Judges 10 Study Notes

Since the Ammonites were the oppressors in the Jephthah narrative (chap. 11) while the Philistines were the enemy with whom Samson had to deal (chaps. 13-16), this description of spiritual unfaithfulness seems to introduce both of these episodes, which may have been contemporaneous. The Lord’s anger with Israel was so great that he afflicted them with two oppressors at once. They crushed Israel, just as Dt 28:33 had predicted. The initial focus is on the Ammonites, who for eighteen years oppressed the Israelites living east of the Jordan River in the land of Gilead. The affliction was not limited to the part of Israel closest to the Ammonite homeland. They went further afield, crossing the Jordan and fighting against Judah, Benjamin, and . . . Ephraim.

10:10-18 When under pressure, Israel cried out to the Lord, confessing their sin of abandoning him. Before, the Lord had sent a prophet to rebuke them (6:7-10), but this time he confronted them himself. Though the Israelites called him our God, the Lord refused to accept their claim of a relationship to him. He had in the past delivered them from seven oppressors, a number that matched the number of other gods they had been worshiping (v. 6). Now he would no longer deliver them. If they wanted the Lord to help them in their hour of distress, they should have served him in the good times also. At this, the Israelites “repented” once more. They got rid of their foreign gods and worshiped the Lord. Was their repentance real, or was it just another attempt to manipulate God into rescuing them again? The Lord declared that his patience with Israel’s suffering was exhausted. In the face of their repentance, there was no word of any deliverer to come. The only sound was the impending arrival of the Ammonites camping for war in Gilead. Far from receiving a deliverer from the Lord, the Gileadites were left leaderless. As a result, instead of seeking a man empowered by the Spirit of God, they sought to motivate someone—anyone—to step forward with the promise of human reward: leadership over all the inhabitants of Gilead. This Mizpah (v. 17; 11:11,29,34) was in Transjordan, not on the border between Benjamin and Ephraim (as in 20:1,3; 21:1,5,8).