Judges

The Ephraimites complained to Gideon that they were not called to the battle. He satisfied them by praising their part in the war. No longer afraid of battle, Gideon humbled the cities of Succoth and Peniel, which had refused to gave aid to his fatigued army. By executing the Midianite kings, Zebab and Zalmunna, Gideon avenged his brothers.

The grateful Israelites invited Gideon to rule over them. But Gideon refused and declared, "The Lord will rule over you." However, Gideon failed the Lord because he made an ephod that became an object of worship in his hometown, Ophrah. The ephod was the garment of the high priest, which contained the lots used to discern the will of God (Exod. 28:30; 39:1-26). Here the means of discerning God's will became a substitute for God. Gideon succeeded in bringing peace to the land for forty years, but his obsession with knowing the certainty of God's favor became his downfall.

Gideon's career also was marred by his polygamous life. Abimelech, who was born to Gideon by one of his concubines, became a wicked leader in Israel.

Abimelech, Tola, Jair (8:33-10:5). The fifth cycle of stories focuses on the treacherous life of Abimelech. It also includes brief comments on the judges Tola and Jair. The people's desire for a king of their own choosing led them to the despot Abimelech, whose career brought continual warfare and insurrection.

Abimelech, born of a Shechemite woman, convinced the citizens of Shechem to make him king and to kill his half-brothers, the seventy sons of Gideon. Only Jotham escaped the slaughter. From Mount Gerizim, which overlooks Shechem, he taunted them by telling the fable of the "Bramble King." He cursed them and predicted that they too would be killed by the treachery of Abimelech.

After three years the Lord caused dissent between the Shechemites and Abimelech. The ensuing bloodshed and cruel deaths of Gaal and the Shechemites was God's vengeance for murdering Gideon's sons.

The rebellion against Abimelech spread to the city of Thebez. Abimelech stormed the city's tower. From the tower a woman dropped a millstone, crushing his skull. To escape the shame of being killed by a woman, he called for his armor bearer to kill him. The careers of Tola and Jair followed Abimelech's debacle. Tola led Israel for twenty-three years.

Jair was probably a contemporary of Tola. He was from Gilead and led Israel for twenty-two years. Since Jair had thirty sons, he probably was a polygamist like Gideon. The prestige of Jair's family is reflected by the donkeys (1 Sam. 25:20) and cities his sons possessed.

Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon (10:6-12:15). The sixth cycle concerns the judgeship of Jephthah and includes the minor judges Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon. An important feature of Jephthah's story is Israel's fickleness toward Jephthah. They turned to him for deliverance after they had earlier disowned him.

This parallels how Israel had treated the Lord. A second theme is Jephthah's hasty judgments.

Because Israel fell into grave idolatry, God raised up the Philistines to trouble Israel in the west and the Ammonites to subdue Israel in the east. The Ammonites had oppressed Israel eighteen years when the Lord heard the cries of the Gileadites.

Jephthah had been exiled by the Gileadites because he was born of a harlot. When the Gileadites were humiliated by the Ammonites, they asked for Jephthah's help and vowed to make him their leader.

Jephthah sent a diplomatic delegation to the Ammonites to argue for Israel's right to their land, but the Ammonites rejected their claims. Then the Spirit of the Lord empowered Jephthah, and he advanced against the Ammonites. To secure the favor of God, he vowed to sacrifice as a burnt offering the first one who came out of his house to greet him upon his return from battle. The Lord gave the victory to Jephthah, but his hasty vow sacrificed his family lineage. His only child, a virgin daughter, was the first to greet him.

Some commentators believe that Jephthah offered her as a human sacrifice. Others believe the sacrifice of Jephthah was her service to the Lord as a perpetual virgin. The text does emphasize her virgin state. The vow, however, refers to "a burnt offering" (see 2 Kgs. 3:27). Both Jephthah and his daughter believed that the Lord expected him to keep the vow. God, however, did not request this "burnt offering." Indeed, the pagan practice of human sacrifice is contrary to God's expressed will (Deut. 12:31; 18:10).

As in the days of Gideon, the Ephraimites were angry that they did not participate in the battle and receive its spoil.

Jephthah did not exhibit the patience of Gideon and fought against them. Ephraim fled back across the Jordan, but Jephthah controlled the fords. His armies identified the Ephraimites by a difference in their pronunciation of the word Sibboleth instead of Shibboleth ( ear of corn). This intertribal war led to the death of 42,000 Ephraimites. Although the career of Jephthah spanned only six years, his judgeship epitomized the problems of Israel's declining leadership.

