Judges: when there was no king

About the book

The book is named for its judges, but they were not judges in a courtroom. The Hebrew verb behind the word, shaphat (שָׁפַט), means to judge, but also to govern and to put right, taking the side of the wronged. Most of the judges were deliverers and leaders God raised up in a crisis; Othniel is called "a deliverer to save them" (Judges 3:9). Deborah also settled the people's disputes, but none of the judges founded a dynasty, and many led a few tribes rather than all Israel.

Judges does not name its author. Jewish tradition, recorded in the Babylonian Talmud, says that Samuel wrote it Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra. The book itself gives hints. Its refrain, "In those days there was no king in Israel" (Judges 17:6), looks back from a time when there was one; and the Jebusites still living in Jerusalem "to this day" (Judges 1:21) points to the years before David took the city (2 Samuel 5:7). So many date it early in the monarchy, in Samuel's time or soon after.

Many scholars see Judges as part of the Deuteronomistic History, met in the lesson on Joshua: the history from Joshua to Kings, gathered from older stories and records around the exile and told in the light of Deuteronomy's teaching, that loving the LORD and walking in his ways brings life and blessing, and turning away brings disaster (Deuteronomy 30:15-16). The circle of chapter 2 follows that teaching. They point, for one, to the priests of Dan who served "until the day of the captivity of the land" (Judges 18:30). Those who hold the traditional view largely agree that these books measure Israel's history by Deuteronomy's covenant. They date Judges to the early monarchy, and take such a phrase as a later note or as speaking of an earlier disaster.

The events run from Joshua's death to the years before Samuel, in the era the map under the Jesus tab calls Conquest and the judges (c. 1400/1200–1050 BC).

How it unfolds

Chapter 2 is the key to the book. When the people forsake the LORD and serve the Baals, God gives them into their enemies' hands; when they groan under them, he raises up a judge to save them. But when the judge dies, they become "even more corrupt than their fathers" (Judges 2:19). Sin, oppression, a cry, rescue, rest: the circle turns again and again, and each turn goes lower.

The judges themselves falter more and more. Gideon's ephod became "a snare to Gideon and his household" (Judges 8:27); Samson, set apart as a Nazirite, followed what was "pleasing to my eyes" (Judges 14:3) and died blinded among the Philistines.

Key passages

Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them from the hands of those who plundered them.

Judges 2:16

The rescue comes from God, not from the judges' strength. Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from Midian when the angel of the LORD greeted him: "The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor" (Judges 6:12). God cut his army down to three hundred, lest Israel say, "My own hand has saved me" (Judges 7:2). As Matthew Henry puts it, "The Lord was with the judges when he raised them up, and so they became saviours" Matthew Henry.

The book ends:

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25

The idols and violence of chapters 17–21 show what that means. Judges does not tell these things as examples to follow, but to show how far a people falls when each one's own eyes take the place of God (Who decides right and wrong?). Yet God did not give his people up. When they put away their foreign gods, "He could no longer bear the misery of Israel" (Judges 10:16).

The book and Christ

Hebrews names "Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah" among the people of faith (Hebrews 11:32): not because they were flawless, but because through faith they "gained strength from weakness" (Hebrews 11:34).

Yet their rescues did not last. When a judge died the people fell again, and the judges themselves stumbled. The book leaves us longing for a deliverer who saves and does not fail, a faithful king who rules his people to the end. When Israel asked Gideon to rule them, he answered, "The LORD shall rule over you" (Judges 8:23). That longing leads to David, named at the end of Ruth, and at last to Christ, the king in whom God himself came to his people. The Westminster Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian churches confesses:

Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.

Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 26

See Prophet, priest and king, in the doctrine course.

Reading it

Three chapters a day takes a week. Learn the circle of Judges 2 first, then watch it turn with each judge, and how much lower it goes. The last five chapters are dark, and meant to be: hear the refrain about no king over them. Matthew Henry takes their events to have happened soon after Joshua's death Matthew Henry; they are gathered at the end for their meaning, not their date. Then go on to Ruth, another face of the same days.

Practice