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Broken laws as “Every Man Did That Which Was Right in His Own Eyes”
Aaron P. Schade
Aaron P. Schade, "Broken Laws as 'Every Man Did That Which Was Right in His Own Eyes,'" in From Wilderness to Monarchy: The Old Testament Through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2025), 115–58.
The previous chapters discussed the conquest accounts under Joshua. As the book of Joshua presented stories of victory, the book of Judges witnesses a people withdrawing from the Lord and accounts of their resultant subsequent failures. In this chapter, Aaron Schade discusses the nature of this spiritual decline and how the book of Judges was meant to be read through the lens of failure rather than as an extolment of the virtues of the victorious judges. The broken laws of God are highlighted as the cause of the suffering witnessed throughout Judges, and yet the love of God is portrayed throughout the book in his desires to help, rescue, and alleviate the suffering the people were experiencing as they did what was right in their own eyes. It is a story of Ҵǻ’s love, though the people loved other gods in their rejection of Ҵǻ’s covenants that were designed to bring them peace and happiness. —DB and AS
The book of Judges can be difficult to read, much less to understand given its stories of violence, questionable ethics, and cultural background. Considering this, the present chapter has a twofold purpose. The first purpose is to discuss an approach to the book of Judges when it is filled with stories, figures, and behavior that are reprehensible and to address the question of whether the book is requiring us to accept the unacceptable and extol the behavior of its people and judges while ignoring or slighting their vices, leaving behind feelings of confusion for readers as to how such behavior can seemingly be condoned as we laud each episodic victory and its characters. It is not the design nor purpose of the book of Judges to ignore the infidelity, atrocities, and failures presented within it.[1] The book thus reveals the outcome of forsaking God and covenants and the low point of society that results from it, including tragedy, heartbreak, and suffering. Judges thus highlights “(1) the progressive deterioration of the relationship between God and the Hebrew people; (2) the limitations imposed upon divine power by the exercise of human freedom; and (3) the misuse and abuse of human freedom.”[2] Agency, action, and behavior are critical issues in Judges, and the book does not hide the conclusion that “the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord” (Judges 2:11). The second objective of this chapter is to view Judges through the lens of Ҵǻ’s love and the laws and covenantal codes that were designed to bring stability and hope to a people encountering hardship and warfare when, instead, the reality was a series of broken laws and a broken society resulting from individuals doing “that which was right in [their] own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Comprehending the laws that were being broken is crucial in studying Judges and what was happening to society in relation to the cultural and political environment among which Israel’s repeated conflict of choice between Ҵǻ’s covenants and the religious practices of their neighboring cultural groups often resulted in Israelite populations who “corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them” (Judges 2:19).
This chapter addresses tensions we face as readers within the book, how we might begin to approach these topics, and what the authors and redactors of Judges were hoping their readers would glean from its pages.[3] Additionally, I will provide a historical overview of the actions and conflicts of the people that are encountered within the book of Judges. I will not focus heavily on incidents in Judges by retelling the specific stories but on the larger framework wherein the love of God and love of gods is superimposed with a broken law and its effect upon the people and their environment. Finally, I will present possible alternative outcomes for what might have been in the book of Judges if ancient Israel had pursued Ҵǻ’s intentions and kept their covenants with him.
Section 1: a Lens That Laments, Not Extols, the Behaviors of Its People and Its Judges
While studying the book of Judges, one can find it easy to concentrate on the temporary successes of the combative capabilities of the judges themselves. This is an important part of Judges and the temporary relief God in his love repeatedly sent to the people through them: “Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them” (Judges 2:16). However, if the judge rather than God becomes the focal point as we approach the judges, and we celebrate the victories over foes on account of the judge, or if we view God as somehow incapable of working through imperfect people to extend his mercy, this has the potential to cause moral confusion as one quickly begins to encounter the covenantal, legal, moral, and ethical breaches of these very same judges with and against the people whom they lead. Extolling their strengths with the apparent ignoring of or the passive acceptance of their vices can lead to misunderstanding a major theological purpose of the book: people were disregarding God and covenant, and individuals “did that which was right in [their] own eyes” (21:25). This behavior led to tragic consequences and suffering within society at large with the breaching of biblical ethics and commandments.[4]
While not everyone in Judges was wicked (Deborah, for example, was not), much conduct portrayed within the book was. Over time, this led to a strained relationship within the tribes of Israel (chaps. 20–21) and with God, who sought to comfort and bring peace (6:23) to his people who were straying farther and farther away from him. Approaching Judges requires us to recognize Ҵǻ’s love for a people who tended to disregard or fail to observe his covenant, as God even declares, “this people hath transgressed my covenant” (2:20). Despite their vices, God did not give up on them, nor did his love override negative behavior and its consequences, highlighting it in a painful and poignant way. As such, the book is filled with both hopes and fears; with potential, both realized and unrealized; with love and hate; and with yearnings for leadership and kingship that were designed to eventuate in God but that would ultimately come to pass in the establishment of the united monarchy under Saul and David.[5] The people in Judges were meant to live Ҵǻ’s spiritual laws outlined in the legal, covenantal, and ethical codes contained in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus—codes the reader is expected to understand and engage with in the major framework of the stories presented in the book of Judges.[6]
The regrettable and sometimes atrocious display of behavior and the negative results it had on individuals and society as depicted in the book, particularly toward women, is not an acceptance or tolerance of the unacceptable but a condemnation of the deplorable (Judges 19–21).[7] In fact, the period of the judges has been referred to as a “dark age” in Israel’s history with failure to “uphold the torah/
Approaching the book of Judges through this lens may prove helpful when encountering the horrible events that sometimes transpire within it (and it is important to realize that Judges is not meant to be, nor does the behavior witnessed in it necessarily constitute, the statistical norm nor ideal throughout the Bible), and we are not meant to think that somehow the Bible is condoning such behavior, even if a people who have spiraled into a spiritual abyss do.[10] The existence of a few judges who are viewed in a positive light, along with any other good people who existed during this period, may have delayed what eventuated at the end of the book; however,
Israel quickly devolves into a period of moral depravity, spiritual confusion, and political fragmentation. . . . One gets the feeling of Israel going around in circles or, more accurately, entering into a death spiral, since the judges themselves get increasingly problematic as one moves from the relatively virtuous Othniel, Ehud, and Deborah to the morally compromised Gideon (and his ephod [8:22–27] and son Abimelech [chap. 9]), Jephthah (and the offering of his daughter [11:34–40]), and the laughable, but thoroughly despicable Samson, who does nothing except for his own desires.[11]
With the reality that right doing is not always rewarded with immediate blessings and that wrongdoing does not always result in immediate punishment, the book of Judges links negative behavior with negative consequences that transpire over the period of a few hundred years—some consequences being immediate and others having longer-lasting effects.
Historical overview
It is important to view the activities portrayed in Judges through a histori-cal lens.[12] In some measure, assessing the period of the events depicted in Judges depends on how one assigns dates to the Exodus and how one views the larger available evidence against the claims in 1 Kings 6:1 that Solomon’s temple was constructed 480 years after the Exodus.[13] If the later date of the Exodus is accepted (mid-thirteenth century BC), the events in Judges would be set in the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
Before the period of the judges, as reflected in the book of Joshua, Israel appears to have become a significant presence in the region. Israel is first clearly attested in inscriptional material in the Egyptian Merneptah Stela (ca. 1209–1208 BC), and Israel is described with a people determinative, not a land marker, indicating a people without a designated and delineated land but as a group roaming this area as depicted in Joshua and Judges.[14] As settlement developed and conflicts ensued after the fall of superpowers in the region in the form of Egyptians and the Hittites, the books of Joshua and Judges historically depict “the land of Canaan in a state of transition from the city-states of the Bronze Age to the emerging national entities of Israel, Philistia, Aram, and so forth,”[15] providing the backdrop to our stories in Judges.[16] From the evidence we have at our disposal, this was, to say the least, an unsettled time in Canaan. The period began with great international powers in a stalemate and then in decline. Both the Egyptians and the Hittites wished to control Canaan because of the importance of its trade routes and military advantages but were unable to do so. Canaan was not dominated by either of these powers at this time, which created a virtual free-for-all among the smaller city-states and local populations.
A significant challenge to Israel came from a group called the “sea peoples.” They had moved into the coastal plain of Canaan as part of a larger migration of people fleeing the Aegean. One of the groups of the sea peoples is called the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible.[17] They sought to dominate lands eastward from the Mediterranean coast toward the Jordan River. The Israelites, with their entrance into the region, arrived from the east and pushed west, encountering diverse peoples, including the Philistines. Meanwhile, the indigenous 
Canaanite populations were not willing to stand for a wholesale takeover of their territory and found they had to defend themselves from various peoples (fig. 1).
