Judges

Part One: Introduction to Judges

The Name

The book is named after the leaders God raised up to deliver Israel between the death of Joshua and the rise of the monarchy. The Hebrew title is Shophetim, "judges." These were not mainly courtroom judges but military deliverers and tribal rulers, men and one woman whom God raised up and empowered by His Spirit to rescue His people from oppression. "Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them" (2:16).

Author and Date

The author is not named. Jewish tradition (the Talmud) attributes the book to Samuel, the last of the judges. Internal evidence fits the early monarchy, around 1050-1000 BC:

• "In those days there was no king in Israel" (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) implies the writer lived when Israel had a king.
• "The Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day" (1:21) means it was written before David captured Jerusalem around 1000 BC (2 Samuel 5:6-9).
• The note that Dan's idolatrous priesthood lasted "until the day of the captivity of the land" (18:30) may refer to the capture of the ark (1 Samuel 4) or may be a later editorial note.

The Period Covered

Judges covers roughly 300 years, from the death of Joshua (around 1380 BC) to the time just before Samuel and Saul (around 1050 BC). Jephthah, about midway, said Israel had been in the land "three hundred years" (11:26). If all the years of oppression and judgeship are added, the total is over 400, which shows that some judges ruled at the same time in different regions (for example, the Ammonite and Philistine oppressions began together, 10:7). Paul summarises the period as "about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet" (Acts 13:20, KJV).

The final five chapters (17-21) are not in chronological order. They are an appendix describing events early in the period: Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, was still priest (20:28), and the Danite priest was a grandson of Moses (18:30).

Purpose and Theme

Judges is a book of failure and grace. It shows what happens when God's people forget Him: they fall into a cycle of sin and suffering, and each turn of the cycle goes lower. Its theme is summed up in its final verse:

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25

The book shows Israel's need for a godly king, pointing first to David and ultimately to Christ, the King who rules in righteousness. It also shows God's amazing patience: again and again, when His people cried to Him, He raised up a deliverer.

The Cycle of the Judges

Judges 2:11-19 lays out a pattern repeated throughout the book:

The phrase "the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD" opens each new cycle (2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). The cycle was really a downward spiral: "when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers" (2:19). Each judge was less godly than the last, the deliverances were less complete, and the book ends in moral chaos and civil war.

The Judges of Israel

Eli (1 Samuel 4:18) and Samuel (1 Samuel 7:15) also judged Israel, bringing the period to a close.

Outline of Judges

Part Two: Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis

Section I: The Cause — Incomplete Obedience (Chapters 1:1-3:6)

Chapter 1 — The Incomplete Conquest

"Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first?" (1:1). The book starts well: Israel sought God, and God answered, "Judah shall go up" (1:2). Judah and Simeon fought together and defeated Adoni-bezek, who had cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy kings. When the same was done to him, he said, "As I have done, so God hath requited me" (1:7). Caleb's nephew Othniel took Kirjath-sepher and married Achsah (1:11-15; Joshua 15:16-19).

But the rest of the chapter is a list of failures. Judah "could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron" (1:19), though Joshua had told Joseph's tribes they could (Joshua 17:18). Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites of Jerusalem (1:21). Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali all left Canaanites in their territories, often putting them under tribute (1:27-33). Dan was pushed back into the mountains by the Amorites (1:34). The repeated phrase is "neither did... drive out." Partial obedience became the root of everything that followed.

Chapter 2 — Bochim, the New Generation, and the Cycle

"An angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim" (2:1) and spoke as God Himself: "I made you to go up out of Egypt... and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land... but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?" (2:1-2). Because of their disobedience, God would no longer drive the nations out: "they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you" (2:3; Numbers 33:55; Joshua 23:13). The people wept, so the place was called Bochim, "weepers" (2:4-5), but their tears did not produce lasting change.

The writer looks back to Joshua's death (2:6-9) and then records the turning point of the book:

And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

Judges 2:10

One generation's failure to pass on the faith led to national apostasy within a single lifetime (compare Deuteronomy 6:6-7; Psalm 78:5-8). Verses 11-19 summarise the whole cycle of the book: they served Baalim and Ashtaroth, God's anger burned, He sold them to their enemies, they were "greatly distressed," "the LORD raised up judges," and "it repented the LORD because of their groanings" (2:18). But when the judge died they returned to worse sin (2:19).

