Monday, August 17, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Judges 18-20
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 95
Key Verse
Judges 19:24 — “Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.”
Devotional Thought
In the middle of August, when the garden is heavy with produce and the evenings still hold their light, we are invited by the psalmist to sing. “O come, let us sing unto the LORD,” he writes, “let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” This is the voice of a people who know their God. Yet the reading from Judges gives us a picture of a people who had forgotten how to listen. Twice we are told, “In those days there was no king in Israel.” It is not merely a political note; it is a spiritual diagnosis. Without a king—without the Lord as their true ruler—everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and the results were catastrophic.
Consider Micah, who hired a Levite to be his private priest and manufactured his own gods. When the tribe of Dan came through, they stole both the idols and the priest, and the priest’s heart was glad to trade one house for a tribe. Here is a man who should have known the law of God, yet he treated his calling like a career move. Then there is the Levite of chapter nineteen, whose concubine fled from him, and whose story ends in Gibeah with a night of horror that echoes Sodom itself. The men of Benjamin would not give up the perpetrators, and the result was a civil war that nearly annihilated a tribe. The book closes with the same refrain: no king.
But the psalm portion gives us the remedy. “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.” The wilderness generation saw God’s works for forty years, yet they erred in their hearts and never knew His ways. They did not enter His rest. The men of Judges also saw God’s works—they had the ark, the law, the memory of Egypt and the conquest—but they refused to hear. They chose their own appetites, their own vengeance, their own idols.
This August, as the year begins its slow turn toward autumn, we are asked the same question. Will we hear His voice today? Will we bow before the Lord our Maker, or will we set up our own little shrines and call them faith? The book of Judges is not just ancient history; it is a mirror. When we refuse to submit to the King, we do not become free—we become slaves to our own chaos. But the psalmist calls us back: “He is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” The voice that spoke in the wilderness still speaks. The rest that generation missed is still offered. Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart.
Reflection
- Where in your life have you been doing what is right in your own eyes rather than submitting to the Lord as your King?
- The psalm warns against hardening your heart after seeing God’s works. What specific work of God in your past are you tempted to forget or explain away today?
Prayer
Lord, You are the great King above all gods, and we confess that too often we have lived as though there were no king in Israel—as though we were free to shape our own worship and follow our own appetites. Forgive us for the idols we have manufactured and the voices we have silenced. Today, soften our hearts. Let us hear Your voice and not harden ourselves as our fathers did in the wilderness. Draw us to Your pasture, where You feed Your sheep by Your hand. We come before Your presence with thanksgiving, singing to the rock of our salvation, and we ask that You would be our God, and we Your people, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 95:1 — “O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.”