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The Book of Judges

 The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the Books of Samuel, during which biblical judges served as temporary leaders. The stories follow a consistent pattern: the people are unfaithful to Yahweh; he therefore delivers them into the hands of their enemies; the people repent and entreat Yahweh for mercy, which he sends in the form of a leader or champion; the judge delivers the Israelites from oppression and they prosper, but soon they fall again into unfaithfulness and the cycle is repeated. Scholars consider many of the stories in Judges to be the oldest Deuteronomistic mystery, with their redaction dated to the 8th century BCE and with materials such as the Song of Deborah dating from much earlier.

Judges can be divided into three major sections: a double prologue (Chapters 1:1 to 3:6), a main body (3:7 to 16:31), and a double epilogue (17 to 21).

The book opens with the Israelites in the land that God has promised to them, but worshipping "foreign gods" instead of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and with Canaanites still present everywhere. Chapters 1:1 to 2:5 are thus a confession of failure, while chapters 2:6 to 3:6 are a major summary and reflection from the Deuteronomists.

The opening does sets out the pattern which the stories in the main text will follow:
  1. Israel "does evil in the eyes of Yahweh",
  2. The people are given in the hands of their enemies and cry out to Yahweh,
  3. Yahweh raises up a leader,
  4. The "spirit of Yahweh" comes upon the leader,
  5. The leader manages to defeat the enemy, and
  6. Peace is regained.
Once peace is regained, Israel does right and receives Yahweh's blessings for a time, but relapses later into doing evil and repeats the pattern above.


Judges follow the Book of Joshua and opens with a reference on Joshua's death. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges suggests that "the death of Joshua may be regarded as marking the division between the period of conquest and the period of occupation," the latter being the focus of the Book of Judges. The israelites meet, probably at the sanctuary at Gilgal or at Shechem, and ask the Lord who should be first (in order of time, not of rank) to secure the land they are to occupy.

The main text gives accounts of six major judges and their struggles against the oppressive kings of surrounding nations, as well as the story of Abimelech, an Israelite leader, (a judge [shofet] in the sense of "chieftain") who oppresses his own people. The cyclical pattern set out in the prologue is readily apparent at the beginning, but as the stories progress it begins to disintegrate, mirroring the disintegration of the world of the Israelites. Although some scholars consider the stories not to be presented in chronological order, the judges in the order in which they appear in the text are:
  • Othniel (3:9-11) versus Chushan-Rishathaim, King of Aram; Israel has 40 years of peace until the death of Othniel. (The statement that Israel has a certain period of peace after each judge is a recurring theme.)
  • Ehud (3:11-29) versus Eglon of Moab
  • Deborah, directing Barak the army captain (4-5), versus Jabin of Hazor (a city in Canaan and Sisera, his captain (Battle of Mount Tabor)
  • Gideon (6-8) versus Mideab, Amalek, and the "children of the East" (apparently desert tribes)
  • Jephthah (11-12:7) versus the Ammonites
  • Samson (13-16) versus the Philistines
There are also brief glosses on six minor judges: Shamgar (Judges 3:31; after Ehud), Tola and Jair (10:1-5), Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (12:8-15; after Jephthah). Some scholars have inferred that the minor judges were actual adjudicators, whereas the major judges were leaders and did not actually make legal judgments. The only major judge described as making legal judgments is Deborah (4:4).

By the end of judges, Yahweh's treasures are used to make idolatrous images, the Levites (priests) become corrupt, the tribe of Dan conquers a remote village instead of the Canaanite cities, and the tribe of Israel make war on the tribe of Benjamin, their own kinsmen. The book concludes with two appendices, stories which did not feature a specific judge:
  • Micah's Idol (Judges 17-18), how the tribe of Dan conquers its territory in the north.
  • Levite's concubine (Judges 19-21): the gang rape of a Levite's concubine leads to war between the Benjamites and the other Israelite tribes, after which hundreds of virgins are taken captives as wives for decimated Benjamites.
Despite their appearance at the end of the book, certain characters (like Jonathan, the grandson of Moses) and idioms present in the epilogue show that the events therein "must have taken place... early in the period of judges."

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Picture from Pexels.

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