The book of Judges reflects the instability in the land at this time and paints a picture of various groups vying for hegemony and Israel’s developing identity within the region.[18] The conflicts encountered in Judges were thus, in some measure, inevitable. It was not about if there would be wars but when and with whom. The question was about whom one would follow and whether measures could be implemented to alleviate some of these conflicts and suffering. Judges presents the storyline as the Israelites transition from being a nomadic people to a settled people.[19] For Israel, in this region in flux, conflict surrounded them on all sides. Harris and Platzner describe it this way:
Although Deborah and Barak are forced to defend their territory against seemingly superior Canaanite forces (Judg. 4–5), the principal threat to Israelite hegemony over Canaan comes from outsiders and not from the indigenous population. For Ehud and his contemporaries, it is the Moabites (Ch. 3); for Gideon’s genera-tion, it is the Midianites and the Amalekites (Chs. 6–7). Jephthah and Samson struggle against the Ammonites and the Philistines, respectively (Chs. 11–16). This pattern of sporadic invasion, to which Israelite armies respond on an improvised and regional basis, is wholly consistent with the power vacuum that exists in Canaan following the death of Rameses III in 1153 B.C.E. and it certainly is compatible with Judges’ account of a politically decentralized Israelite society whose leadership exists only at the tribal level and that is ultimately beset by intertribal warfare. The decline of the late–Bronze Age city-state, which contemporary archaeologists have labored to document, provides a suitable backdrop for the gradual “ruralization” of Israel and the inevitable regional tensions that follow as the Israelites become geographically dispersed and politically fragmented. In sharp contrast, then, to the picture of intertribal unity and cooperation in Joshua, Judges provides us with a contrasting (and perhaps more historically reliable) account of Israel’s often chaotic emergence as a nation from its tribal origins.[20]
Archaeology may help underscore some of the moral issues that are raised in Judges through an analysis of material culture of this time in history, but the equation is complex. The evidence does seem to support the storyline in Judges of the emergence of the Israelites during this period within the region,[21] and it is apparent the Israelites adopted many traditions in the process of their “Canaanization”[22] wherein the Israelites “went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves down to them” (Judges 2:17). Identifying what was “Israelite” and what was culturally other is difficult to assess because “ancient Israel interacted with its neighbors, sharing ideas and practices common throughout the ancient Near East. Sometimes Israel adopted these practices, other times they purposefully rejected them and established their own specific expression.”[23] Based on this intermixing of culture and religion among both the Israelites and their neighbors, the amalgamation of religious practices among the people of Israel appears to have been a reality that conforms to the circumstances outlined in the book of Judges.
Geographically, Israel was thrown into Canaan out of Egypt, but Israel was religiously being “Canaanized” by choice as they assimilated neighboring cultural practices that were putting them at odds with Ҵǻ’s covenants, behavior that was condemned throughout the book as Israel became highly engaged with the practices of its neighbors, making the material culture even more intertwined, encapsulated in the concept “the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. . . . And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods . . . and served Baalim and the groves” (3:5–7).[24] The cultural and religious diffusion and exchange that would become so appealing and threaten the spiritual life of the people of Israel would all be facilitated by close proximity within Canaanite cultures (one emphasized in episodes such as Judges 1:21–36 wherein these societies were integrated into one another), and challenges would come through a clash of ideologies, lifestyles, and perspectives. With the concept of “Canaanization” in mind, the first two chapters of Judges pick up after the conquests of Joshua and Israelite interactions with the Canaanites who had not been driven out.
The beginning of the moral end: From Joshua’s leadership to judges’ failures
From the book of Joshua and its stories of conquest and inheritances, we move to the book of Judges with “stories about local heroes who distinguished themselves in battle with Canaanites, Midianites, or Philistines, when ‘there was no king in Israel.’”[25] Amid their Canaanite environment, covenantal fidelity began lapsing, and the glorious successes presented in the book of Joshua began fading as it became incumbent upon a new generation to continue the efforts of their fathers within the promised land—an endeavor that took a wrong turn when “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel” (2:10). The first two chapters of Judges act as a narrative prologue to the book, with the subsequent chapters defining the reasons and causes behind the tragedies and failures that follow.
Judges 1:1 “begins with the death of Joshua. . . . This creates an immediate problem, however, since Joshua has not appointed a successor before his death. . . . With no new leader present, the book of Judges poses a question in its first verse, ‘Who will go up for us against the Canaanites at the beginning to fight them in it?’ The remainder of chapter one presents a failed pattern of tribe-by-tribe warfare.”[26] The answer comes that Judah should go forth to battle, and they are eventually joined by the people of Simeon.[27] The successes of Joshua continued with successful battles by the tribe of Judah (vv. 4–11). However, amid these battles, we begin to see inhumane treatment inflicted upon their enemies (vv. 6–7).[28] Israel’s adoption of such behavior here perhaps transgresses Ҵǻ’s approval:
The Judahite treatment of Adoni-Bezek is likely an application of the law of lex talionis, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” but it is striking that the newly arrived Israelites have actually adopted a Canaanite ethic. Instead of looking to Yahweh for ethical guidance (cf. Samson in 15:12–13), the Judahites find their models on treatment of captives in their predecessors in this land.[29]
This adoption of outside ethical codes was just the beginning of Israel’s shift away from God.
Even with this shifting ethos of the children of Israel from God, Ҵǻ’s continuing love is foreshadowed in Judges 2 as the chapter begins with an appearance of the Lord wherein he explains his covenantal responsibility to them with a plea for reciprocation: “I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you” (v. 1).[30] Judges 2:2 makes clear that the only covenant to be made and path to follow was to be with God, not the Canaanites: “And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land,” following the instructions and warnings from Exodus 34:12, 15.[31] Furthermore, Israel was to throw down the altars that surrounded them (Deuteronomy 7:1–5; 12:1–3; Exodus 34:13). However, in pointed condemnation and pleas of heartache, the Lord exclaimed, “But ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?” (Judges 2:2). Upon hearing the angel of the Lord speak these words, the people cried out and wept, and the place was named Bochim, a term meaning weeping or crying (v. 4).[32] This heartbreaking reprimand is a plea to Israel to follow the Lord’s way, yet what followed was a cycle of disobedience and disarray:
The indictment brought against the Israelites is that they have broken Yahweh’s covenant (berit, treaty). They have ignored his prohibition against making any covenant (treaties) with “the people of this land” and his order to “break down their altars” (2:2a). What seems especially offensive to Yahweh is the fact that Canaanite altars have been left standing, not only in those Canaanite enclaves with whose inhabitants the Israelites have entered into treaty but also in areas that the Israelites themselves have occupied (see 6:25–32). This early disobedience of the Israelites to the covenant stipulations leads to the apostasy of Introduction (2:6–3:6), as well as all of the apostasies throughout the accounts in the cycles section of 3:7–16:31.[33]
After the death of the individuals and leaders who had witnessed so much of the Lord’s deliverance and power in the book of Joshua, the next generation “knew not the Lord” (Judges 2:10).[34] At that stage, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, served Baalim, followed the gods of the people among whom they now dwelt (the very warning and danger the Lord had given them from the beginning), provoked the Lord to anger, forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth (vv. 11–13). The result was that the people were left in the hands of their enemies and “they were greatly distressed” (v. 15). The rest of Judges would mark a difficult transition of a new generation who did not know God and really marked the beginning of the moral end of Israel during the period of the judges.
As difficult as it is to comprehend, in the power vacuum created by the disintegration of the Hittite and Egyptian empires in the region and subsequent replacement by warring city-states and entities, warfare seemed to be inevitable for the tribes of Israel after the Exodus.[35] Such warfare was about survival and the opportunity to establish an environment wherein the covenants of God could thrive and bless (at least those were Ҵǻ’s intentions). Meanwhile, other neighboring entities had their survival at stake. Israel began diffusing and assimilating into those surrounding cultures, continuing in a downward spiral of cyclical disobedience, brief deliverance, and then more disobedience. These tales of woe can be difficult to read, especially if we see judges being heralded for heroic actions while at the same time committing deep crimes against God and their fellow humans. Yet we can take an approach to the book of Judges that focuses on the covenantal relationship with God to which the Israelites could have been true while we also focus on and acknowledge that God has compassion and unending love for his people even in their imperfection.
