Judges

The Conquest & the Judges

Judges

Rebellion and rescue, in the years when Israel had no king

The book in front of us is filled with stories of men of God who dominate the scene during the dark years of Israel’s beginnings as a nation. You will enjoy reading the exploits of faith, especially those of Deborah, Samson and Gideon. However, you will probably have many problems concerning what God was doing with His people and the nations around them.

When we understand the purpose of God that is being worked out in the book of Judges, we can enter into and enjoy what the Spirit is saying to us through these histories.

Background to the book

The book takes place in a period of transition that is crucial in the history of God’s people.

Their fathers had lived in the wilderness with the ideals of the covenant received at Sinai etched in their minds. Added to that were the miracles which had been experienced while coming out of Egypt and walking through the wilderness for forty years. Entrance into Canaan had been under the charismatic leadership of Joshua, with miracles attending the covenant people. In those days no one had challenged their faith or God’s promise.

Now they settle in a land where Baal is the god and the worship of Yahweh is being challenged. They have to make costly choices between the God of Sinai and Baal. They also have to work out the terms of the covenant their fathers had carried through the wilderness. Their sin is to constantly forget this and to fall into the worship of Baal or, worse yet, to put the worship of Yahweh alongside the worship of Baal, making him an alternative God.

Each time Israel breaks the covenant God allows them, until they return to Him, to be delivered into the hands of their enemies.

In this time of transition there was no central leader figure, and so the various tribes were fragmented. At their lowest times, when everyone did that which was right in their own eyes, they approached anarchy. The two stories at the end of the book describe some of the conditions during these bad periods. Judges 2:1–10

The name of the book

The word Judge is not to be understood as a judge in the United States. The best definition is found in Judges 2:16:

Then the LORD would send judges to rescue them from those who robbed them.

Judges 2:16  ·  God’s Word

A Judge was a deliverer and savior of the people, leading them out of the results of their sin back to the covenant. Having led them back, the Judge ruled over the people and acted as their leader.

The judges themselves

To be called a Judge meant that there was always the coming upon of the Spirit that gave wisdom, insight and understanding. At times, because of the physical oppression of the people, the Spirit gave military wisdom to the Judge, enabling him or her to lead the people to a military victory over their enemies.

In Judges 11:27 Yahweh is seen to be the ultimate Judge and Deliverer. He allows the covenant people to fall into the hands of their enemies because of the broken covenant. He then raises up the deliverers and endues them with His Spirit. The same pattern runs through Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 14:6, 19; and 15:14.

The men He chose to deliver the people did not live particularly exemplary lives. Look at some of them:

  • Ehud uses a very cowardly way to assassinate the oppressor.
  • Gideon leads the people astray after his victory over Midian.
  • Jephthah acts like a politician.
  • Samson leaves all of us embarrassed by his actions.

God is celebrating His grace. He uses men like this not because they are sinless, but because He is merciful to His people.

One characteristic of all these men which has been recognized through the centuries is that God’s grace enabled them to have faith. With all their faults, they responded to Him; and so He was able to use them to achieve His purpose. Hebrews 11:32–33 and 1 Samuel 12:8–11 both look back on them this way.

What this book reveals about God

In this book we meet with God as He is in His Person and as revealed in His dealings with men.

  • He is the Holy One who must deal with their breaking of the covenant. Because of their sin they have to discover by experience what it is like to live without their covenant God.
  • He is the Sovereign One who rules in the affairs of all men and nations. He raises up His men in history to achieve His purpose, and controls the course of the enemies of God’s people.
  • He is the covenant keeper in spite of the lapses of His people. He abounds in lovingkindness, or loyal love. With this we see His long-suffering and His patience. In Exodus 34:6–7 God declares this character Himself.
  • He is the upholder of His people. The fact that Israel came through this period without losing their faith altogether is a miracle in itself.

The time span

The period of the Judges takes in more than is included in this book. Read the book of Ruth at this point as well, and also 1 Samuel 1–12. Ruth is a story that took place during the time of the Judges, and Samuel was the last Judge.

