Thou shalt never judge a book by its title. On the face of it, I thought the book of Judges might be about the implementation of a legal system in the nation of Israel, but in fact it's a rich treasure trove of stories. The "judges" are in fact chieftains, not magistrates, and the book tells a very different story to the book of Joshua about the temporary leaders of the nation of Israel during the conquest of the lands of Canaan. We get the impression from the book of Judges that many Canaanites survived in certain cities and areas, and were not completely driven out, as told in the book of Joshua.
The prose style of Judges is also very different to earlier Biblical books, emphasising that it's an alternative account of Israel's early years in Canaan. It's also a more modern account in many respects, less epic but more complex, with blurred lines between the good and the bad guys. Many of the stories in the book of Judges fit a specific cycle of abandonment of religious belief or practice, followed by defeat at the hands of Israel's enemies, which often results in captivity and then repentance, which God answers by providing a Judge or chieftain who will rescue the people. Scholars believe that the book covers a vast sweep of Israel's early history, centring around the start of the Iron Age (1,200 BCE).
In chapter 1, Judah and Simeon cut off the thumbs and big toes of one of their Canaanite foes (1:6) but the valley folk with their chariots of iron hold out against their warlike advances (1:19), and Benjamin fails to drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem (1:21). An angel of the Lord appears in chapter 2, angry with the Israelites for not destroying the altars of their enemies. A further act of apostasy is serving a false idol, Baalim (2:11), which causes God's anger to be "hot against Israel". To counter this apostasy, God raises up various judges, the first of which is Othniel, who is with the Israelites when they're sold to the king of Mesopotamia (3:8). After the Israelites cry out to God for mercy, Othniel receives a divine commission and delivers his people from slavery, and leads them for 40 years. When he dies, the Israelites fall back into their bad ways, and the cycle begins again.
After chapter 3 closes with short stories about two more judges, the wily left-hander Ehud and then Shamgar, who slaughtered 600 men with a cattle prod, we're told at the start of chapter 4 that the Israelites were sold to the king of Canaan, Jabin of Hazor. Here enters the wonderful character of Deborah, one of several prominent women in the book of Judges, who calls on her reluctant husband Barak to go and fight against Sisera, who was the commander of the Canaanite army under King Jabin. Fleeing Barak (whose name means "lightning bolt"), Sisera takes refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. In an act of strategic deception (she first covers the sleepy Sisera with a rug), and in violation of Near Eastern rules of hospitality, Jael kills Sisera by driving a tent peg through his temple (4:21). This act is forever memorialised in song by Deborah:
Chapter 19 is the story of one of these Levites, and his concubine, in which the laws of hospitality are broken again by the woman being gang raped by the Benjaminites, followed by an even more gruesome ending (19:29), which involves the Levite hacking his concubine's body into 12 pieces, which he distributes to the tribes of Israel. Her body seems to symbolise the corrupt and fragmented nation of Israel, and the whole passage is reminiscent of Sodom. Civil war follows, with chapter 20 opening with a gathering of all the tribes of Israel. Among the 400,000 strong army gathered to fight the Benjaminites are 700 left-handed men who "could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss" (20:16). The nation of Israel continually question God about whether it's just for them to take arms against Benjamin (20:23), as the civil war ebbs and flows in each group's favour. Finally, a decisive divine sign arrives – the flame from Gibeah that rises up to heaven (20:40) – and the Benjaminites are defeated and cut off from Israel (21:6). The men of Benjamin's tribe are told to lie in wait in the vineyards and catch a wife among the dancing daughters of Shiloh (21:21). Judges then closes with a telling passage that reflects the chaos of the book and foretells the coming age of kings:
The prose style of Judges is also very different to earlier Biblical books, emphasising that it's an alternative account of Israel's early years in Canaan. It's also a more modern account in many respects, less epic but more complex, with blurred lines between the good and the bad guys. Many of the stories in the book of Judges fit a specific cycle of abandonment of religious belief or practice, followed by defeat at the hands of Israel's enemies, which often results in captivity and then repentance, which God answers by providing a Judge or chieftain who will rescue the people. Scholars believe that the book covers a vast sweep of Israel's early history, centring around the start of the Iron Age (1,200 BCE).
