- Time of the Judges
- Political situation
- Organization of the tribes
- Amphictyony
- Suggested by Martin Noth
- Patterned after leagues in Greece and Italy in which tribes centered
around a common sanctuary and used a council of representatives from each tribe to conduct
the business that concerned all of them
- Often the tribal league had 12 or a multiple of members
- Israel demonstrated some of the traits of an amphictyony but Israel
in the period of the judges was never as organized as most amphictyonies were
- The term does not adequately describe Israel in the time of the
judges
- Loose confederation of tribes
- More descriptive of Israel
- Tribes were related by a common faith and tradition but did not
cooperate much (cf. Judg. 5:12-18)
- Leadership
- No permanent leadership - following the death of Joshua, no new
obedient servant arose as leader
- Temporary leadership evolved for periods of difficulty
- Judges
- Who were they?
- Military leaders
- Legal authorities
- Heroes - most likely identification
- Characteristics
- Came to power in periods of emergency when Israel experienced
difficulties from enemies
- Authority was limited to the period of the emergency only - after
saving their people, they would have been respected and consulted but had no formal leadership
role
- Authority was limited to one or a few tribes and not all Israel
- "Major" vs. "minor" judges
- Definitions
- "Major" judges are those concerning whom longer traditions
exist (e.g., Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson)
- "Minor" judges are those who are listed merely as judging
Israel for a period of time or about whom we have only very brief accounts (e.g., Ehud,
Othniel)
- Some have suggested that two separate offices existed in Israel
during the time of the judges
- Major judges were military leaders in times of attack while minor
judges were interpreters of the law
- The office of major judge was temporary while the office of minor judge
was permanent and was filled by another when a judge died
- Most scholars doubt there was such a distinction
- Judges probably overlapped with one another although the Book of
Judges makes it seem that judges served one after another
- Pattern of history in the book
- Disobedience - the people forgot God and disobeyed His commandments
- Disaster - God then allowed an enemy tribe or tribes to afflict the
people
- Pleading for rescue - the people realized their situation and turned
back to God in order to be delivered from the enemy
- Rescue from enemies - God gave the people a hero ("judge")
who freed the people from the enemy - the people obeyed God as long as the judge lived
- Disobedience - after the death of the judge, the cycle began again -
each cycle brought the people to greater disobedience
- The Message of the Book
- Failure of the Israelites to take Canaan (1:1-36)
- Judah's conquests and failures (1:1-20)
- Benjamin's failures (1:21)
- Joseph's (Manasseh's and Ephraim's) conquests and failures (1:22-29)
- Zebulun's failure (1:30)
- Asher's failure (1:31-32)
- Naphtali's failure (1:33)
- Dan's failure (1:34-36)
- Unfaithful Israel (2:1-23)
- An angel of God confronted Israel with its disobedience and stated
that as punishment God would not drive out Canaan's inhabitants but would let them become
enemies against Israel
- Joshua died along with the rest of his generation - the new
generation did not know God (a problem waiting to happen)
- Summary of the book (2:11-23)
- Israel abandoned God and worshiped and served other gods, especially
Ba`al
- God did not grant success to Israel in military battles with her
enemies
- Israel found itself in great distress and moaned
- God raised up a judge to save His people - God was with the judge and
empowered the judge
- The people would not listen to the judge but maintained their
rebellion against God
- God refused to drive Israel's enemies out but left them as a test for
Israel
- Nations left in the land (3:1-6)
- Three minor judges (3:7-31)
- Othniel - saved Israel from Aram
- Ehud
- A left-handed hero who made a cubit-long sword with which to
assassinate King Eglon of Moab
- Eglon was so fat the sword went into his belly, his flesh closed over
the hilt, and the sword did not come out his back
- He then led Ephraim in defeating Moab
- Shamgar - killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad
- Deborah and Barak (4:1-5:31)
- Canaan became the new enemy after Israel's continued disobedience
- Deborah was a prophet and a judge
- Deborah summoned Barak to lead the troops - he agreed only if Deborah
would be present - Deborah agreed to come but told Barak a woman would win the victory
- Israel surprised the forces of Canaan under Sisera on a day with a
huge downpour of rain (5:4,20-21) - Sisera's chariots were useless and the army of Canaan
was put to flight
- Sisera fled to the tent of Heber, an ally of the king of Canaan -
Heber was not there but his wife Ja`el was
- Ja`el fed Sisera and made him comfortable - as he lay covered on the
floor of the tent she drove a tent peg through his skull and into the ground - since women
typically pitched the tent and since the ground was rocky, she would have been quite
deadly with a tent peg and hammer
- Barak discovered Ja`el had won the victory - Deborah's prophecy had
come true
- Ja`el is reminiscent of Rahab (Josh. 2:1-21) who also embraced the
God of Israel and His people
- Song of Deborah (5:1-31)
- One of the oldest traditions in the Hebrew Bible
- Celebrates God's role in the victory by providing rain to fight
