Judges

What This Book Is

The generations between Joshua and the kings, told as a repeating cycle of forgetting, oppression, crying out, and rescue, each turn worse than the last.

Overview

Judges is the bleakest book in the Old Testament, and it is deliberately structured to feel that way. A cycle repeats: the people forget God, an enemy oppresses them, they cry out, God raises up a deliverer, there is peace for a while, and then it starts again. Each rotation sits a little lower than the one before.

The deliverers, called judges, are not a distinguished group. Ehud is an assassin. Deborah is the only one who comes off well throughout. Gideon needs three signs before he moves, wins a famous victory with three hundred men, and then makes an idol out of the spoils. Jephthah makes a vow that destroys his own family. Samson has extraordinary strength and almost no self control, and his story ends in a temple he pulls down on himself.

The last five chapters have no judge at all, and they are genuinely disturbing: a stolen shrine, a horrific crime at Gibeah, and a civil war that nearly wipes out a tribe. The book offers no commentary. It simply repeats its refrain, that there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Read as a whole, the book is an argument. Something is wrong that better leaders cannot fix, and the problem is not primarily political.

And yet God keeps answering when they cry out. Every single time.

Structure

• Chapters 1 to 2: The problem statedAn incomplete settlement, and a generation that did not know the Lord.
• Chapters 3 to 5: Early judgesOthniel, Ehud, and Deborah, whose victory becomes a song.
• Chapters 6 to 9: GideonA reluctant deliverer, a famous victory, and a ruinous aftermath.
• Chapters 10 to 16: Jephthah and SamsonA tragic vow, and a strong man with no self control.
• Chapters 17 to 21: No kingIdolatry, atrocity, and civil war, with no deliverer in sight.

Themes

Why It Matters

Judges refuses to flatter anyone. It shows that being God's people is no guarantee of good behaviour, and that the heroes of the story are often deeply compromised. It also shows a God whose patience is nearly incomprehensible: the people abandon him repeatedly and he keeps responding to their cries. Hebrews includes several of these flawed figures in its roll call of faith, which says something about how God works with people as they are.

How to Read It

• Watch the cycle rather than only the individual stories. The pattern is the point.
• Notice how flawed the deliverers are, and that the text does not excuse them.
• Read the final chapters even though they are hard. The book means to leave you unsettled.
• Ask what the repeated refrain about no king is preparing the reader for.

Key Verse

Did You Know?

• Deborah is both a prophet and a judge, and the victory song in chapter 5 is among the oldest poetry in the Bible.
• Gideon's army is reduced from twenty two thousand to three hundred before the battle.
• The phrase everyone did what was right in his own eyes closes the book and sums up its argument.

Where to Start Reading

Related in the Field Guide