Chapter 3 — Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar

God left certain nations in the land "to prove Israel by them" (3:1, 4) and so that the new generation "might know, to teach them war" (3:2). Instead of conquering them, Israel intermarried with them and served their gods (3:5-6), exactly as Moses warned (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).

Othniel (3:7-11). Israel served Baalim and the groves and was oppressed eight years by Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia. When they cried, God raised up Othniel, Caleb's nephew. "And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel" (3:10), the first of several times this phrase appears in Judges. The land had rest forty years. Othniel, from Judah, is the model judge, with no recorded faults.

Ehud (3:12-30). Eglon king of Moab, "a very fat man," oppressed Israel eighteen years with Ammon and Amalek. God raised up Ehud, a left-handed Benjamite. He made a two-edged dagger a cubit long, hid it on his right thigh where guards would not check, and delivered Israel's tribute. Alone with the king, he said, "I have a message from God unto thee" (3:20), and killed him. Ehud escaped, rallied Ephraim, seized the fords of the Jordan, and Israel killed about 10,000 Moabites. The land had rest eighty years. God uses the unexpected: a left-handed man from Benjamin, which means "son of my right hand."

Shamgar (3:31). He killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad, a farmer's tool. God can use whatever is in our hand (compare Exodus 4:2; 1 Samuel 17:40). Deborah's song mentions that in his days "the highways were unoccupied" (5:6).

Chapter 4 — Deborah, Barak and Jael

After Ehud died, Israel did evil again and was oppressed twenty years by Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor, and his general Sisera, who had 900 chariots of iron (4:1-3). "And Deborah, a prophetess... she judged Israel at that time" (4:4), sitting under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, where Israel came to her for judgment (4:5). She summoned Barak of Naphtali with God's command to take 10,000 men to Mount Tabor (4:6-7). Barak replied, "If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go" (4:8). Deborah agreed but said the honour would go to a woman (4:9).

The LORD "discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host" at the river Kishon (4:15); the Song of Deborah suggests a storm flooded the river and made the chariots useless (5:4, 20-21). Sisera fled on foot to the tent of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, whose clan was at peace with Jabin (4:17). She gave him milk, covered him, and when he slept, drove a tent peg through his temple into the ground (4:18-21). Barak arrived to find Sisera dead. "So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel" (4:23). Barak is listed among the heroes of faith (Hebrews 11:32).

Deborah's role. Deborah is presented as a prophetess and judge raised up by God in an unusual time. She did not lead the army; she called a man to do so, and she gave God the glory. Bible-believing Christians differ on what her example means for leadership roles today; all agree that God gifted and used her mightily.

Chapter 5 — The Song of Deborah

One of the oldest poems in the Bible, a victory hymn sung by Deborah and Barak. It opens, "Praise ye the LORD for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves" (5:2). It describes the LORD marching from Seir and the earth trembling (5:4-5), the misery before the war, when "the highways were unoccupied" and "they chose new gods; then was war in the gates" (5:6-8), and Deborah arising "a mother in Israel" (5:7). It praises the tribes who came (Zebulun and Naphtali "jeoparded their lives unto the death," 5:18) and rebukes those who stayed home: Reuben had "great searchings of heart" but did nothing; Gilead, Dan and Asher stayed put (5:15-17).

They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away

Judges 5:20-21

"Curse ye Meroz... because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty" (5:23). Neutrality in the LORD's battle is condemned. Jael is called "blessed above women" (5:24). The song ends by imagining Sisera's mother waiting at the window for a son who will never return (5:28-30), and closes: "So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years" (5:31).

Chapter 6 — The Call of Gideon

Israel did evil again, and for seven years the Midianites, Amalekites and eastern peoples swarmed the land "as grasshoppers for multitude" at harvest time, destroying crops and livestock, so that Israel hid in dens and caves (6:1-6). When they cried, God first sent a prophet to remind them of their sin (6:7-10): God deals with the cause before the symptoms.