against the enemy
- Thanks those among Israel who helped and condemns those who did not
(5:14-18)
- Indicates the local nature of the battles and the judges' influence
- Briefly wonders what Sisera's mother was thinking as she awaited the
return of her son - a brief poignant moment as the author recognizes the pain and
suffering war causes in families
- Ends with the hope that all God's enemies perish while His friends
succeed - written by someone who believes he/she is a friend of God - in the Book of
Judges Israel as a rebellious people often become God's enemy
- Gideon (6:1-9:57)
- Midian became the next enemy
- An angel of God called Gideon to save his people
- Gideon tore down the altar his father had built to Ba`al - when the
people demanded Gideon pay for his crime with his life, Gideon's father told the people to
let Ba`al fight his own battles if he was powerful
- Both sides prepared for battle in the Valley of Jezreel
- Gideon put out a fleece for God (6:36-40)
- Let the fleece be wet and the ground dry when morning breaks
- Next let the fleece be dry and the ground wet the next morning
- God honored Gideon's test but testing God was always a matter of
debate (Deut. 6:16, Isa. 7:10-17)
- The battle
- Gideon's army is drastically decreased by God
- Army began with 32,000
- Gideon told those who were afraid to return home and 22,000 left
- 10,000 were still too many
- God told Gideon to observe how the remaining troops drank from a pool
and God selected the smaller of the two groups based on how they drank water
- Ended with a force of 300
- God's strategy was to confuse the enemy at night into thinking they
were surrounded by a huge force - in the darkness the enemy killed each other
- Gideon pursued the enemy and destroyed them
- The people wanted Gideon to be their king but he refused - he did
have some of the spoils of victory made into an ephod which became a worship object in
Israel causing Israel to sin
- Gideon died and Israel once again abandoned God
- Abimelech (9:1-57)
- Abimelech (whose name means "my father is/was king"), the
son of Gideon, wanted to become king
- He killed 70 of his brothers - only Jotham survived
- Jotham's parable/fable (9:7-15)
- Parable dealt with the trees seeking a king - only the bramble was
willing to serve
- Moral - you cannot let someone simply take an office - the person
must be qualified and committed for the good of all
- Abimelech had a very small kingdom and was by no means king of all of
Israel
- Abimelech was killed by a woman while besieging a tower - the woman
dropped a millstone used to grind grain off the tower and on his head
- Two minor judges (10:1-5)
- Tola - from Issachar but lived in Ephraim
- Jair - from Gilead
- Jephthah (10:6-12:7)
- Ammon became the enemy
- Jephthah was the son of Gilead and a prostitute - his half-brothers
kicked him out of the house so he would not inherit with them
- People of Gilead needed Jephthah's military skill and asked him to
lead them in battle - Jephthah agreed if they would make him their leader - people
accepted his terms
- Jephthah tried to negotiate a settlement with Ammon but failed
- His vow
- Vow - if God would grant him success in battle, Jephthah would
sacrifice the first thing/person to come out of his house to greet him when he returned
victorious
- Sacrifice could have been an animal, a slave, his wife, or his
daughter
- Upon returning victorious, Jephthah's daughter, his only child, came
out to greet him
- Jephthah told her his vow and she was willing to be sacrificed
- After two months of mourning with her friends, the daughter was
sacrificed by her father
- Why was her sacrifice accepted by God while Isaac's was not?
- Women were less valuable than men - NO
- Jephthah was forced to keep his vow (Deut. 23:21-23, Eccl. 5:4-6)
- God had not asked for the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter so He did
not stop it
- God may have spoken to Jephthah to stop the sacrifice but Jephthah
ignored God's voice
- Jephthah believed that "Do not misuse God's name" was not
to be broken even at the cost of "Do not kill"
- Her sacrifice created an annual time of lamentation in Israel
- She was perhaps the most faithful, obedient person in the time of the
judges
- War with Ephraim
- Ephraim apparently saw itself as a tribe which should be constantly
consulted (cf. 8:1)
- Jephthah defeated Ephraim
- Jephthah then took the ford across the Jordan River to capture any fleeing Ephraimites
- Those fleeing were asked to say "Shibboleth"
- The Ephraimites pronounced the term as "Sibboleth" and were
easily discovered and killed
- A total of 42,000 Ephraimites died
- Intertribal warfare indicated the decay of any feeling of being
united as Israel
- Three minor judges (12:8-15)
- Ibzan - from Bethlehem
- Elon - from Zebulun
- Abdon - the Pirathonite
- Samson (13:1-16:31)
- An angel of God promised Manoah and his barren wife a son whom they
were to raise as a Nazirite - Samson was the child born
- A Nazirite was to avoid:
- Cutting his hair
- Drinking alcohol
- Contact with corpses
- His Philistine love
- Samson fell in love with a Philistine woman - his parents were
displeased but God was setting up Samson to fight against Philistia
- On his way to Timnah to visit his love, he killed a lion, tearing it
in half - returning he found that bees had built a honeycomb in the carcass - he reached
in, ate some of the honey, and took some to his parents - he had made contact with a
corpse