Patterns of Israelite behavior in the book of Judges
The book of Judges presents stories interwoven together to forward the message of the spiritual decline and temporal chaos that resulted from Israelites each diverging from Ҵǻ’s path and defining their own one (21:25).[36] What follows from this progressive disregard for Ҵǻ’s covenants and commandments is demonstrated through a pattern of disobedience and neglect of covenantal responsibilities toward one another and God (see fig. 2).
Amid this cyclical pattern of behavior, God would raise up a judge who would lead to a temporary end of oppression, followed by Israel’s reversion back to further disobedience.[37] This cycle does not happen in an instant, and Judges is portrayed in a series of downward moral spirals of disobedience that progressively worsen until the book ends in civil conflict and the near annihilation of the tribe of Benjamin (chap. 20).[38] The beginning of each new episode of a judge does not originate at the same place nor at the same time but is presented in such a way as to display a degenerative progression where each cycle constitutes a lower scale of legitimate behavior than that of their predecessors.[39] Thus, if our approach to the book is primarily to extol the judges and to “treat the book of Judges as a collection of charming tales” consisting of popular characters such as Samson and Delilah and Deborah and Baraq, it can be easy to overlook “the serious theological messages contained in the many heart-breaking accounts” and the “well-integrated theological narrative which builds its story and supports its thesis until its conclusion.”[40] With all its charismatic characters “most loved in literature and Hollywood,” emulation may not be the intended goal of Judges.[41] And, as Stone explains, the vices of the judges are quite apparent:
The book of Judges provides some of the most memorable stories in the Bible. The stories of Gideon and Samson have entertained and inspired generations. Paradoxically, the very qualities that give the book its appeal also make it one of the most troubling in all of scripture. Gideon’s heroics are accompanied by a darker, vengeful side. Samson’s victories against the Philistines never fully distract the reader from his personal foibles and ultimate tragedy. Ehud seems a tricky assassin, not a divinely empowered “savior,” and the story of Jephthah encloses an obscenity within a horror. The gruesome narrative with which the book ends seems to offer little opening for an edifying theological or spiritual interpretation. More than any other book of the Bible, the book of Judges puts before the reader the issue of violence. Its major characters are all persons who perform acts of violence, sometimes heroic, other times horrific. . . . Most notably the violence is visited upon women, such as Jephthah’s daughter, Samson’s first wife, the Levite’s concubine, and the virgins of Shiloh. Violence is also wrought by women such as Jael and Delilah and even celebrated by women like Deborah and, in her own blind way, Sisera’s mother. And yet, somehow the book’s presentation of violence, even at times with approval, does not finally encourage the reader to perpetrate violence. The book’s celebration of heroic individuals who tower over ordinary Israelites, the victims, does not point toward an unbridled individualistic ethos for the community.[42]
This downward spiral in Judges is thus severe and “the nature of the judges’ offenses worsens over time so that Samson, arguably the least covenantal conscious of the judges, is remembered to have sought out only Philistines throughout his lifetime. By the end of the book, then, even the leader designated by the deity does not follow the practices incumbent upon all Israel. This leads to a situation in which there are no leaders in Israel, and, as a result, Israel turns on itself in war.”[43] There was little unity among Israelites to assist one another:
They were separated from each other by settlements of unconquered Canaanites, some of them in fortified cities commanding major trade and communication corridors (1:19, 27–36; 4:2–3). Furthermore, the gods of these people became a “snare” to the Israelites, as Joshua had warned they would (2:3; Josh. 23:12–13). This inevitably led to a weakening of their loyalty to Yahweh and to one another, and resulted in spiritual and moral decline that was so serious that it threatened to destroy Israel from within.[44]
This cycle thus led to internal and external dangers to the people, circumstances that could only be resolved by God and the people’s devotion to him.
In this light, Israel’s cyclical crying out to the Lord following disobedience does not seem to be a form of repentance, nor does this appear to be a condition for the resultant deliverance by God, and repentance does not seem to be frequent within the book when Israel does cry out.[45] The word frequently used in Judges describing Israel “cried” unto the Lord, is זָעַק, a word meaning to “cry out” in need, for help, in distress; to summon a battle cry;[46] or “an outcry, especially that which is the expression of sorrow, or the cry for aid,”[47] and “God does not always listen (Jeremiah 11:11) or answer (Micah 3:4) because of sin.”[48] “This outcry is not to be interpreted as a penitential plea; it is simply a cry of pain, a cry for help.”[49] This concept of a lack of contrition may be accentuated in Judges 10:10–16, where the people cried out to the Lord and admitted some guilt followed by behavior changes. This happened only after the Lord explained he had delivered them time and again, saying, “Yet have you forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.”[50] Repentance is therefore not inherent in the “crying out,” as we see in Israel’s downward cycles progressively getting worse instead of being repaired by true repentance.
Deliverance scenes in Judges thus seem to be more focused on Ҵǻ’s grace than on Israel’s repentance. That said, God “remains sensitive to the groaning of his people and waits to demonstrate his power and his grace in freeing them from the tyranny of evil and their own foolishness,”[51] and “if the nation ever triumphs over her enemies, the glory must go ultimately and primarily to Yahweh, who deals with his people in mercy and grace, not according to what they deserve.”[52] Thus, “if anything positive happens in the lives of the people of God it is by his grace, and not on account of merit.”[53] This seems important to view in light of the larger picture of Judges and Ҵǻ’s love for the people. Israel’s deliverance comes not because God rewards evil but because he is compassionate toward the sinner. Perhaps Judges can induce us as readers to evaluate our own personal reflections on repentance.
While this discussion of the context of Judges has not focused on the specifics of individual accounts of the judges, it has attempted to supply tools that will help readers approach the enigmatic stories we encounter within the book. Such tools and takeaways include a better understanding of Israel’s cycle of worsening behavior—often without true repentance—and an acknowledgment of Ҵǻ’s compassion toward the sinner even while accounting for the many vices of Israel’s behavior that led them into a moral downward spiral.
Judges and the paradox of designs and declines
The paradox of Ҵǻ’s designs versus the people’s declines is apparent in Judges as the people forsake God and God attempts to ascertain “whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not” (2:22). God was never absent from the equation, and he was frequently engaged in efforts to lead people to peace, relief, and the joy of a covenantal relationship with him as he “strengthened” (3:12) and “raised them up a deliverer” (v. 15) time and time again, but the people often “turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in” (2:17). The book is subsequently shaped to highlight that “by emphasizing Israel’s unfaithfulness, the narrator subtly reveals Ҵǻ’s ڲٳڳܱԱ.”[54] It was their breach of his designs —their immediate rejection of God as their king and judge, along with his laws and covenants—that led to the unraveling of society.[55] As explained by Younger:
It is Ҵǻ’s kingship that is being rebelled against by Israel! Physical kingship will not make a difference in this. Israel will still break the covenant, rebelling against Ҵǻ’s kingship. Later, the whole intention of Israel in wanting a king is deemed by God himself to be rebellion (1 Sam 8: 7b: “it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king”). Gideon rightly told the Israelites that he would not rule over them, “the Lord will rule over you” (8:23). The statement that “each man did what was right in his own eyes” links theologically back to “the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (lit. translation of 2:11; 3:7; 3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). When the Israelites rebelled against the Lord as their covenantal king, they had no king as envisioned by the covenant, so everyone did what was right in their own eyes. In a real sense, the book of Judges is a prophetic call to acknowledge the kingship of the Lord, the true King and Judge of Israel.[56]
The prophet Samuel would later lament the people’s rejection of God as king when the people declared, “A king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your king” (1 Samuel 12:12).[57]
The book of Judges thus creates a bit of a paradox. In scripture, readers often look for the positive experiences of individuals and events to uplift, inspire, and provide a didactic framework with which to pursue one’s own spiritual enlightenment. This certainly and frequently occurs as one engages scripture with the intent to approach and learn of God, his workings, and his doings. The book of Judges, however, may present the inversion of that equation by illustrating what to avoid and what transpires through a breakdown of covenantal responsibilities, lapses in spiritual integrity, and disobedience to God.[58] The result can produce a consternation for such episodes within the Old Testament or an aversion that drives us away from the book itself.[59]
Such negative feelings toward the book of Judges are understandable. Nonetheless, there may be another lesson in Judges that a deeper dive into the book reveals. God was bestowing his spirit upon imperfect people as judges with the desire and intent to affect deliverance, despite the frequent lack of most judges in bringing such spiritual manifestations to fruition with their desired outcome.[60] We see that “these two simultaneous realities—warning and hope, judgment and grace—beg to be studied, taught, and proclaimed as much in the contemporary church and world as they were in ancient Israel.”[61] Perhaps there are some powerful lessons to be learned about self, community, and God through a study of the book of Judges, even if it comes in the depiction of the lows of humanity rather than in its highs.