The Angel of the LORD sat under an oak at Ophrah, where Gideon was secretly threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites (6:11).

And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

Judges 6:12

God saw what Gideon would become, not only what he was. Gideon replied honestly: "if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of?" (6:13). "The LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might... have not I sent thee?" (6:14). Gideon protested, "my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house" (6:15). "Surely I will be with thee" (6:16). Gideon brought an offering; the Angel touched it with his staff, fire consumed it, and He vanished (6:19-21). Gideon feared he would die for seeing the Angel of the LORD face to face, but God said, "Peace be unto thee" (6:22-23). He built an altar called Jehovah-shalom, "The LORD is peace" (6:24).

That night God told Gideon to tear down his father's altar to Baal and the grove beside it, and build an altar to the LORD (6:25-26). He obeyed, though he did it at night "because he feared" (6:27). When the townsmen demanded his death, his father Joash replied, "Will ye plead for Baal?... if he be a god, let him plead for himself" (6:31), and named Gideon Jerubbaal, "let Baal plead" (6:32). Reformation must begin at home.

When Midian gathered again, "the Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon" (6:34; the Hebrew says the Spirit "clothed Himself with" Gideon). Gideon blew the trumpet and gathered the tribes. Still uncertain, he asked for signs with a fleece: first wet with dew on dry ground, then dry on wet ground (6:36-40). God patiently gave both. The fleece shows God's patience with weak faith, though it is not a pattern for making decisions; God had already spoken clearly (6:14, 16).

Chapter 7 — Gideon's Three Hundred

Gideon had 32,000 men against 135,000 (8:10). God said, "The people that are with thee are too many... lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me" (7:2). Following Deuteronomy 20:8, the fearful were sent home: 22,000 left (7:3). Of the 10,000 remaining, God took only those who lapped water from their hands, 300 men, and sent the rest home (7:4-8). God sometimes reduces our resources so that the glory is clearly His (2 Corinthians 12:9; 1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

God encouraged Gideon by letting him overhear a Midianite soldier's dream of a barley cake that rolled into the camp and flattened a tent, and his companion's interpretation: "This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon... into his hand hath God delivered Midian" (7:13-14). Gideon worshipped (7:15). He divided the 300 into three companies, each man with a trumpet and a lamp hidden inside an empty pitcher (7:16). At the middle watch they surrounded the camp, blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers so the lamps blazed out, and cried, "The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon" (7:19-20). The Midianites panicked, "and the LORD set every man's sword against his fellow" (7:22). Ephraim captured the princes Oreb and Zeeb (7:24-25).

The lamps shone only when the pitchers were broken. Paul writes, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). Isaiah later spoke of "the day of Midian" as a model of God's sudden deliverance (Isaiah 9:4; 10:26).

Chapter 8 — Gideon's Victory and Downfall

Ephraim complained they had not been called; Gideon calmed them with humility: "Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?" (8:1-3; compare Proverbs 15:1). The men of Succoth and Penuel refused bread to his exhausted troops; Gideon punished them on his return (8:4-17). He captured and killed the Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna, who had killed his brothers (8:18-21).

Then came the test of success. The Israelites asked Gideon to rule over them and found a dynasty. He answered rightly:

I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you.

Judges 8:23

But he asked for the gold earrings from the spoil, about 1,700 shekels, and made an ephod (a priestly garment) and put it in his city Ophrah. "And all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house" (8:27). The man who tore down Baal's altar set up a new object of false worship. Victory can be more dangerous than defeat. Gideon had many wives and seventy sons, and a concubine in Shechem bore him a son named Abimelech, "my father is king" (8:30-31). As soon as Gideon died, Israel turned to Baal-berith ("lord of the covenant") and forgot both the LORD and Gideon's family (8:33-35).

Chapter 9 — Abimelech, the Bramble King

Abimelech persuaded his mother's relatives in Shechem to make him king, hired "vain and light persons" with money from Baal-berith's temple, and murdered his seventy half-brothers "upon one stone" (9:1-5). Only the youngest, Jotham, escaped. From Mount Gerizim, Jotham told the first parable in the Bible (9:7-15): the trees wanted a king. The olive tree, fig tree and vine all refused to leave their fruitful work to rule, but the bramble accepted, saying, "come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon" (9:15). Worthless men seek power that productive people decline, and they bring destruction. Jotham pronounced a curse: fire would come out between Abimelech and Shechem and destroy both (9:20).