Three minor judges—Ibzan of Bethlehem (located in Zebulun, Josh. 19:15), Elon of Zebulun, and Abdon of Ephraim—are mentioned. Ibzan led for seven years and was remembered for his influential family. Elon judged for ten years, but little else is known of him. Abdon was also polygamous and had a prestigious family. He ruled for eight years. These judges may not have engaged in any military missions.

Samson (13:1-16:31). The Philistines oppressed Israel for forty years (13:1), which included the twenty-year career of Samson and the judgeship of Samuel (1 Sam. 1-7). The Philistines were a people from the Aegean region who migrated to Canaan in the mid-thir-teenth century and settled in the coastal plain. The Philistines pressured Dan and Judah in the west by infiltrating the tribes through trade and intermarriage.

The story of the Danite hero Samson epitomizes the spiritual and political disarray of the nation. There are many contrasts in the story which the author used to highlight the moral impotence of the people. Samson was strong physically but weak morally. Though he made poor decisions and could not control his emotions, God used his mistakes as occasions to demonstrate His sovereign power. Another startling contrast is the sanctity of his Nazirite vow versus the disregard he showed for his Hebrew heritage. The victories of Samson were incomplete, and it was not until David that the Philistines were finally subjugated (2 Sam. 5:17-25).

The Lord, who appeared as the angel of the Lord (Exod. 3:1-8; Josh. 5:13-15), announced to Samson's mother that she would bear a son and rear the child as a Nazirite (Judg. 13:2-7). The Nazirite vow included abstinence from any drink derived from the grapevine, abstaining from cutting one's hair, and avoiding contact with a dead body (Num. 6:1-21).

The angel of the Lord confirmed the calling of Samson by revealing Himself to his mother and father, Manoah. As with previous judges, the empowerment of the Spirit began to move Samson. The devotion of his mother, who also took the Nazirite vow, stood in stark contrast to the licentious career that Samson would choose to live.

Against the advice of his parents, Samson wanted to arrange a marriage with a Philistine woman from Timnath. As they journeyed to her home, a lion attacked; the Spirit enabled Samson to kill it. Later, when he returned to marry the woman, he saw that the carcass of the lion had become the home of wild bees. He took honey from the carcass and shared it with his parents. In doing so, he violated his vow by touching the dead lion (see Num. 6:6-12).

Out of this experience Samson made up a riddle at his wedding. He challenged his Philistine guests to solve it for thirty changes of clothing. The riddle was too clever for them, and they forced Samson's new bride to discover the answer for them. The Lord used their treachery, however, to incite Samson against the Philistines. At Ashkelon he killed thirty men to pay his thirty changes of clothing.

When Samson returned to Timnath and learned that his bride had been given to another man, he swore to harm the Philistines more. He burned the wheat harvest of the Philistines by releasing into the fields foxes with lighted torches tied to their tails. The Philistines responded by burning his wife and her father to death, but this only made Samson slay many more.

The Philistines gathered in Judah near Lehi ( jawbone) to fight Samson, and the Israelites bound Samson to give him over to the Philistines. When he was delivered over, the Spirit came upon Samson again, and with the fresh jawbone of a donkey, he killed one thousand Philistines. God miraculously provided water for Samson, who was dying of thirst from the battle.

Samson's lust for a prostitute at Gaza led him again into trouble. He was surrounded by the people of the city, but he escaped to Hebron by removing the city gates.

The final betrayal of Samson came from yet another woman, named Delilah. The woman enticed Samson to tell her the secret of his strength. After several tests she learned that the cutting of his hair would break his Nazirite vow. During his sleep, a man cut off Samson's braided hair. Samson fell into the hands of the Philistines, who bound and blinded him. Samson was taken to Gaza, where he was forced to grind grain in the prison like a common animal. But his hair began to grow again. The Lord used this last humiliation of Samson to kill the enemies of Israel.

At a Philistine festival to honor their god Dagon, the rulers boasted that Dagon had rendered Samson helpless. The crowd in the temple called for blinded Samson to entertain them. Samson prayed for strength to avenge himself. He pulled down the central pillars of the temple and killed all the Philistines and their rulers. Samson killed more in this act of death than all those killed during his life. Ironically, his inability to control his lusts meant that the Nazirite's death was more valuable to Israel than his life.

The final section of the book gives two parade examples of Israel's moral defection. The first case concerns idolatry by the tribe of Dan. The second case is about intertribal warfare that resulted from the rape and murder of a Levite's concubine by the men of Benjamin.

The author used these two events to show his own generation the need for a righteous king like David. In the tenth century b.c., Dan became a center for the worship of Baal established by the apostate King Jeroboam (1 Kgs. 12:25-33). Also the story of Benjamin cast a poor light on the tribe of Ish-bosheth, Saul's surviving son, who rivaled David for the throne (see 2 Sam. 2:10-11). The opponents of David's dynasty had their roots in the period of the Judges.