Section 2: Judges Through the Lens of Ҵǻ’s Love and His Laws
Judges offers a “religious explanation for Israel’s political woes” and attributes disobedience to the warnings of Joshua (Joshua 23:12–13) as contributing to the difficulties to be experienced within the book (fig. 3).[62] The people experienced challenges in keeping Ҵǻ’s laws in an environment that was filled with conflict and idolatry, which became an enormous temptation for the people of Israel.[63] Moses and Joshua taught the laws and attempted to enact them through the rigors of trials, adversity, conflict, and war (both internal and external in nature). What the author(s) of Judges seem(s) to focus on is seeing what God was trying to accomplish through his love and covenants with the people versus what happened. The degradation presented within Judges is not a reflection or evaluation of God but, rather, contrasts his love with the covenantal infidelity of the people. Within the framework of what was supposed to define right behavior before God, the book of Judges presents an utter neglect and the consequences that came upon society stemming from covenantal disregard (figure 4).[64]
Judges as imperfect leaders
In contrast to our concept of judicial judges, “judges” in this book of the Bible pertain more to military leaders within the framework of regional conflicts in various times and places, with some judges coinciding contemporaneously with other judges in other locations (fig. 5).[65]
The book of Judges is thus not framed around the concept of judicial matters—although at times Deborah, for example, does seem to render some form of judgment (4:4–5)—rather, it reflects leaders amongst physical and spiritual struggles, conflicts, hardships, disobedience, and breaches of biblical ethics and commandments. The book then reflects divine judgments and divine instruction leading to a period where prophets, revelation, and kings would once again bless the land as portrayed in the subsequent stories of Samuel and David.[66]
Amid this transition and the cycle of oppression and deliverance, God would work through the weaknesses of the people and through the strength of a few:
[The text] illustrates that YHWH initially works through the strengths of the leaders of his people: Othniel’s military leadership, Ehud’s courage and cleverness, and the faith and wisdom by which Deborah strengthens the less effectual Barak. But even here it is an outsider, Jael, who plays a central role in the victory over Sisera, and YHWH begins to work in spite of the weaknesses of his leaders. Despite Gideon’s hesitance and lack of trust, YHWH is able to increase his faith to the point where he delivers Israel, even though Gideon later distorts his trust into arrogance. With Jephthah, God begins to work in spite of the weaknesses of Israel’s leaders. Jephthah’s charismatic, if ethically dubious, leadership of a band of “worthless fellows” results in his being chosen by the leaders of Gilead to deliver Israel, and yet YHWH uses this less than ideal choice to stave off foreign attack, at least for a while. Finally, not in spite of but actually by means of Samson’s sensual desires, defiance of his Nazirite vows, and lust for personal revenge, YHWH is able to win a theological victory over the Philistine god Dagon and at least “begin” to deliver Israel.[67]
God had not made mistakes in his raising up imperfect judges; “God is able to work through, not merely in spite of, human weakness and sin to accomplish his goals.”[68]
Although not always explicitly stated, as the Lord poured out his spirit upon the judges whom he had raised up, the people were blessed in various measures. Under Deborah, many individuals “willingly offered themselves” (Judges 5:2, 9) to go to battle—the language of the text suggesting a “dedication to the purposes of Yahweh.”[69] Following the victory, the Song of Deborah extols the Lord, “Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel” (Judges 5:2), followed by a plea to “let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might” (v. 31). Similarly, a sense of unity in the cause of the Lord is heralded under Gideon: “And they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon” (7:20). As such, positive aspects of some of the judges before their downfalls are presented in the New Testament and reiterated in statements made by the Prophet Joseph Smith:
In addition to this we are told in Hebrews, 11:32, 33, 34, 35, that Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens; and that women received their dead raised to life again, &c. &c.[70]
With a recognition of that good, or the Spirit of God that may have initially been poured out upon various judges in Ҵǻ’s compassion, their subsequent behavior of lost spiritual opportunities is additionally not lost to commentators. Concerning Samson, it has been said, “YHWH pulls out all the stops and raises up Samson, who is given all the privileges necessary for him to develop into a faithful leader of Israel, but who nevertheless abuses his God-given potential by using it to satisfy his own desires for women and revenge.”[71] The Prophet Joseph Smith also referenced lost gifts:
But, Sir, when I leave the dignity and honor I received from heaven . . . verily I say when I leave the dignity and honor of heaven, to gratify the ambition and vanity of man or men, [History of the Church, 6:77] may my power cease, like the strength of Samson, when he was shorn of his locks, while asleep in the lap of Delilah. Truly said the Savior, “cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.”[72]
God-given spiritual gifts could be lost and forsaken, such as Gideon making an ephod and worshiping it (Judges 8:26–27) or Samson, whom the Lord initially blessed (13:24) but who eventually turned to all sorts of misconduct. Alternatively, and positively, such gifts could be used for great benefit and the betterment of self and others, such as when Manoah entreated the Lord, saying, “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” (v. 8). Perhaps such a preservation, development, and protection of God-given gifts—rather than abusing, misusing, or failing to develop them—can be a major lesson we take from the portrayal of imperfect judges in this book.
We also see Ҵǻ’s deliverance throughout Judges, as well as times wherein God extends ḥe over retribution and punishment (see, for example, 1:22–36). The episodes truly highlight the constant display of Ҵǻ’s ḥe—covenantal love that pervades the stories within the book.[73] Tellingly, the few times ḥe is overtly used within Judges, it is used to describe the broken covenantal treatment of individuals towards another, such as in the case of disloyalty to the family of Gideon (8:33–35) or the Israelites showing covenant loyalty (ḥe) toward the man of Bethel instead of ḥe toward God (1:22–36), perhaps highlighting another important lesson within Judges of loving God and one another as godly characteristics.
While the judges’ behaviors are repeatedly placed on spiritual trial in the book, Ҵǻ’s efforts to love and save become even more significant.[74] The Lord attempted to lead his people, and he declared, “I will be with thee” (6:16). He sent an angel with instructions (6:22), and he “raised them up a deliverer” (3:15). God continually reached out in love to his people, saying, “I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you” (2:1). All of this hearkens back to Deuteronomy 7:9, which says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”[75] Younger explained:
By juxtaposing the human sin in each successive story, the writer highlights the great lengths to which God goes in order to save his people. No matter how flawed or sinful the judge, God saves (or in the case of Samson, “begins to save”). God demonstrates that he is gracious and long-suffering. Through each cycle, the writer emphasizes that God is sovereign; his own people’s disobedience cannot thwart his plan. This absolute divine sovereignty comes together in Yahweh’s roles as judge, divine warrior, and king. His righteousness and sovereignty in these roles make his graciousness and long-suffering very potent and effectual. The righteous deeds of Yahweh (“the victories of the Lord” [5:11]) are juxtaposed to the evil of the people and their leaders. In short, all the deliverances of Israel in the book are testimonies to the Lord’s righteousness.[76]
This juxtaposition of the judges’ imperfections against the Lord’s efforts to save and deliver out of love is significant within the larger framework of the book. The behavior of the people, however, would limit the outcome of Ҵǻ’s intentions for them.
Seeing through the chaos to the caring: The love of God in the book of Judges
Israel’s rejecting God as their king (see 1 Samuel 8:7) and doing right in their own eyes paved the way for an overall theme of the book of Judges: Ҵǻ’s kingship and leadership were replaced with the machinations of self and a moral free-for-all. Yet, as the Israelites struggled in this way, the book of Judges seems to plead for the rise of prophecy that will eventuate through the likes of the prophet Samuel along with the inspiring stories of fidelity and love as displayed in the story of Ruth. Ruth accentuates a hope that arises with the ensuing prophetic guidance and individual response to it that the book of Judges had lacked, and hope blossoms at the behest of Ruth’s posterity. The book of Judges is a bridge to better things and not the solution to the story. With no priest to lead,[77] no king to follow, nor God to claim in singularity, unity, and oneness, the book of Judges forwards a scenario of what could have been but what had dilapidated when God was not their king—a choice that had precipitated the plight of Judges.[78]
God was attempting to relieve and rescue, not punishing, abandoning, and exacerbating a society in chaos and the atrocities that were perpetrated on others, particularly women, nor was God unconcerned with this plight. The Creator of the universe with his designs of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of his children (see Moses 1:39) was not the creator of this chaos. What had been broken was broken by the people. God is ever foregrounded in the stories as feeling compassion: “And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them” (Judges 2:18). Joseph Smith Translation, Judges 2:18 specifically explains that this passage describes that God “hearkened because of” the cries and pains of his people. The love underlying and motivating his response is highlighted in “it repented the Lord” (יִנָּחֵ֤ם יְהוָהá), a root that can mean “to comfort” or “moved to pity,” underscoring Ҵǻ’s love and compassion within the equation.