After three years, "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem" (9:23). Gaal son of Ebed stirred up revolt (9:26-41); Abimelech destroyed Shechem, sowed it with salt, and burned about a thousand people who had taken refuge in the tower of the temple of Berith (9:42-49). Attacking the tower of Thebez, he was struck on the head by a millstone thrown by a woman, and had his armourbearer kill him so it would not be said a woman slew him (9:50-54; recalled in 2 Samuel 11:21). "Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech... and upon them came the curse of Jotham" (9:56-57). God's justice may wait, but it comes.

Chapter 10 — Tola, Jair, and Deeper Apostasy

Tola of Issachar judged 23 years and Jair of Gilead 22 years; Jair had thirty sons who rode thirty donkeys and ruled thirty cities (10:1-5). Then Israel sank lower than ever, serving the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, Ammon and the Philistines: seven sets of gods (10:6). God sold them to the Philistines and the Ammonites, who oppressed them eighteen years (10:7-9). When they cried, God answered with a rebuke: "Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation" (10:13-14). For the first time, Israel's repentance went beyond words: "they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel" (10:16). God's heart is moved by His people's suffering even when it is the result of their sin (Isaiah 63:9; Hosea 11:8).

Chapter 11 — Jephthah and His Vow

Jephthah was a "mighty man of valour," but the son of a harlot, driven out by his half-brothers. He lived in the land of Tob, gathering "vain men" around him (11:1-3). When Ammon attacked, the elders of Gilead came begging him to lead them. He agreed on condition that he would be their head (11:4-11). The rejected one became the deliverer (compare Psalm 118:22).

Jephthah first tried diplomacy. He sent the king of Ammon a careful historical argument: Israel took the land from the Amorites, not Ammon; "the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites"; and Israel had held it "three hundred years" without challenge (11:12-26). "The LORD the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon" (11:27). Jephthah knew the history of Numbers 20-21 in detail.

"Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah" (11:29). Before the battle he made a vow: "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace... shall surely be the LORD'S, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering" (11:30-31). God gave a great victory (11:32-33). When Jephthah came home, his daughter, his only child, came out to meet him with timbrels and dances (11:34). He tore his clothes: "I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back" (11:35). She submitted, asking only two months to "bewail my virginity" with her friends (11:36-38). "He did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man" (11:39). The daughters of Israel lamented her four days every year (11:40).

What happened to Jephthah's daughter? Bible-believing Christians hold two views:

• She was offered as a burnt offering. This is the plain sense of "burnt offering." If so, it was a terrible sin, since God expressly forbade human sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 12:31). The vow was rash, and Jephthah should have broken it and sought atonement for a foolish oath (Leviticus 5:4-6). It would show how deeply Canaanite thinking had infected Israel.
• She was dedicated to lifelong virginity in the LORD's service. The Hebrew connecting word in 11:31 can be read "or": "shall surely be the LORD'S, or I will offer it up." The text stresses her virginity, not her death ("bewail my virginity," "she knew no man"), and no priest in Israel would have performed a human sacrifice.

Either way, the lesson is clear: rash vows are dangerous (Ecclesiastes 5:2-6; Matthew 5:33-37). Hebrews 11:32 commends Jephthah's faith in fighting God's battle, not every act of his life.

Chapter 12 — Shibboleth and the Minor Judges

The men of Ephraim again complained they had not been called, and threatened to burn Jephthah's house (12:1). This time there was no soft answer. Civil war followed. The Gileadites held the fords of the Jordan, and anyone who could not pronounce "Shibboleth" correctly, saying "Sibboleth," was identified as an Ephraimite and killed: 42,000 died (12:4-6). Pride and tribal jealousy led brother to kill brother. Jephthah judged six years (12:7). Three minor judges followed: Ibzan of Bethlehem, with thirty sons and thirty daughters (12:8-10); Elon of Zebulun (12:11-12); and Abdon of Ephraim, with forty sons and thirty grandsons on seventy donkeys (12:13-15).