Both stories tell of priests who acted corruptly and of tribes who killed for gain. What was needed for an antidote was a righteous ruler like David so that Israel might do what was right in God's eyes (see 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25).

Micah's Gods (17:1-18:31). The story of Micah shows how Israel adopted the idolatrous religious practices of its neighbors. Micah constructed a private shrine from stolen silver, including an ephod and several idols. He conscripted his son to serve as its priest until he hired a wandering Levite from Bethlehem. Micah foolishly believed he had the favor of God because of his personal shrine and priest.

The Danites, meanwhile, dispatched five spies to search for a new tract of land because they were pressed for space by the Amorites (see 1:34; Josh. 19:47).

On their way to Laish, they discovered Micah's priest and shrine.

Later the Danites returned with six hundred men and stole Micah's valuable idols. His Levite saw the chance to improve his status by serving a whole tribe. The Danites took the Levite with them to Laish, where they dispossessed the people and renamed the city Dan.

Micah's Levite was a direct descendant of Moses. This showed how low the spiritual leadership of the nation had fallen. Whereas Moses had established proper worship at the tabernacle, his descendants were functioning at rival sanctuaries in the land.

The Levite's Concubine (19:1-30). The second story tells of a Levite whose concubine left him for her father's house at Bethlehem. The Levite convinced her to return, and together they journeyed toward Ephraim. Along the way they looked for lodging and chose Gibeah (the home of the future king, Saul) rather than the Jebusite city of Jerusalem (the residence of the future king, David) because Gibeah was inhabited by Israelites. There they expected treatment as brothers. Ironically, pagan Jerusalem would have proven a safer refuge.

At Gibeah, however, no one offered them hospitality, except an old man from Ephraim who had migrated to Gibeah. That evening the men of Gibeah came to the old man's house to have sexual relations with the Levite.

The old man was so embarrassed by this breach of hospitality that he offered his virgin daughter and the Levite's concubine. The men refused and pressed against the door, so the Levite pushed his concubine outside. The men ravaged her for their sport and left her for dead. Out of revenge the Levite carved up her body into twelve pieces and sent them to the tribes of Israel. So great an atrocity became a long-remembered symbol of Israel's sin (see Hos. 9:9; 10:9).

War with Benjamin (20:1-21:25). Covenant law required the tribes to punish anyone guilty among them or they would become the object of God's wrath too. Israel learned this in the days of Joshua at Ai (Josh. 7-8). Because Benjamin refused to give up the offenders, all Israel agreed to march against their kindred tribe Benjamin.

The Lord instructed them to attack, but each time the Israelites suffered numerous casualties. This was God's way of punishing Israel for its immorality to bring out repentance and true worship. In the third battle God gave them victory. The whole tribe of Benjamin was destroyed except for six hundred survivors.

The Israelites mourned for their lost tribe Benjamin, and to revitalize the tribe they had to find wives for the six hundred survivors. Jabesh-Gilead had not fought in the war; therefore Israel led a punitive expedition against them and took four hundred virgins for Benjamin. The Benjamites stole two hundred more virgins at the festival of Shiloh.

The final verse captured the spirit of the times: "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit."

Theological and Ethical Value. The Book of Judges presents Yahweh as the Lord of history. As such, God used foreign peoples to test the Israelites' loyalty to God and to punish their idolatry. Testing and punishment were not, however, God's ultimate goal for Israel. When God's people repented and appealed to God for aid, God did His heart's desire—He raised up deliverers to save His people. Salvation is the goal toward which God was and is directing history.

As Lord of history, God was free to choose whomever He pleased to act as deliverer. From the human point of view God's choices are surprising: an assassin (Ehud), a woman (Deborah), a coward from an insignificant family (Gideon), the rash son of a prostitute (Jephthah), and a womanizer (Samson). Many of these chosen deliverers had obvious moral shortcomings. Still, God used them to save His people. True, Christians are called on to make every effort to be holy (Heb. 12:14). But God is sovereign and free to use whomever He chooses to further His saving purposes.

Human sinfulness necessitates governments to enforce morality. In the days of the judges when there was no king, "everyone did as he saw fit" (21:25). Governments have a God-given responsibility to punish wrongdoing (see Rom. 13:3-5). The later history of Israel, however, reveals that just having a king was not the answer to Israel's moral failure. Indeed, Israel's and Judah's kings often led God's people into even greater disobedience. What was most needed was not for God's covenant to be enforced from without but written on the hearts of His people (see Jer. 31:31-34).

Cundall, Arthur E., and Leon Morris. Judges and Ruth. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1968.

Goslinga, C. J. Joshua, Judges, Ruth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986.

Lewis, Arthur H. Judges/Ruth. Chicago: Moody, 1979.