✯✶✰☆ Jehovah Magen ☆✰✶✯ ✯✶✰☆ The Lord of My Shield ☆✰✶✯ by Diane Stortz ~~ Psalm 33:20 "He is our help and our shield" ~~ From Daniel 6. Daniel, one of the Jewish excites in Babylon, served the rulers of Babylon his whole life. When Darius became king, he put Daniel and two other high officials in charge of all the workers who collected money for the king's treasury. Daniel did such a good job and served with such a good spirit that Darius planned to put him him charge of the whole kingdom. That made the other high officials jealous. They wanted to find a reason to get ride of Daniel, so they watched him carefully, but he never did anything wrong. Now, the officials knew that Daniel loved God and prayed to God in his house three times everyday. So they came up with a plan and presented it to the king. "O, king, we have a good idea!" they said, "Make a law that no one in the kingdom may pray to anyone but you for thirty days. And if anyone prays to someone else, he will be thrown into a den of hungry lions." The king was Daniel's friend, and he should have realized the new law would hurt Daniel. So he made the law and signed it and sealed it with his special ring. Daniel heard about the new law, but he didn't stop praying to God because praying to God was the right thing to do. He went to his house, knelt by the window, and prayed to God three times every day, just as he had always done. The other officials spied on Daniel and saw what he was doing. Then they hurried to tell the king. King Darius was very worried and upset... But even the king could not change the law once it was written. With great sadness, the king sent for Daniel. "May your God, whom you always serve, deliver you!" the king said. Then the king's servants threw Daniel into a den of hungry lions and placed a big stone over the top. The king went back to his palace, but he couldn't eat or sleep. In the morning, at the first light, he hurried back to the lions' den. As he got close, he called out, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God saved you?"..."O king," Daniel answered, "God sent an angle to close the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me." [The king] ordered his servants to pull Daniel out of the lions' den right away. Then the king made a new law. "Everyone in the kingdom must honor Daniel's God, for He is the living God who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions. ~~ Long ago, soldiers carried shields. In a battle, they held their shields in front of them to knock away arrows and other weapons against them... One of God's names is The Lord My Shield. God keeps us safe from what might hurt us, and He tells us to knock away the enemy's (Satan's) darts and arrows with our trust in Him. "Hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil" (Ephesians 6:16)." Read Psalm 3:3.
The kids who are 15 and older are receiving a series of letters on Judges! This month is Abdon's story. For kids who are 13-16 and attend the same project, one teen is receiving the names of God series and the other teen is receiving the Judges series.
Hello Friend!
The next judge is Abdon, from Judges 12:13-15, "After him, Abdon son of Hillel from Pirathon, judged Israel. He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. Abdon judged Israel eight years, and when he died, he was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites."
Abdon is another judge who we don't know a lot about, but Timothy Smith shares the following reflections from these verses: "Abdon is the last of the minor judges we meet in the book. Although his time as judge came late in his life, just the last eight years, he had considerable wealth and prestige already. He had forty sons...and already he had thirty grandsons...
Abdon seems to have judged Israel in those transitional years following the death of Samson (whose story we are about to read) while Samuel was prophet and Ahitub was high priest (1 Samuel 14:3). These three judges—Ibzan, Elon and Abdon—helped to keep Israel stable in those fearsome days before Saul became king. The note that each of them died and was given an honorable burial tells us that each man in turn brought safety, stability, and at least some peace to the land. (Note that his burial was in “the hill country of the Amalekites,” a reminder that Israel had not fulfilled God’s command to wipe out the pagan nations from Canaan, and the Amalekites still held this little island outpost in the middle of the tribe of Ephraim in the very heart of Israel)... Abdon’s wealth was in donkeys, which were used as riding mounts long before horses in Israel... Abdon showed his love for God in the use of donkeys for his sons and grandsons, using the animals themselves as marks of distinction and honor. His sons rode them as a faint foreshadowing of the day when the Son of God would ride a donkey himself (John 12:14), entering into Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna and waves palm branches. It was a moment of glory that preceded a week of passion and suffering, culminating in the agony of the cross, the payment for the sins of all mankind, and finally the glorious resurrection. It is the crucified and risen Christ in whom we put all our faith and trust. We wait with the rest of creation in eager anticipation of the day of our own resurrection, when we, too, will be liberated from bondage to decay, and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."
I pray that you are reminded of Christ's love for you as you read the stories of these judges. Love, Hannah
Happy Writing!