Chapter 13 — The Birth of Samson

Israel did evil again, and God gave them to the Philistines for forty years, the longest oppression in the book (13:1). This time there is no record that Israel even cried out. God acted in grace anyway. The Angel of the LORD appeared to the barren wife of Manoah of Dan and announced a son: "no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines" (13:5). She too was to avoid wine and unclean food (13:4, 7, 14). Samson would only "begin" the deliverance; David would complete it (2 Samuel 5:17-25; 8:1).

Manoah prayed, "O my Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the child that shall be born" (13:8), a model prayer for parents. The Angel returned. When Manoah asked His name, He said, "Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?" (13:18). The Hebrew word for "secret" is pele, "wonderful," the same word in Isaiah 9:6: "his name shall be called Wonderful." When Manoah offered a sacrifice, "the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar" (13:20). Manoah said, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God" (13:22). His wife reasoned wisely that if God meant to kill them He would not have accepted their offering or told them these things (13:23). The Angel of the LORD is the pre-incarnate Son of God. Samson was born, "and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times" (13:24-25).

Chapter 14 — Samson's Marriage and Riddle

Samson saw a Philistine woman in Timnath and told his parents, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well" (14:1-3), ignoring God's law against marrying Canaanites (Deuteronomy 7:3) and his parents' protest. "But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines" (14:4): God was sovereignly working through even Samson's wrong desires to bring judgment on the oppressors, without approving the sin. On the way, "the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent" a young lion with his bare hands (14:5-6). Later he scooped honey from the lion's carcass and ate it, giving some to his parents without telling them where it came from (14:8-9), breaking his Nazarite separation from dead bodies.

At the seven-day wedding feast, he posed a riddle to thirty Philistine companions: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness" (14:14). They threatened his bride, who pressured him with tears for seven days until he told her (14:15-17). When they answered, Samson said, "If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle" (14:18). The Spirit came on him and he killed thirty Philistines at Ashkelon to pay the debt (14:19). His bride was given to his best man (14:20). His weakness for women would be his undoing.

Chapter 15 — Foxes, Fire and the Jawbone

When Samson found his wife given to another, he caught 300 foxes, tied them tail to tail with firebrands, and burned the Philistines' grain fields, vineyards and olive groves (15:1-5). The Philistines burned his wife and her father (15:6). Samson took revenge and then hid in the rock of Etam (15:7-8). When the Philistines invaded Judah to capture him, 3,000 men of Judah came to hand him over: "Knowest thou not that the Philistines are rulers over us?" (15:11). Israel had accepted its bondage. Samson let his own people bind him with new ropes and deliver him to the enemy (15:12-13). At Lehi, "the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him," the ropes melted like burnt flax, and with the fresh jawbone of a donkey he killed a thousand men (15:14-16).

Afterwards, desperately thirsty, he prayed for the first time recorded: "Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst?" God split open a hollow place and water came out; he called it En-hakkore, "the well of him that called" (15:18-19). Samson judged Israel twenty years (15:20).

Chapter 16 — Samson and Delilah

At Gaza, a Philistine city, Samson went in to a harlot. The men of Gaza waited to kill him at dawn, but at midnight he tore off the city gates, posts and bar, and carried them "to the top of an hill that is before Hebron," possibly a journey of nearly 40 miles (16:1-3). Then he loved Delilah, a woman in the valley of Sorek (16:4). The Philistine lords each offered her 1,100 pieces of silver to discover the secret of his strength (16:5). Three times Samson lied (seven green withs, new ropes, weaving his hair into a loom), and three times she called "The Philistines be upon thee," and he broke free (16:6-14). Yet he kept coming back. "When she pressed him daily with her words... his soul was vexed unto death" (16:16), and "he told her all his heart": "There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother's womb" (16:17).

Delilah lulled him to sleep on her knees and had his seven locks shaved (16:19). "And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him" (16:20). The strength was never in the hair but in the LORD; the hair was the sign of his separation, and when he gave up the sign, he had long since given up the substance. The Philistines put out his eyes, bound him with fetters of brass, and made him grind grain in the prison house of Gaza (16:21). Sin blinds, binds and grinds.

"Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven" (16:22). At a great feast to their god Dagon, the Philistines brought Samson out to mock him (16:23-25). Placed between the two central pillars of the temple, with about 3,000 people on the roof, he prayed:

O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.

Judges 16:28

"Let me die with the Philistines" (16:30). He pushed the pillars, the house fell, "So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life" (16:30). His family buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol (16:31). Hebrews 11:32-34 lists Samson among those who "out of weakness were made strong." God answered the prayer of a broken, repentant man.

Section III: The Consequences — Moral Chaos (Chapters 17-21)

Chapter 17 — Micah's Private Religion

A man of Ephraim named Micah stole 1,100 shekels of silver from his mother, then confessed when he heard her curse the thief. She blessed him "of the LORD" and dedicated the silver "unto the LORD" to make a graven image and a molten image (17:1-4). Micah set up "an house of gods," made an ephod and household idols, and consecrated one of his sons as priest (17:5). The writer explains: "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (17:6). When a wandering young Levite from Bethlehem came by, Micah hired him as his priest for ten shekels a year, clothes and food (17:7-12), and said, "Now know I that the LORD will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest" (17:13). This is self-made religion: the LORD's name mixed with idols, a hired priest, and confidence in religious objects instead of obedience to God's Word (Deuteronomy 12:8; Exodus 20:4).

Chapter 18 — The Danites Steal Micah's Gods

The tribe of Dan, having failed to take its allotted land (1:34), sent five spies looking for an easier territory (18:1-2). At Micah's house they recognised the Levite and asked him to inquire of God; he gave them a pleasing answer (18:3-6). They found Laish, a quiet, unprotected city far to the north (18:7-10). Six hundred Danites marched north, stole Micah's idols and ephod, and persuaded the Levite to become priest to a whole tribe instead of one household; "the priest's heart was glad" (18:14-20). When Micah protested, "Ye have taken away my gods which I made... and what have I more?" (18:24), they threatened him. They slaughtered the people of Laish, rebuilt it as Dan, and set up the graven image (18:27-31).

The priest is identified: "Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan" (18:30). Gershom was Moses' son (Exodus 2:22). The Hebrew text writes the name with a small raised letter "n," turning "Moses" into "Manasseh," apparently to spare Moses' name the shame that his own grandson led Israel's first tribal idolatry. Dan remained a centre of false worship: Jeroboam later placed one of his golden calves there (1 Kings 12:29-30). Some Bible teachers connect Dan's idolatry with its absence from the list of tribes in Revelation 7:4-8.

Chapter 19 — The Outrage at Gibeah

A Levite from Ephraim went to Bethlehem to bring back his concubine, who had left him (19:1-3). After days of hospitality from her father, they set out late and stopped for the night at Gibeah of Benjamin rather than at Jebus, a foreign city, thinking Israelites would be safer (19:10-14). No one in Gibeah took them in except an old man from Ephraim (19:15-21). That night "certain sons of Belial" surrounded the house and demanded the Levite, as the men of Sodom had (19:22; Genesis 19:4-5). The old man offered his virgin daughter and the concubine instead; the Levite pushed his concubine out, and they abused her all night (19:24-25). In the morning she lay dead at the door. The Levite's words, "Up, and let us be going" (19:28), show his cold heart. He cut her body into twelve pieces and sent them throughout Israel (19:29). All who saw it said, "There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day" (19:30). Israel had become Sodom. Hosea later said, "They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah" (Hosea 9:9; 10:9).

Chapter 20 — Civil War with Benjamin

All Israel, 400,000 men, gathered "as one man" at Mizpeh (20:1-2). They demanded that Benjamin hand over the guilty men of Gibeah, but Benjamin refused and gathered 26,000 soldiers, including 700 left-handed slingers who "could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss" (20:12-16). Israel asked God which tribe should go first (20:18), but they had not humbled themselves. They lost 22,000 men the first day (20:21). They wept and asked again, and lost 18,000 more (20:23-25). Then all the people went to Bethel, "and wept, and sat there before the LORD, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings" (20:26). Phinehas the priest inquired, and God promised victory (20:27-28). Repentance came before deliverance. On the third day, by ambush, Israel destroyed Benjamin's army and cities; only 600 men escaped to the rock Rimmon (20:29-48).

Chapter 21 — Wives for Benjamin

Israel had sworn not to give their daughters to Benjamin (21:1). Now they wept: "O LORD God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to day one tribe lacking in Israel?" (21:3). To solve one rash oath they made more terrible decisions. Since Jabesh-gilead had not come to the assembly, they destroyed it and took 400 virgins for Benjamin (21:8-14). For the remaining 200, they told the Benjamites to hide in the vineyards at Shiloh and seize girls who came out to dance at the yearly feast (21:19-23). The book closes with its verdict:

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25

Two links to the coming kingdom: Saul, Israel's first king, came from Gibeah of Benjamin (1 Samuel 10:26), and his first act as king was to rescue Jabesh-gilead (1 Samuel 11). The men of Jabesh later risked their lives to bury Saul (1 Samuel 31:11-13). David, the godly king, would come from Bethlehem, the town mentioned in both stories of the appendix (17:7; 19:1).

Part Three: Christ in Judges

The Angel of the LORD

The Angel of the LORD appears at Bochim speaking as God who brought Israel out of Egypt (2:1), to Gideon as "the LORD" (6:11-24), and to Manoah and his wife with the name "Wonderful" (13:18), ascending in the flame of the altar (13:20). He is the pre-incarnate Christ, the true Deliverer behind all the judges (compare Isaiah 9:6; 63:9).

The Judges and the Perfect Deliverer

Each judge was a Spirit-empowered saviour raised up by God to deliver His people from bondage, a picture of Christ, on whom "the Spirit of the Lord" rested "to preach deliverance to the captives" (Luke 4:18). But every judge had flaws, and every deliverance was temporary. The book shows the need for a perfect Deliverer whose salvation is complete and permanent, "able also to save them to the uttermost" (Hebrews 7:25).

Samson: A Flawed Picture of Christ

Samson's sins were real and he died partly because of them, but his life contains striking parallels to Christ:

The great difference: Samson died because of his own sins; Christ, who knew no sin, died for ours (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The Need for a King

"No king in Israel" (17:6; 21:25) explains the chaos of Judges. The book prepares for David, the shepherd-king from Bethlehem, and ultimately for Christ, the Son of David, born in Bethlehem, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS" (Revelation 19:16). When Christ reigns in a heart, no one does "that which is right in his own eyes" but what is right in His. Jotham's parable (9) contrasts the worthless "bramble" king with the true King under whose shadow people truly find rest (Psalm 91:1; Song of Solomon 2:3).

Part Four: Fulfilled Prophecies and Promises

Part Five: Key Passages in Depth

Judges 2:10 — The Generation That Knew Not the LORD

How could Israel fall so far so fast? One generation saw God's works; the next "knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done." Parents had failed to teach as Moses commanded (Deuteronomy 6:6-9), and the people had failed to separate from the Canaanites (2:2). Faith is always one generation from extinction if it is not passed on. Psalm 78:5-8 gives the remedy: make God's works known to the children, "That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God."

Judges 6-8 — Gideon: From Fear to Faith to Failure

Gideon's story shows God's patience with weak faith. He began hiding in a winepress, needed repeated signs, and obeyed at night out of fear; yet God called him a mighty man of valour, clothed him with His Spirit, and won a great victory through 300 men with lamps and pitchers. But his story ends in failure: the gold ephod became a snare. Many believers finish worse than they start. "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus" (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Judges 16 — Samson: Strength Without Self-Control

Samson had supernatural strength but no moral strength. He was controlled by his eyes ("she pleaseth me well," 14:3; "saw there an harlot," 16:1) and his passions. He played with temptation repeatedly, thinking he could always escape. His tragedy is in 16:20: "he wist not that the LORD was departed from him." Yet his final prayer shows that God's grace can still use a broken, repentant servant. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Judges 17-21 — Everyone Right in His Own Eyes

The appendix shows the bottom of the spiral: religious corruption (a private idol shrine, a hired priest, a tribe's idolatry) and moral corruption (Gibeah acting like Sodom, a near-genocide of a tribe, and kidnapped brides). It happened not under a foreign oppressor but among God's own people. Without God's rule, a culture defines right by personal preference. "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12). Paul describes the same downward spiral of a society that rejects God (Romans 1:21-32).