In chapter 1, Judah and Simeon cut off the thumbs and big toes of one of their Canaanite foes (1:6) but the valley folk with their chariots of iron hold out against their warlike advances (1:19), and Benjamin fails to drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem (1:21). An angel of the Lord appears in chapter 2, angry with the Israelites for not destroying the altars of their enemies. A further act of apostasy is serving a false idol, Baalim (2:11), which causes God's anger to be "hot against Israel". To counter this apostasy, God raises up various judges, the first of which is Othniel, who is with the Israelites when they're sold to the king of Mesopotamia (3:8). After the Israelites cry out to God for mercy, Othniel receives a divine commission and delivers his people from slavery, and leads them for 40 years. When he dies, the Israelites fall back into their bad ways, and the cycle begins again.
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| Timeline of Judges |
Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be,
blessed shall she be above women in the tent.
He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer;
and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head,
when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell:
where he bowed, there he fell down dead. (5:24-27)
The whole of chapter 5 is lyrical and mysterious, and is believed to be one of the oldest examples of Hebrew poetry. After Deborah and Barak, the fourth judge is Gideon, who is tasked with delivering the Israelites from Midianite oppression. At 6:11, the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon, who is reported to be of lowly status among the Israelites. He tests God's patience by asking for proof of the angel's divine status with a bizarre miracle, which involves a perfectly dry fleece on dewy ground (6:39). Chapter 7 contains stories of 300 army men and dream prophecies, which reminded me of the details of Herodotus' account of the Battle of Thermopylae, though this story ends with the brutal beheading of Oreb and Zeeb (7:25). At the end of chapter 8, we're told that Gideon ruled the Israelites for forty years and had 70 sons, plus another from his concubine (Abimelech), and that his reign ended in apostasy. I first saw Gideon's pitcher and torch, used to scare the Midianite army, as emblems on a Gideon bible that was given to me in a religious studies class at secondary school.
In chapter 9, we discover that the unprincipled, bloodthirsty Abimelech went on to kill all of Gideon's 70 sons bar one, and this sets the tone of conflict that dominates this long chapter. Abimelech finally meets his end when a women throws a piece of millstone onto his head during the siege of Thebez, and we're told of his shame at being killed by a woman (9:54). In amongst all this is one of my favourite Biblical passages so far, the parable of the trees told by Gideon's sole surviving son Jotham:
The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them;
and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.
But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness,
wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.
But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness,
and my good fruit,
and go to be promoted over the trees?
Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us.
And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine,
which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?
Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.
And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you,
then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not,
let fire come out of the bramble,
and devour the cedars of Lebanon. (9:8-15)
As with most poetry, the significance of the parable is open to interpretation, but I see it tying in with one of the main themes of the book of Judges: how the lowly or powerless can manipulate their weaknesses and use their wiles to overcome the powerful. In Chapter 10, we're told of a succession of new judges, Tola and Jair, who ruled over Israel for some 40 years, but the passage ends with God declaring he's out of patience with delivering the people from apostasy and slavery (10:11-13). In chapter 11, we're introduced to Jephthah, son of Gilead and a "harlot", who is called back from exile by the elders to fight in a war with Ammon. Like the story of Ishmael and Isaac in Genesis, and the later story of David, Jephthah is an outlaw who comes to save Israel. His victory in battle against the Ammonites is celebrated by his daughter, but the oath he swore means his daughter must be sacrificed. First, though, she mourns her virginity, which becomes an Israelite premarital custom.