Take note, too, that the stories in the book overlap. While one deliverer is the savior of the northern tribes, another may have been in the south. These, for the most part, are not national stories but local ones. Read each story carefully to discover where each event was taking place.

The judges, one by one

Read down the two middle columns and the cycle of the book is right there in the numbers: the people break the covenant, an oppressor is allowed in for a number of years, God raises a deliverer, and the land has rest — until the deliverer dies and it begins again.

Judge Scripture The oppression How long he led What we are told
Othniel 3:7–11 OppressionCushan-rishathaim of Aram, eight years LedRest for forty years NotesCaleb’s younger kinsman, and the first of the deliverers. The pattern of the whole book is set here.
Ehud 3:12–30 OppressionEglon of Moab, eighteen years LedRest for eighty years NotesEhud uses a very cowardly way to assassinate the oppressor.
Shamgar 3:31 OppressionThe Philistines LedNot given NotesOne verse, and six hundred men struck down with an oxgoad — a farm tool, not a weapon.
Deborah and Barak 4:1–5:31 OppressionJabin and Sisera of Canaan, twenty years LedRest for forty years NotesA prophetess judging Israel under a palm tree. Barak will not go without her; Jael finishes Sisera in her tent.
Gideon 6:1–8:35 OppressionMidian, seven years LedRest for forty years NotesThreshing wheat in a winepress when he is called, and sent out with three hundred men. Gideon leads the people astray after his victory over Midian.
Abimelech 9:1–57 Oppression— LedRuled three years NotesNot a judge at all. Gideon’s son seizes power and kills seventy of his brothers to get it. He is in the book to show what happens when a man takes the office instead of being raised to it.
Tola 10:1–2 OppressionNot named LedTwenty-three years NotesRose to save Israel after Abimelech.
Jair 10:3–5 OppressionNot named LedTwenty-two years NotesThirty sons, thirty donkeys, thirty towns.
Jephthah 10:6–12:7 OppressionAmmon, eighteen years LedSix years NotesAn outcast son, sent away and then called back when he was needed. Jephthah acts like a politician. His rash vow is one of the hardest passages in the book.
Ibzan 12:8–10 OppressionNot named LedSeven years NotesOf Bethlehem. Thirty sons and thirty daughters.
Elon 12:11–12 OppressionNot named LedTen years NotesOf Zebulun. Nothing else is recorded.
Abdon 12:13–15 OppressionNot named LedEight years NotesForty sons and thirty grandsons, riding seventy donkeys.
Samson 13:1–16:31 OppressionThe Philistines, forty years LedTwenty years NotesA Nazirite from before his birth, and the only one whose calling comes with conditions attached. Samson leaves all of us embarrassed by his actions.

Two things are worth noticing as you read across. The oppressions lengthen as the book goes on, while the years of rest grow shorter and less certain, until Samson faces forty years of Philistine rule and never finishes the job. And the last judge in the book is the one who fails hardest, which is exactly the note the writer wants to leave you on before the final two stories.

An outline of Judges

1:1–2:5  The failure to conquer Canaan

2:6–16:31  The Judges — beginning at 2:6–3:6 with the introduction to the period, then the deliverers one by one. They are set out in the table above.

17:1–21:25  Two stories from the period of the Judges

Where Jesus is pictured

As in all the stories of the Old Testament, Jesus is pictured in His work toward us. Moses pictures Him as the One who leads us out of the world and sin by His blood and power. Joshua typifies Jesus as He leads us into rest and freedom from our enemies.

And the book of Judges shows Jesus who is now the High Priest, ever living to save us and bring us to maturity through all of our failures and stumbling.

That is the note to leave this book on. You have just read about men God used who were cowardly, vain, calculating and embarrassing, and about a people who could not stay faithful for one generation together. If you have been waiting for the deliverer in these pages to be worth admiring, you will wait a long time. The deliverer worth admiring comes later, and He is still at work on the same kind of people.

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