Judges

Judges is a transitional book surveying the turbulent period between Joshua's death and the formation of the Israelite monarchy.  Judges is our principal source of information about Israel before it became organized into a national state.  This composite narrative portrays a weak and disunited people struggling on two fronts:

1) to maintain their precarious toehold in Canaan

2) to discover their identity as a covenant community

The judges were charismatic military leaders.  These judges sporadically direct a few Israelite tribes against their many enemies. 

 The cyclical pattern of history as understood in the book of Judges says that any failure was a failure on the part of Israel to walk in faith with God.  This is known as the Deuteronomic theme of history.  In other words, history was conditional.  History was understood as a cyclical pattern.

The cycle was one of

a.  disobedience

b.  oppression

c.  crying out

d.  deliverance

e.  temporary peace

When a presiding judge was loyal to God and the people worship Israel's God exclusively, the whole community prospers, winning battles against invading troops and reaping the benefits of their heritage.  After the loyal judge dies, however, the people are soon disobedient, arousing God's anger and causing him to deliver them over to enemy oppression.  In their anguish, the people then cry out to the Lord, who is merciful and raises up a new judge who delivers them from their oppressors.  After a generation of revived faith and obedience, the people again backslide, and the whole cycle begins anew.  This viewpoint of history is set forth in Judges 2:11-23.

The total number of judges listed is thirteen.  The judges' individual activities probably overlapped, but the book of Judges presents them as appearing in chronological sequence.  About half the judges mentioned are associated with heroic exploits; the others are merely names on the page.  The book ends with the story of a tragic civil war.

Ehud

Ehud was a left-handed Benjaminite who acts alone in murdering Eglon, the king of Moab.  Ehud deceives Eglon into granting him a private meeting by claiming to bear a personal "message from God" for the king.  Unexpectedly drawing his hidden dagger (presumably from his right side, where no one would expect to find it), Ehud plunges the blade into Eglon, who was so obese that the entire blade and hilt disappeared as "the fat closed over the blade."  Ehud escapes through a side window.  The king's associates speculate that their king, who has been unusually quiet in his upper room, must be busy answering the call of nature.

Safely returning to his tribe, Ehud then leads a decisive attack against Moab, which is easily defeated without its military head Eglon, This victory gives Israel "rest for eighty years". Read Judges 3:12-30.

 Deborah and Barak

 Deborah functions both as a judge in the legal sense, regularly arbitrating disputes, but also as a "prophetess".  Barak served as her general.  He was called upon to fight against Jabin, a local Canaanite prince.  (Read Judges 4:4-22.)  Jabin's army commander was Sisera.  When Sisera sees how badly things are going, he flees on foot from the battlefield.  He came to the tent of a Kenite named Heber.  Jael, Heber's wife, was at home.  When Sisera asked for refuge in her tent, Jael invited him in and gave him refreshments.  While he was eating and drinking, she killed him by driving a tent peg through his skull.

 Gideon

 Read Judges 6:11-32.

Gideon comes from a family of devoted Baal worshipers. Note his name change: Jerubbaal means "let Baal contend against him," (verse 32).  When God suddenly appears to inform Gideon that he is the choice to rescue Israel from Midianite oppression, Gideon resists his call.  Only after God miraculously sets an altar on fire does Gideon acknowledge his God and calling.  At God's direction, under cover of darkness he tears down Baal's local altar, building a shrine to the Lord on the site.  This angered his neighbors.  As Gideon prepares to make war on the Midianites, God orders him to reduce the size of his Israelite army from 32,000 to a small band of 300 men.  The reason for this drastic cutback, Yahweh explains, is to make sure that the coming victory over Midian is publicly recognized as entirely God's work; otherwise, Israel might claim the credit for themselves. (Read Judges 7:1-8.)  Gideon has military successes.  After these victories, the people invite him to be their king, establishing a hereditary monarchy in which his sons would automatically succeed him, an offer he rejects on the grounds that in Israel only Yahweh "must be your lord" (8:22-24).

 Jephthah

 Jephthah is the son of a prostitute who has also been disinherited by his family.  Jephthah is one of the most morally equivocal judges.  Before he began his battle, he vowed that if he were successful, he would sacrifice to the LORD the first thing he saw when he returned from the battle.  He was successful.  When he returned, the first thing he saw was his daughter.  He kept his vow, thus giving the only clear example in the Old Testament of an Israelite practicing human sacrifice to the LORD (11:29-40).

 Samson

 Read Judges 13:1-5.

Samson's parents dedicate him as a Nazirite.  As visible signs of their consecration to God, Nazirites were to:

1. abstain from wine and other alcoholic drinks

2. eat only ritually "clean" foods

3. and leave their hair uncut

In the books of Judges and Samuel, the Philistines are the primary threat to God's people.  Unlike Gideon or Jephthah, Samson does not lead an army against the enemy but fights the Philistines single-handedly.  Samson’s sexual affairs repeatedly involve him in dangerous confrontations with the enemy (14:1-15:8; 16:1-3).

 His most celebrated affair was with Delilah.  She was bribed by the Philistines to discover the secret of his strength and betray him.  Breaking his Nazirite vow by revealing the secret of his strength, Samson is abandoned by God to be captured, blinded, and imprisoned.  Only when his hair begins to grow again does Yahweh's spirit empower Samson to exact a final revenge on his tormentors.  He pulled down the temple of Dagon, a Philistine god, upon 3000 of his worshipers.

Thus, the writer of Judges says, "Those he killed at his death outnumbered those he had killed in his life" (Judg. 16:30).  Samson's name in Hebrew means "little sun,". Note 15:9-20.

 The War Against Benjamin

 Chapters 19-21 in Judges describe the rape-murder by the Benjaminites of a Levite priest's concubine.  After discovering the woman's dead body,  the Levite cuts her into eleven pieces and sends the pieces to eleven Israelite tribes, asking them to avenge this rape and murder by declaring holy war on the Benjaminites.  The tribe of Benjamin is almost totally exterminated.

 The Final Word (Judges 21:5)

The Book of Judges is summarized well in its final verse:  "In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes."