew about God’s power over the gods of Egypt. Everyone had the same evidence; on the basis of that, some sought mercy, and some defied Him. We read here that the children of those who had experienced the revealed glory and power and grace of God, “forgot the Lord their God” (Jdg 3:7). Forgot? Here the Hebrew is shakach, and means “to mislay, i.e. to be oblivious of, from lack of attention.” So busy, so distracted, so careless of the most important things, somehow they mislaid GOD! And this is not a problem reserved to ancient Israel. But the Lord had an attention-getter: “the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan-Rishathaim eight years” (v 8). Eight long years!