Judges
What happens when everyone does what seems right to them.
Who wrote it: Anonymous. Jewish tradition names Samuel. Most scholars see it as part of the same long history as Joshua and Kings, built from older tribal stories and edited into a single account, probably during or after the exile. The repeated line 'in those days there was no king' suggests it was shaped by someone who had seen what came next.
What it is
Joshua's generation dies, and the next one, the text says, did not know the LORD or what he had done. Judges is what follows: about three hundred years of Israel living in the land without a king, and without much else. Chapter 2 gives you the pattern before the stories start. The people abandon God for local gods. God lets a neighbouring nation oppress them. They cry out. God raises up a deliverer, called a judge, who rescues them. There is peace while the judge lives. Then the judge dies and it starts again, worse.
The judges are not judges in any courtroom sense. They are warlords, rescuers, sometimes prophets. Deborah leads from under a palm tree and a woman named Jael finishes the battle with a tent peg. Gideon, hiding from the enemy when God calls him a mighty warrior, needs two rounds of proof before he will move, then defeats a huge army with three hundred men and some jars. Jephthah makes a vow that costs him his daughter. Samson, strong, reckless and ruled by his appetites, kills more Philistines in his death than in his life.
Watch the judges get worse as the book goes on. Othniel at the start is barely described and simply wins. Gideon in the middle wins and then makes an idol. Samson at the end barely thinks about Israel at all. The final five chapters have no judge; instead there is a stolen idol, a priest for hire, and one of the most horrifying stories in the Bible, in chapter 19, that ends in civil war. The book's last verse is its verdict: no king, everyone doing what seemed right to them.
Why it was written is not hard to guess. It is the case for a king, told by people who knew that kings would bring their own problems. It is also, underneath, an argument about God: that he keeps answering a people who keep leaving him, and that his rescuers are flawed to the point of embarrassment. Nobody in Judges earns anything. That is either the depressing part or the hopeful part, depending on where you are standing.
Verses worth keeping
- Judges 2:10WEB
After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsAfter that whole generation had died and joined their ancestors, another generation grew up who didn't know the LORD or what he had done for Israel.
Faith is one generation from being forgotten. The rest of the book is what that looks like.
15He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” 16The LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsHe said, 'Lord, how am I supposed to save Israel? My family is the poorest in Manasseh and I'm the least important person in my father's house.' The LORD said, 'I will definitely be with you, and you'll beat the Midianites as if they were one man.'
Gideon's objection is about himself. God's answer is not about Gideon at all.
- Judges 7:2WEB
The LORD said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel brag against me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsThe LORD said to Gideon, 'You've got too many people with you for me to hand Midian over to them. Israel would brag against me and say, My own strength saved me.'
God cuts the army from 32,000 to 300 so that nobody could misread who won.
- Judges 16:28WEB
Samson called to the LORD, and said, “Lord GOD, remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, only this once, God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsSamson called out to the LORD: 'Lord GOD, remember me, please. Give me strength, please, just this once, God, so I can get revenge on the Philistines in one go for my two eyes.'
Samson's only recorded prayer, and it is about revenge. God answers it anyway. Make of that what you will; the book does.
- Judges 21:25WEB
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsIn those days Israel had no king. Everyone did whatever seemed right to them.
The last line of the book, and its diagnosis. Not 'everyone did evil'. Everyone did what seemed right, which was the problem.
Read Judges
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Judges 6
1The children of Israel did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, so the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel; and because of Midian the children of Israel made themselves the dens which are in the mountains, the caves, and the strongholds. 3So it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the east came up against them. 4They encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza. They left no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey. 5For they came up with their livestock and their tents. They came in as locusts for multitude. Both they and their camels were without number; and they came into the land to destroy it. 6Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried to the LORD.
7When the children of Israel cried to the LORD because of Midian, 8The LORD sent a prophet to the children of Israel; and he said to them, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of bondage. 9I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out from before you, and gave you their land. 10I said to you, “I am the LORD your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.” But you have not listened to my voice.’”
11The LORD’s angel came and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. His son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Midianites. 12The LORD’s angel appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
13Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”
14The LORD looked at him, and said, “Go in this your might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Haven’t I sent you?”
15He said to him, “O Lord, how shall I save Israel? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16The LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”
17He said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who talk with me. 18Please don’t go away until I come to you, and bring out my present, and lay it before you.” He said, “I will wait until you come back.”
19Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal. He put the meat in a basket and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the oak, and presented it.
20The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” He did so.
21Then the LORD’s angel stretched out the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire went up out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. Then the LORD’s angel departed out of his sight.
22Gideon saw that he was the LORD’s angel; and Gideon said, “Alas, Lord GOD! Because I have seen the LORD’s angel face to face!”
23The LORD said to him, “Peace be to you! Don’t be afraid. You shall not die.”
24Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it “The LORD is Peace.” To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
25That same night, the LORD said to him, “Take your father’s bull, even the second bull seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is by it. 26Then build an altar to the LORD your God on the top of this stronghold, in an orderly way, and take the second bull, and offer a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah which you shall cut down.”
27Then Gideon took ten men of his servants, and did as the LORD had spoken to him. Because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city, he could not do it by day, but he did it by night.
28When the men of the city arose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah was cut down that was by it, and the second bull was offered on the altar that was built. 29They said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” When they inquired and asked, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.”
30Then the men of the city said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, because he has broken down the altar of Baal, and because he has cut down the Asherah that was by it.” 31Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? He who will contend for him, let him be put to death by morning! If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because someone has broken down his altar!” 32Therefore on that day he named him Jerub-Baal, saying, “Let Baal contend against him, because he has broken down his altar.”
33Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east assembled themselves together; and they passed over, and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. 34But the LORD’s Spirit came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together to follow him. 35He sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they also were gathered together to follow him. He sent messengers to Asher, to Zebulun, and to Naphtali; and they came up to meet them.
36Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, 37behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I’ll know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken.”
38It was so; for he rose up early on the next day, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.
39Gideon said to God, “Don’t let your anger be kindled against me, and I will speak but this once. Please let me make a trial just this once with the fleece. Let it now be dry only on the fleece, and on all the ground let there be dew.”
40God did so that night; for it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.
Questions about Judges
Why is Judges so dark? Chapter 19 is horrific.
It is, and it is meant to be. The concubine in chapter 19 is raped and killed and her body cut into pieces, and the book tells it flatly, without a single approving word. The last five chapters are there to show what a society looks like when it has lost any shared sense of God, and the author's technique is to stop commenting and let you look. Nothing in Judges 17 to 21 is being recommended. It is being reported, in the way a documentary might, so that the final verse lands. If it makes you angry, that is the reaction the writer was going for.
Is Samson a hero?
The book does not think so, or not simply. He breaks his vows, sleeps with a prostitute, marries out of spite and never once leads Israel anywhere. His strength is the only thing about him the text admires, and even that is presented as God's gift rather than his own. Hebrews 11 lists him among people of faith, which says more about God's patience than Samson's character. Read him as a warning with a tragic ending and you are close to the text. Read him as a role model and you have missed something.
Did Jephthah really sacrifice his daughter?
Judges 11 says he vowed to offer whatever came out of his house first, his daughter came out, and he 'did with her according to his vow'. The plain reading is that he killed her. Some readers, ancient and modern, have argued she was instead dedicated to lifelong virginity, pointing to her two months mourning that she would never marry. The text does not say either explicitly and does not say God asked for it, approved it or wanted it; the law elsewhere condemns child sacrifice in the strongest terms. It reads as a man who did not know his own God well enough to know he could have broken the vow.