Jephthah's victory comes at the expense of civil war among the nation of Israel, when the Ephraimites rebel. This leads to the story of the shibboleth, which means a word or phrase that helps distinguish those who belong to a certain group from outsiders. 42,000 Ephraimites who cannot pronounce it right (they say "sibboleth" instead, 12:6) are killed as a result. After Jephthah's reign of 6 years, we're given the lineage of Israelite judges (12:7-15) – Ibzan, Elon and Abdon – who rule before Samson. At the start of chapter 13, the cycle begins again with the Israelites delivered into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years, and Samson's story commences with an immaculate conception (13:3) – not the first or last such case in the Bible! Mysteriously, we're not given the name of the wife of Manoah, who gives birth to Samson, only told that an angel instructed her to avoid alcohol and eat well during pregnancy, before ascending to the heavens in the fire of an altar (13:20).
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| Ponsan's The Daughter of Jephthah |
Chapters 14-16 focus solely on the famous story of Samson & Delilah, which I've enjoyed since Sunday school. Reading it in the original as an adult, however, there are two elements that really stand out: the fact that Samson was as much a womaniser as a righteous strongman, and the fact that his exploits are the inspiration for so many superhero stories. He kills a lion and finds honey inside it (14:6), he tells riddles like the Joker in Batman (14:12-18), he hunts like Asterix & Obelix (15:4) and kills a 1,000 Philistines with a donkey's jawbone (15:14). Samson, who was judge of Israel for 20 years, comes undone when he sets his eyes on Delilah (16:4). After mocking her at first, he finally confesses his only weakness to her – like Superman and kryptonite, Samson is undone by a razor to his fine locks of hair (16:17) – and Delilah's betrayal leads to him becoming eyeless in Gaza (16:21). Despite being blind and in chains, Samson still delivers the ultimate revenge on his captors when he brings down the temple on himself and the thousands of Philistines assembled there (16:30).
After chapter 17, a short, odd and uneventful one about Micah, who apparently betrayed Samson (hence his 1,100 pieces of silver), the Book of Judges closes with four chapters (18-21) which contain more mayhem and violence than anything seen so far, reflecting the lawlessness that characterised the nation of Israel during this time. At 18:16, we're told that 600 men from the tribe of Dan amassed outside the house of Micah on Mount Ephraim, in order to steal Micah's Levite priest and graven images, and with the intention of replacing the city of Laish with the city of Dan. As a sign of how far the community had fallen into apostasy, Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, became priest to this community that had lost touch with the godly rites set out at length in the Pentateuch.
After chapter 17, a short, odd and uneventful one about Micah, who apparently betrayed Samson (hence his 1,100 pieces of silver), the Book of Judges closes with four chapters (18-21) which contain more mayhem and violence than anything seen so far, reflecting the lawlessness that characterised the nation of Israel during this time. At 18:16, we're told that 600 men from the tribe of Dan amassed outside the house of Micah on Mount Ephraim, in order to steal Micah's Levite priest and graven images, and with the intention of replacing the city of Laish with the city of Dan. As a sign of how far the community had fallen into apostasy, Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, became priest to this community that had lost touch with the godly rites set out at length in the Pentateuch.
Chapter 19 is the story of one of these Levites, and his concubine, in which the laws of hospitality are broken again by the woman being gang raped by the Benjaminites, followed by an even more gruesome ending (19:29), which involves the Levite hacking his concubine's body into 12 pieces, which he distributes to the tribes of Israel. Her body seems to symbolise the corrupt and fragmented nation of Israel, and the whole passage is reminiscent of Sodom. Civil war follows, with chapter 20 opening with a gathering of all the tribes of Israel. Among the 400,000 strong army gathered to fight the Benjaminites are 700 left-handed men who "could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss" (20:16). The nation of Israel continually question God about whether it's just for them to take arms against Benjamin (20:23), as the civil war ebbs and flows in each group's favour. Finally, a decisive divine sign arrives – the flame from Gibeah that rises up to heaven (20:40) – and the Benjaminites are defeated and cut off from Israel (21:6). The men of Benjamin's tribe are told to lie in wait in the vineyards and catch a wife among the dancing daughters of Shiloh (21:21). Judges then closes with a telling passage that reflects the chaos of the book and foretells the coming age of kings:
In those days there was no king in Israel:
every man did that which was right in his own eyes (21:25)
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