Similarly, in Judges 20:23–26, amid some of the people’s lowest moments and greatest internal conflicts, the Lord responded to his children’s weeping and pleading before him for help. In a rare display of contrition in the depths of their despair, the children of Israel and all the people (perhaps an important reference to the inclusion of other peoples in this instance) “came unto the house of God,[79] and wept, and sat there before the Lord, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord. And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days . . . )” (vv. 26–27).[80] Perhaps it is this clear sign of remorse at the end of Judges that opens the door to hopes experienced in the story of Ruth and its binding and unifying efforts for communion with God based on the principles of the law that brought diverse individuals together.
Although the book of Judges puts behavior and its consequences on display like no other book in the Bible,[81] it does so with the love of God in focus. Its intent is not to hide but to reveal and expose such an opposition of covenantal fidelity and infidelity—obedience and disobedience—and the suffering this path caused. Perhaps the book is meant to expose the consequences of behavior, lead toward empathy of the abused and the sufferer, and result in behavior that alleviates such future suffering, all of which can be of great value to us as modern readers as we see Ҵǻ’s love within it. Amid the pictures of hopelessness, defeat, victory, struggles, and conflicts in their various spheres lies a message of hope in a future led by God with his unwavering love and his efforts to fulfill the promises made to Abraham. Perhaps the stories can teach us more about compassion, kindness, and judgment, and about moral, ethical, and covenantal treatment of others that underlie the claiming of those promises. Rather than approaching these stories with frustration, it seems prudent to go into them realizing that the editors of the book of Judges were not attempting to hide, smooth over, or necessarily avoid the unpleasant predicament in which the people floundered. These stories were designed to present various views and perspectives of Israel’s history with the intent that some benefit might come of the lessons presented therein.
Possible Alternative Outcomes
It is difficult to assess how things could have been different in the book of Judges—given the complexities of the environment—beyond a superficial assessment of “if only they had kept the commandments.” However, the book of Judges presents a story of the polarization between God and the individuals within the tribes of Israel whose immediate predecessors had been delivered out of Egypt, and their encounter with peoples in Canaan where they began to stray from God. Interestingly, the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 17:23–35) gives us a unique insight into the region and its rejection of Ҵǻ’s word within this timeframe, teachings that if followed could have led to a variety of different outcomes.[82] Although we don’t have many details about these passages in the Book of Mormon, they clarify that Ҵǻ’s word had been rejected (in whatever form that word may have existed among them), leading the Canaanites into behavior that is categorically condemned by prophets and Ҵǻ’s teachings, and that as a result, they were thus staring the judgment of God in the face via the hands of the Israelites under Moses and Joshua. This is a cycle that would be encountered throughout the history of Israel and the region in general based on obedience and disobedience to Ҵǻ’s words—Israel would be destroyed by Assyria and Assyria by Babylon (Nahum 2–3). The Nephite account records these episodes of the past and the struggles of both the Israelites and the Canaanites, while encouraging fidelity to God to the people in their own day:
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, spake unto them, saying: Do ye believe that our fathers, who were the children of Israel, would have been led away out of the hands of the Egyptians if they had not hearkened unto the words of the Lord? Yea, do ye suppose that they would have been led out of bondage, if the Lord had not commanded Moses that he should lead them out of bondage? . . . And notwithstanding they being led, the Lord their God, their Redeemer, going before them, leading them by day and giving light unto them by night, and doing all things for them which were expedient for man to receive, they hardened their hearts and blinded their minds, and reviled against Moses and against the true and living God. And it came to pass that according to [Ҵǻ’s] word he did destroy [our fathers]; and according to his word he did lead them; and according to his word he did do all things for them; and there was not any thing done save it were by his word. And after they had crossed the river Jordan he did make them mighty unto the driving out of the children of the land, yea, unto the scattering them to destruction. And now, do ye suppose that the children of this land, who were in the land of promise, who were driven out by our fathers, do ye suppose that they were righteous? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Do ye suppose that our fathers would have been more choice than they if they had been righteous? I say unto you, Nay. Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God. But behold, this people had rejected every word of God, and they were ripe in iniquity; and the fulness of the wrath of God was upon them; and the Lord did curse the land against them, and bless it unto our fathers; yea, he did curse it against them unto their destruction, and he did bless it unto our fathers unto their obtaining power over it. (1 Nephi 17:23–24, 30–35; emphasis added)
It was these groups of people—Israel’s adversaries in the books of Joshua and Judges, who had rejected Ҵǻ’s word and established their own set of behavior in stark contrast to Ҵǻ’s objective to bring people back to him through the covenant—that the Israelites began to find enticing, and perhaps as described within the book of Judges, whom they would eventually become. These passages make it clear that these inhabitants had become wicked as defined by Ҵǻ’s standard toward all his children, including them. Had the Israelites, Canaanites, and other residents been willing to embrace Ҵǻ’s ethics, commandments, and covenants, perhaps they could have remained in the land as a blessed people and forged a path for all to thrive in within the region via religious conviction and or political and economic compromise in some form of co-dependence. Therefore, “in the book of Judges, Ҵǻ’s opposition to the Canaanites should not be understood to mean Ҵǻ’s hatred of a particular people; rather, it indicates Ҵǻ’s opposition to a way of life that was based on injustice and unrighteousness that consequently resulted in deadly opposition.”[83] The book of Judges shows God honoring agency to choose, but it also portrays Ҵǻ’s judgment and accountability, upholding justice and protecting Israel in Canaan in his efforts to now provide them an opportunity to live his law that the Canaanites had apparently forsaken.
The nature and various perspectives of the ethics and warfare we tend to witness in the book of Judges with its imperfect judges are not simple or nonchalant. The environment and struggles were complicated, and Ҵǻ’s guidance is highlighted throughout Judges to inspire obedience through the difficulties, providing a way forward founded upon covenantal fortitude—a way that was subsequently ignored or abandoned. Attempts to oversimplify this equation or to dismiss the value of the book of Judges relinquishes some valuable lessons it is trying to communicate through these difficult historical circumstances and the political and religious challenges these posed. Judges is thus filled with stories of broken laws, broken hearts, suffering, and incivility because of the path the people had chosen to pursue. The unheeded laws and ethical codes of God present alternative ways to look at the stories in Judges—a view of the possible outcomes that never came to fruition, not because of God, but because of the people and their judges. It was clear that God desired obedience to his law for Israel, but he also desired it for the people with which Israel then found themselves in conflict. Along with the 1 Nephi 17 verses, this is witnessed in the earlier episodes of Joshua and the conversion of Rahab to the Israelite religion (Joshua 6; 2:8–11) (or at least her willingness to join and work with them, whatever her motivation).[84] We also find this in the conversion or joining with the Israelites of Ruth,[85] a Moabitess who lived in the latter part of the period of the judges (Ruth 1:16).[86] Both were stories of tolerance and acceptance among diversity wherein Israelites did not forsake the Lord nor their covenants amidst acceptance of individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Perhaps these examples present paths that Israel could have pursued by living Ҵǻ’s laws and ethics among those whom they encountered, negotiating a way to live together in some semblance of harmony that did not require them to give up their covenantal requirements, but that could have been forged by fidelity to them. Perhaps they did try and were rejected by the Canaanites, and that the Canaanites were “ripe in iniquity” and to the point of no return. Perhaps Israel’s efforts were internally thwarted by a generation who did not recognize or embrace all that their fathers had experienced, resulting in capitulating to the cultural and religious practices of those they encountered as they forsook God. Approaching such complicated questions requires academic humility with its uncertain outcome. However, through obedience, Israel may have been able to negotiate a coexistence as they patterned civility and lived Ҵǻ’s law,[87] and it seems that the law afforded some solutions that neither required Canaanite conversion (although that may have been an option) nor Israel’s forsaking of their own. The war ḥe (the prescribed “ban”—“utter destruction”) complicates this equation, but perhaps a more spiritually minded Israel (and Canaan) who were less inclined to make covenants with the Canaanites wherein they adopted their religious practices could have alleviated such measures.[88]
What could Israel have done with its neighbors? Although conflict was inevitable, Deuteronomistic teachings revealed to Moses that
war was not to be Israel’s default posture, and Israelites were not encouraged to be bloodthirsty soldiers. . . . The exceptional nature of the sacred ban is seen by the more normative policy Moses recommends towards nations beyond the borders of Canaan (20:10–15). The first step in hostilities was to offer terms of peace (20:10). . . . As 21:10–14 demonstrates (see below), there were laws for the proper care and economic protection of captured women. Other laws throughout Deuteronomy also provide guidelines for how Israelites were to relate to foreigners in their midst (e.g. 5:14; 14:29; 15:3; 24:17–22). The key verse that puts the law here in 20:14 into proper perspective is 10:18, which depicts Yahweh as the one who executes justice for the fatherless and the widow (i.e. those who have lost the leading males of their family), and who loves and provides for the migrant. The powerful in society were not to abuse the weak, but were to use power for the wellbeing of the vulnerable. This law, therefore, should not be read in isolation. It does not permit Israelite soldiers to abuse captured civilians, for that would go against the basic ethos of the law. Rather, it seeks to integrate such civilians into Israelite society.[89]
The law provided options amongst diversity without requiring the forsaking of principle. As one example of this concept in Judges, Jephthah did attempt a negotiation with the Ammonites prior to warring with them, exhibiting a parallel to following the peaceful negotiation as God instructed within the law (Judges 11:12–28). In Judges we don’t have many other accounts of such negotiations. Ҵǻ’s laws perhaps provide a view of how Israel could have interacted with Canaanites if they had followed them as given in Deuteronomy, and at the very least, refused to have budged on the acceptance of new moral codes offered by those with whom they interacted.
This possible alternative is inevitably oversimplified in our discussion, and the war ḥe had specific prescriptions that were not applied consistently (Judges 1:21–36), often leading to covenants and treaties with the Canaanites anyway. Yet the law that was prevalent and undergirding the entire book of Judges allowed and afforded a reading of what could have been had certain elements of the law been applied and followed (particularly a denial of idols and practices the Israelites came to find so enticing). Whether Israel would have been obedient to God and in a position to spiritually remain in a state of fidelity to him may be somewhat moot given the portrayed reality of affairs in the book of Judges and the wickedness of the Canaanites. Perhaps part of the point of Judges is that something had to drastically change, setting the stage for the revelation that would come through the prophet Samuel. Pondering these potential alternatives may offer some benefit as we study Judges and look for meaningful ways to implement its teachings in our own lives.
Conclusions
The book of Judges challenges readers to engage with the laws of God in a way that laments, not extols, the behavior of the judges and the tribes of Israel in the book of Judges. Although the love of God was ever present in the stories, it was Israel’s love of gods and the lifestyles associated with them that distanced them from the God who could have brought them stability and joy through the difficult circumstances portrayed in the book. While we tend to read scripture for its uplifting and inspiring stories and teachings, perhaps even the uncomfortable situations presented in the book of Judges still have much to offer as we approach Ҵǻ’s love for those who don’t always love him, his willingness to ever reach out to the sinner, and the significance of keeping and sharing with others Ҵǻ’s laws and covenants to alleviate and avoid certain sufferings. Perhaps we can leave the book feeling more compassion and with a firm desire to keep those covenants God designed to bring us happiness—happiness and peace with him and happiness and peace with each other. In this way, Judges portrays a God who was lovingly attempting to lead ancient Israel toward a covenantal objective of holiness and personal communion with him as their king and their God.
Notes
[1] The book of Judges presupposes that “leadership is grounded in God, and that any violation of this pattern leads to disaster.” Naomi Steinberg, “Social Scientific Criticism: Judges 9 and Issues of Kinship,” in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, ed. Gale A. Yee (Fortress, 1995), 63. This grounding in God is something that is not happening throughout Judges. “The text relies heavily on specific words and phrases to highlight the worsening situation of Israel reflected in the search for leadership, role of women . . . and relationship to deity.” Tammi J. Schneider, Judges, vol. 5 of Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry, ed. David W. Cotter (Liturgical Press, 2000), xvi.
[2] Richard G. Bowman, “Narrative Criticism: Human Purpose in Conflict with Divine Presence,” in Yee, Judges and Method, 42.
[3] The book of Judges appears to result from a history of redaction over centuries to bring it to the final form we read today. In sum of the overall structure of Judges, “every aspect of the literary structuring and all the thematic developments serve to communicate very effectively important theological teachings. Clearly, the main character of the book of Judges is Yahweh, the God of Israel. In fact, his personal name is the divine name most often used in the book. This is his covenantal name and it stresses his lordship, or more specifically, his kingship over Israel. And it is the covenant (i.e., treaty) of Yahweh with Israel that is the basis for the divine attributes that are emphasized in the book.” K. Lawson Younger Jr., Judges, Ruth, ed. Terry C. Muck, rev. ed. (Zondervan Academic, 2020), 55–56.
[4] Schneider, Judges, xi–xiii.
[5] For Judges as paving the way to kingship under Saul and David and the kingdom of Israel and as emphasizing on a deficiency of leadership as God is rejected as their king, see, for example, Sarah Schwartz, “Law and Order in Judges 19–21,” JANES 35 (2021): 124; Tremper Longman III, Introducing the Old Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and Message (Zondervan, 2012), 51; and Gordon Oeste, “Butchered Brothers and Betrayed Families: Degenerating Kinship Structures in the Book of Judges,” JSOT 35, no. 3 (2011): 295–316.
[6] For these laws, see for example, Matthew L. Bowen, “‘I will Give Judgment unto Him in Writing’: The Three Law Codes of the Pentateuch,” in From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2021), 527–60. Younger, Judges, Ruth, 30, describes inverted accounts in Judges that portray a context of individuals ignoring or disobeying Ҵǻ’s laws as presented in Deuteronomy. See also, Younger, Judges, Ruth, 8n18, 37–38, 58. Reading Judges through the lens of Deuteronomy does not mean that the book of Judges was written later or in hindsight as an attempt to justify the monarchy, and Judges relies upon the reality of its stated historical context that was viewed and surmised by later generations. See Mark F. Rooker, “The Book of Judges,” in The World and the Word: An Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Eugene H. Merrill et al. (B&H Academic, 2011), 289–90; and Susan Niditch, Judges: A Commentary, vol. 8 of The Old Testament Library, ed. William P. Brown, et al. (Westminster John Knox, 2008), 8, 16. What it does reveal is the lens through which its assessment was applied (in similar fashion that Mormon or Moroni does in the Book of Mormon with their “and thus we see” moments). “Judges assumes a basic familiarity with Ҵǻ’s law—in particu-lar, as contained in the book of Deuteronomy. The events recorded in Judges are interpreted and evaluated through the filter of Deuteronomy (if not more generally in the wider context of the Pentateuch as a whole). . . . Therefore, a close reading of the book of Deuteronomy before studying Judges is a positive move toward understanding the book.” Younger, Judges, Ruth, 37–38.
[7] See, for example, Joshua A. Berman, Narrative Analogy in the Hebrew Bible: Battle Stories and their Equivalent Non-Battle Narratives, VTSup 103 (Brill, 2004), 71; Trent C. Butler, Judges, WBC 8 (Thomas Nelson, 2009), 441; Gregory T. K. Wong, Compositional Strategy of the Book of Judges, VTSup 111 (Brill, 2006), 194–95; Serge Frolov, Judges, FOTL 18 (Eerdmans, 2013), 317–31; Rachel Reich, The Outrage at Gibeah: Judges xix–xxi—A Literary Analysis (Rubin Mass Publishing House, 2016), 147 (Hebrew); David J. H. Beldman, The Completion of Judges: Strategies of Ending in Judges 17–21, Siphrut 21 (Eisenbrauns, 2017), 32–33. “In the book of Judges, violence against women is part of the larger problem of social and moral decay in Israel.” J. Cheryl Exum, “Feminist Criticism: Whose Interests are Being Served?,” in Yee, Judges and Method, 87.
[8] Kenneth C. Way, Judges and Ruth, ed. Mark L. Strauss and John H. Walton (Baker Books, 2016), 6–7.
[9] See, for example, Schwartz, “Law and Order,” 126n25, who discusses how the word “, Աâ” occurs within Judges with the meaning “severe action” that has done “damage to the fabric of society” (compare Anthony Philips, “NEBALAH—A Term for Serious Disorderly and Unruly Conduct,” VT 25 (1975): 237–41; J. Märböck, “, Աâ,” TDOT 9:167). For a discussion on the broken laws within Judges, Schwartz, “Law and Order,” 150, explains promonarchy comments within Judges as being “connected with the judicial failure expressed in Judg 19–21, reflecting a perception that the king is expected to ‘administer justice and equity to all his people’ (2 Sam 8:15) and to possess ‘an understanding mind to govern [the] people, able to discern between good and evil’ (1 Kgs 3:9a).”
[10] The book of Judges is quick to condemn such behavior. However, this shift in morals has the negative result that “not only were the Israelites doing what was wrong, but they came to the point where they felt that they, not their deity, judged good from bad.” Schneider, Judges, 31. See also Alice Bach, “Rereading the Body Politic: Women and Violence in Judges 21,” in ed. Athalya Brenner, Judges: A Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series (Sheffield Academic, 1999), 153. For a discussion on propriety versus impropriety within Judges, see Mary L. Conway, Judging the Judges: A Narrative Appraisal Analysis, LSAWS 15 (Pennsylvania State University Press; Eisenbrauns, 2019), 82–87.
[11] Longman, Introducing the Old Testament, 48–49.
[12] From a stylistic point of view, Judges also seems to offer a distribution that spans early to later linguistic features, preserving the identity and relevance of a storyline that begins as early as the judges themselves. See Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges, in NICOT (Eerdmans, 2012), 4–8. Context within the book is important.
[13] If this date is taken literally, it results in a date ca. 1450 BC for the Exodus. However, there are a few possible ways to interpret 480, with several theories breaking the number down into various literary expressions or symbols rather than an exact date. K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 2003), 307; Paul R. House, The New American Commentary, vol. 8, 1, 2 Kings (Broadman & Holman, 1995), 126–27, or as a “schematic generalization.” Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot (Jewish Publication Society, 2002), 121. In some opinions, the reference to 480 years provides “significant support for the so-called ‘early date’ of c. 1450 BC for the Exodus from Egypt. But most scholars see this 480-year synchronism as a round number based on a calculation of twelve generations of 40 years each (LXX reads ‘440 years,’ presumably reckoning eleven generations of 40 years; cf. Cogan 2001:236; Wiseman 1993:104). Kitchen (1966:72–75) is particularly helpful concerning the secondary nature of synchronistic calculations such as this; he posits about 300 years from the Exodus to Solomon (corresponding with the so-called ‘late date’ for the Exodus of c. 1280 BC).” William H. Barnes, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, vol. 4b, 1–2 Kings, ed. Philip W. Comfort (Tyndale, 2012), 68.
[14] Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World, 2nd ed., (Carta, 2014), 99; Hershel Shanks, “When Did Ancient Israel Begin?,” in Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, (Biblical Archaeology Society), 2012, 31–37; Daniel I. Block, “Judges,” in Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,ed. John H. Walton, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Zondervan, 2009), 285–86; Iain Provan, et al., A Biblical History of Israel (Westminster John Knox, 2015), 169–70.
[15] John L. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Fortress, 2004), 204.
[16] The term Canaanites is a loose one and entailed diverse populations that had been scattered about the region through the centuries. See, for example, Paula McNutt, Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel (Westminster John Knox, 1999), 35. “The Canaan that was Israel’s immediate environment in the judges’ period was diverse in every way. It was ethnically diverse in that the subjugation of the region was incomplete and various people groups still resided in different parts of it. Among the peoples that the book mentions as living in Canaan at the time are Perizzites, Jebusites, Amorites, Philistines, Sidonians, Hivites, and Hittites. It is not possible to identify all these peoples precisely, and some of the terms may simply be regional rather than ethnic, but the number of them testifies to the diversity of peoples and undoubtedly of cultures as well.” Webb, Book of Judges, 12. See also K. A. Kitchen, “Canaan, Canaanites,” in New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. D. R. W. Wood et al. (InterVarsity, 1996), 161. For a discussion on contemporaneous events related to and leading to the period of the book of Judges and to peoples scattered throughout the region due to cataclysmic events that spanned the Aegean and the Levant, see Eric H. Cline, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, rev. and updated ed. (Princeton University Press, 2021). For more on the diversity of the “Canaanites,” see Ann E. Killebrew, Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel 1300–1100 B.C.E., Society of Biblical Literature, Archaeology and Biblical Studies 9 (SBL, 2005), 93–100.
[17] For an overview of the Philistines, see chapter 3 in this volume.
[18] Barry L. Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Wadsworth, 1999), 239.
[19] Block, “Judges,” 95–96. For the complexities of defining settlements in the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age period of the judges, “and the emergence and settlement of ancient Israel,” see George A. Pierce, “Regional Continuity and Change in Ancient Israel: An Analysis of Iron Age Settlement Patterns and Systems,” in The Ancient Israelite World, ed. Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce (Routledge, 2023), 200. Gunnar Lehmann, “Ancient Israel’s Social Structure(s),” in Keimer and Pierce, Ancient Israelite World, 215, explains, “Ancient Israel is deeply rooted in the social world of the Late Bronze Age (LB). The settlement pattern suggests that the societies in the LB highlands were most possibly organized in regional kinship groups. Evidence for this is the dispersed and sparse LB settlement in the highlands, especially in the south. The northern parts of the highland around Dothan, Shechem, and Tell el-Farah (North) were—relatively—more densely inhabited and may very well represent what Merenptah knew as ‘Israel’ since there was simply no other highland region with a comparable settlement density during this period.”
[20] Stephen L. Harris and Robert L. Platzner, The Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (McGraw-Hill, 2003), 180–81.
[21] See Amihai Mazar, “The Iron Age I,” in The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, ed. Amnon Ben-Tor (Yale University Press, 1992), 281–85. On sifting through the evidence and the debates that ensue regarding the history and development of ancient Israel, Faust explains in summation “that the hub of Israelite (or proto-Israelite) settlement was in the highlands is clearly corroborated by archaeology, and so are, in my view, the circumstances surrounding the group’s ethnogenesis. And despite the heated debates, it appears that many of the circumstances that gave rise to the monarchy are also in line with the biblical tradition.” Avraham Faust, “Between the Biblical Story and History: Writing an Archaeological History of Ancient Israel,” in Keimer and Pierce, Ancient Israelite World, 79. For an overview of the time period, see John Bright, A History of Israel, 4th ed. (Westminster John Knox, 2000), 173–82; Provan, et al., Biblical History of Israel, 174–92; Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible: 10,000–586 B.C.E. (Doubleday, 1992), 329–34.
[22] For the concept of the “Canaanization” of Israel, see Block, “Judges,” 96; Daniel I. Block, The New American Commentary, vol. 6, Judges, Ruth (Broadman & Holman, 1999), 57–59; Younger, Judges, Ruth, 68. K. Lawson Younger, “The Book of Judges has a Coherent Message,” in Judges, Ruth, vol. 6 of The NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan, 2011), 26, Kindle, explains that “concerning the consequences of disobedience to God with the resultant moral degeneration that characterized the history of this period, Block has expressed this by describing the central theme of the book as ‘the Canaanization of Israel.’ The book’s selective presentation of the period is clearly designed to instruct the reader on the consequences of disobedience to God and his law. Although Israel’s degeneracy directly challenges Ҵǻ’s rule, it cannot undo his sovereign kingship.” “The biblical author has taken the raw materials and crafted a document that is not only compelling, but also represents a remarkable literary achievement. By deliberately selecting, arranging, and shaping these materials, he presents a picture of the Canaanization of Israelite culture between the Conquest and the establishment of the monarchy” (Richard Hess et al., Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary [Zondervan, 2009], 273, location 3617 of 13426, Kindle).
[23] George A. Pierce and Kyle H. Keimer, “The Archaeology of Israelite Cult: Yahwisms Across Space and Time,” in Keimer and Pierce, Ancient Israelite World, 465–66.
[24] For difficulties in identifying ancient Israel within this diverse region in the period of the judges, see William G. Dever, “Texts, Archaeology, and Ethnicity: Identifying Ancient Israel,” in Keimer and Pierce, Ancient Israelite World, 83–97.
[25] Collins, Introduction, 203.
[26] John H. Tullock and Mark McEntire, The Old Testament Story, 7th ed. (Pearson Education, 2006), 110–11.
[27] Some view Judah’s request to include Simeon in battle as constituting the beginning of a path of disobedience and lack of faith in the Lord’s commission for Judah to go in alone. See Lilian R. Klein, The Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 68, Bible and Literature Series 14, ed. David J. A. Clines and Philip R. Davies (Almond, 1988), 23.