- His riddle - "Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the
strong came something sweet" - answer "lion and honey"
- If the Philistines could solve the riddle, he would give them 30
garments - if they could not, they would give him 30 garments
- Some suggest that a prospective groom would tell a riddle before the
wedding festivities to prove his worth - the more difficult the riddle to solve, the
worthier the groom was
- Unable to solve the riddle, the Philistines forced his wife to
discover the answer and tell them
- Samson accused the Philistine men of raping his wife to get the
answer
- Samson got the 30 garments by killing 30 Philistines in Ashkelon
- Samson's wife-to-be was given to another so Samson set the fields of
the Philistines on fire - the Philistines retaliated by burning his wife-to-be and her
father
- Samson embarked on a campaign of killing Philistines using his
incredible strength
- Samson and Delilah
- Delilah was asked to discover the secret of Samson's strength
- Three times Samson gave her false answers, each of which she tried in
an effort to rob Samson of his strength - Samson never seemed to catch on - he seemed a
bit dull
- Finally Samson told his wife his secret was his long hair (the only
part of the Nazirite vow he still maintained)
- During the night while he slept, Delilah cut his hair and he awoke
powerless
- Samson's revenge
- Samson was put to work as an animal but his hair grew back
- One night he was dragged to a temple to be mocked - placing his hands
on the two main support columns, he pushed with all his strength - the temple collapsed
killing all (including Samson)
- The text mentions that Samson killed more in his death than he had in
his life - as a killing machine, he was most successful on the day he died
- Samson is a tragic figure who created much of the tragedy he
experienced in life
- Dan's migration to the north (17:1-18:31)
- A Levite became a private priest to a man named Micah
- Dan, forced out of its allotted territory, searched for a new
territory - the Levite was convinced to travel with them and be their priest
- Dan took the city and area of Laish, east of Tyre
- Near destruction of Benjamin (19:1-21:24)
- A Levite passed through Benjamin after retrieving his runaway
concubine
- Stopping in Gibeah for the night, an old man offered hospitality -
during the night, the men of the city wanted to abuse the Levite sexually - his host
defended him but the Levite tossed his concubine out for the men to abuse - she was raped
to death
- Finding her dead the next morning, the Levite was incensed, cut her
in 12 pieces, and sent a piece to each tribe showing them the crime that had been
committed in Israel
- Benjamin refused to hand over the ringleaders and the 11 tribes went
to war against Benjamin
- Benjamin was able to inflict terrible casualties on the 11 tribes due
to the accuracy of 700 slingers but eventually Benjamin was overcome and destroyed with
the exception of 600 men
- The 11 tribes were then horrified they had almost wiped out one of
God's tribes - they had already sworn not to give their daughters in marriage to the
Benjaminites but did find wives for them in two ways:
- Destroyed the city of Jabesh-gilead that had not sent anyone to help
fight Benjamin and found 400 wives there
- Told the remaining 200 men to go to Shiloh where an annual festival
to God was occurring and carry off a wife from among the young women who came out to dance
in the vineyards - the 11 tribes would make it okay with the fathers and brothers
- This account indicates the complete decay of society - there are no
heroes and no obedience to God in the account - Israel is like all of the other nations,
if not worse
- Conclusion (21:25) - the type of actions in the Book of Judges were
typical of the period - a lack of central leadership created a vacuum in morals and
obedience to God
- Some Theological Points
- Women play an especially important role
- Deborah, Ja`el, the woman who kills Abimelech, and Delilah all defeat
men
- Jephthah's daughter becomes the best example of obedience in the book
- her tragedy is magnified by the fact we do not even know her name
- Some of the bloodiest and most offensive accounts in the Hebrew Bible
- Ja`el's killing of Sisera is macabre
- Sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter makes one cringe after reading of
Isaac being spared (Gen. 22)
- Near slaughter of the tribe of Benjamin is horrifying - how can a
terrible crime have escalated into genocide? - hysteria is nothing new
- Critique of emergency religion
- Israel turned to God during this period only in distress - they were
not committed to the God of the covenant
- 10:10-16 provides an interesting dialogue
- When God states that He will no longer "deliver" Israel,
Israel finds a loophole - if God will no longer "deliver" them, will He not
"save" them? - this is legalistic, self-centered religion at its worst - rather
than repent, Israel will simply catch God through interpretation of fine linguistic points
- God, of course, decides to help - God's people typically impose upon
God's good graces
- The Levite for hire in 17-18 indicates how warped homemade religion
can be
- Looks ahead to a new, more stable form of leadership
- Abimelech's early attempt at kingship is a total failure but the
loose confederation of tribes is not working at all either
- By the end of the book it is obvious that a king or some kind of
strong leader is needed so that each person in Israel does not do "what is right in
his own eyes" (21:25)