Part Six: The Major Teachings of Judges

1. The Danger of Incomplete Obedience

Chapter 1's repeated "neither did... drive out" leads to everything else. Sin tolerated becomes sin that dominates (Romans 6:12-16).

2. The Downward Spiral of Sin

Each cycle goes lower. Sin is not static; it grows (James 1:14-15; 2 Timothy 3:13).

3. God's Discipline

God "sold them" into their enemies' hands (2:14). Oppression was not accident but loving discipline designed to bring them back (Hebrews 12:6-11).

4. God's Patience and Grace

Again and again God heard their cries, even when their repentance was shallow, and "his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel" (10:16). He even raised up Samson when they did not cry (13). "It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed" (Lamentations 3:22).

5. The Work of the Holy Spirit

"The Spirit of the LORD came upon" Othniel, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson (3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14). Real deliverance comes "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit" (Zechariah 4:6).

6. God Uses the Weak and Unlikely

A left-handed man, a woman, a farmer with an ox goad, a fearful man from the least family, a harlot's son, and a flawed Nazarite. "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty" (1 Corinthians 1:27).

7. The Importance of Godly Leadership

When godly judges lived, the land had rest; when they died, Israel relapsed. The book points to the need for a righteous king (21:25).

8. The Danger of Compromise in Marriage

Intermarriage with the Canaanites led to idolatry (3:6), and Samson's attraction to Philistine women led to his downfall. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Corinthians 6:14).

9. Rash Words and Oaths

Jephthah's vow (11:30-31) and Israel's oath against Benjamin (21:1) both led to tragedy. "Be not rash with thy mouth" (Ecclesiastes 5:2).

10. Religion Without Truth

Micah's shrine (17), the Danite priesthood (18) and Gideon's ephod (8:27) show that sincerity and religious objects without obedience to God's Word are idolatry.

Part Seven: Connections — How Judges Links to the Rest of the Bible

Judges in the New Testament

Judges in the Old Testament

Themes That Run from Judges Through Scripture

Part Eight: Practical Lessons

• Finish what God tells you to do. Partial obedience is disobedience (1).
• Tears are not the same as repentance. Bochim's weeping changed nothing (2:4-5).
• Teach the next generation, or they will not know the LORD (2:10).
• Sin always takes you lower than you planned (2:19).
• God can use whatever is in your hand (3:31; 7:20; 15:15).
• Don't stay neutral in the LORD's battles (5:23).
• God sees what you can become in Him (6:12).
• Start obedience at home (6:25-27).
• God's victories leave no room for pride (7:2).
• Beware of success. Gideon fell after his greatest victory (8:27).
• Ambitious, unqualified leaders bring ruin (9).
• Real repentance puts away idols (10:16).
• Don't make rash vows (11:30-31).
• A soft answer turns away wrath; a harsh one starts wars (8:1-3; 12:1-6).
• Guard your eyes and your heart. Samson was led by what pleased him (14:3; 16:1).
• Don't play with temptation. Delilah succeeded on the fourth try (16).
• It is never too late to call on God (16:28).
• Doing what is right in your own eyes leads to chaos (17:6; 21:25).

Part Nine: Key Verses to Memorize

Conclusion

Judges is one of the darkest books in the Bible, and one of the most honest. It shows God's people, only a generation after Joshua, falling into a cycle of idolatry, oppression, crying out and deliverance, each turn lower than the last, until the nation looks like Sodom and nearly destroys one of its own tribes. Yet through it all, God remained faithful. He heard His people's cries, grieved over their misery, and raised up deliverers by His Spirit: weak, flawed people through whom He won great victories. The book leaves us longing for a righteous King, fulfilled first in David and perfectly in Jesus Christ, the Deliverer who never fails and the King whose rule brings true rest.

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25