[28] “The author hereby declares obliquely that the newly arrived Israelites (including the tribe of Judah) have quickly adopted a Canaanite ethic. Apart from the issue of having spared a man who clearly came under the sentence of death with the rest of the people, instead of looking to Yahweh for ethical guidance, the Israelites use the Canaanites as models when deciding how to treat captives.” Block, Judges, Ruth, 91; compare Judges 15:11 where Samson responds in his actions as he had seen them practiced by others in the region. The origin of the practice of mutilation is unclear, but there seems to be some evidence that it (severing body parts) may have originated among West Asian cultures and is found in the Code of Hammurabi and among the Hyksos, who may have origins spanning Canaan and West Asia. The practice does not seem to occur in Egypt prior to its introduction by Hyksos foreign influence, perhaps suggesting an origin in a region that included Canaan. Danielle Candelora, “Hands Off! The Severed Hands of the Hyksos Capital,” Biblical Archaeology Review 50, no. 1 (2024): 18, 20. The practice thus does not seem to originate with the Israelites. Such treatment of enemies may not have been directed by God and may have been a decision based on their cultural surroundings. F. Duane Lindsey, “Judges,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Victor Books, 1985), 377.
[29] Block, “Judges,” 302, loc. 3982 of 13426, Kindle; Block, Judges, Ruth, 91. See also Iain M. Duguid, “Judges,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. E. A. Blum and T. Wax (Holman Bible, 2017), 362; James M. Freeman, Manners and Customs of the Bible, ed. Harold J. Chadwick (Bridge-Logos, 1998), 189; John H. Walton et al., The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (InterVarsity, 2000), electronic ed., Judges 1:6. Biblical laws were meant to curtail the brutality behind the lex talionis. Mutilation was restricted in the law with rare exceptions and may have been broken with the treatment of Adoni-bezek. See description in H. B. Huffmon, “Lex Talionis,” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (Doubleday, 1992), 4:321. For a discussion on lex talionis, see also Bowen, “‘I will Give Judgment unto Him in Writing,’” in Belnap and Schade, From Creation to Sinai, 538–39.
[30] “In this section the Lord faces the people with the evidence of their infidelity. The angel of the Lord is regularly used in the Old Testament to denote the manifestation of the Lord Himself in a theophany.” Arthur E. Cundall and Leon Morris, Judges and Ruth: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 7 (InterVarsity Press, 1968), 64. “The burden of the angel’s remonstrance was that God would inviolably keep His promise; but they, by their flagrant and repeated breaches of their covenant with Him, had forfeited all claim to the stipulated benefits. Having disobeyed the will of God by voluntarily courting the society of idolaters, and placing themselves in the way of temptation, He left them to suffer the punishment of their misdeeds.” Robert Jamieson, Dzܲ–Eٳ, vol. 2, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (Eerdmans, 1973), 74.
[31] “League” is translated from the word בְרִית֙, meaning “covenant, treaty.” The Israelites appeared willing to enter covenants in the book of Judges, just not with God. The pragmatics and complexities of a region overcome with conflict and struggles for survival make it easy to understand why the Israelites would see value in such covenantal treaties, and Ҵǻ’s laws seems to offer some solutions to those equations had the people been willing to follow them. But these outside treaties would come at the seemingly avoidable and unnecessary expense of fidelity to God and lead to consequences God was trying to help them avoid because of his love for them. See Block, Judges, Ruth, 114.
[32] For sorrow and weeping heard throughout the book of Judges, see E. John Hamlin, At Risk in the Promised Land: A Commentary on the Book of Judges, International Theological Commentary (Eerdmans, 1990), 54–57. The town of Bochim, meaning “weeping”, is even named for the crying of the people heard at its location (Judges 2:1–5).
[33] Younger, Judges, Ruth, 103.
[34] “Did not acknowledge the Lord. The NLT renders an important nuance of ‘know’ (ⲹ岹’ [3045, 3359]). The term can denote mere cognition, but typically implies a deeper engagement of the knower with the known, as in recognizing a friend or relative, or coming to care deeply about something. It also has a political nuance derived from treaties and oaths, suggesting acknowledgment of the claims and authority of one’s superior to the exclusion of others.” L. G. Stone, “Judges,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, ed. P. W. Comfort (Tyndale House, 2012), 229. A new generation was arising who did not enjoy this rich and deeply personal covenantal relationship with God—a generation that would now pursue its own self- or Canaanite-defined moral path.
[35] See Bright, History of Israel, 169–72; Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley, Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible (Carta, 2015), 31.
[36] See Klein, Triumph of Irony, 35, where she describes the “divergence of human and divine perceptions” within the book of Judges, which “alerts the reader to the ironic opposition of two ‘voices’ of the book: Yahweh’s knowing voice and humanity’s ignorant one.” One may suppose that none of the Israelite groups would have in hindsight deliberately chosen an outcome of misery. However, Judges displays the deliberate choices they did make and the sorrowful consequences that followed within a framework of a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Ҵǻ’s laws were the way to pursue, not the beaten path to be avoided. Although Israel had a choice in the path they pursued in their difficult circumstances, there was no power to remove or redefine the consequences of those actions.
[37] Compare Victor H. Matthews, Judges and Ruth (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 8. There are numerous variations ascribed to this “cycle,” but each follows a similar pattern.
[38] Schneider, Judges, xiv; Schwartz, “Law and Order,” 144; Barry G. Webb, “Judges,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, 4th ed., ed. G. J. Wenham et al. (InterVarsity, 1994), 473–74, Kindle.
[39] Schneider, Judges, xii. The storylines in Judges do not appear to convey a strictly chronological sequence of events, but rather coterminous episodes within a larger geographical spread. “However, the biblical editors made a very conscious effort to tie these episodes into an apparently chronological narrative” (Matthews, Judges and Ruth, 8), helping to effectively convey the theological purposes of the book.
[40] Schneider, Judges, xi–xiii.
[41] Schneider, Judges, xi.
[42] Lawson G. Stone, “Judges,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, ed. Philip W. Comfort (Tyndale, 2012), 187.
[43] Schneider, Judges, xiv.
[44] Webb, Book of Judges, 14–15.
[45] JoAnna M. Hoyt, “In Defense of YHWH’s Unmerited Grace in Judges: A Response to Frolov and Stetchevich,” Hebrew Studies 61 (2020): 197–211. Frolov and Stetckevich highlight that it is Ҵǻ’s “sympathy with the people’s suffering” and Ҵǻ’s “compassion” that leads to deliverance so many times in Judges; however, they view repentance as the “engine of deliverance.” Serge Frolov and Mikhail Stetckevich, “Repentance in Judges,” Hebrew Studies 60 (2019): 139.
[46] Francis Brown et al., Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Clarendon Press, 1977), 277; William L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, 2000), 91.
[47] William Gesenius, Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, trans. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (Faithlife, 2003), 251. See also, L. J. Wood, “570 זַעַק,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris et al. (Moody Press, 1980), 248.
[48] Mark L. Strauss and Tremper Longman III, eds., The Baker Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words (Baker, 2023), 200. Mosiah 4:20 constitutes a larger context of individuals calling upon God and begging for a remission of sins. This seems different than the picture generally painted in Judges. Likewise, Mormon 2:13–14 describes a scenario where sorrowing “was not unto repentance. . . . Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives.”
[49] Block, Judges, Ruth, 153.
[50] Michael Wilcock, The Message of Judges: Grace Abounding, ed. J. A. Motyer et al. (InterVarsity, 1992), 108.
[51] Block, Judges, Ruth, 175.
[52] Block, Judges, Ruth, 218.
[53] Block, Judges, Ruth, 307. See Younger, Judges, Ruth, 361.
[54] Way, Judges and Ruth, 7.
[55] Block, “Judges,” 476–77; Wong, Compositional Strategy, 215–23; Beldman, The Completion of Judges, 119–22. “Transgressing the covenant (Judges 2:20) is a crucial element of Judges. Judges and the people were meant to restore and maintain the covenant within society, offering righteous judgment, displaying honesty, helping the fatherless, and defending the needy, all of which would bring rest and a length of days to the people.” Hamlin, Judges, 62–63. These laws are not always overtly stated in the text, but the reader is expected to possess a knowledge of, and a realization that, the people were breaking them. Disobedience led to the predicament.
[56] Younger, “Book of Judges,” 58–59.
[57] In the words of Elder Neal A. Maxwell in his April 1976 general conference talk “‘Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King,’” “it matters so very much how we regard and view Jesus Christ. Some seek to substitute Caesars for Christ. Others are blinded because they are ‘looking beyond the mark’ (Jacob 4:14) when the mark is Christ.”
[58] See Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Literature (Fortress; SCM, 1979), 259. There, he describes the first chapter of Judges as marking “the beginning of a period of disobedience which stands in sharp contrast to the period which preceded it” with the intent to offer a “theological judgement on the nature” of Israel’s disobedience.
[59] J. Clinton McCann, Judges, vol. 6, of Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Westminster John Knox, 2002), 1.
[60] For example, the phrase ܲḥ-۱±, “spirit of God,” is found within the book of Judges, which guides its leaders (e.g., Gideon in Judges 6:34 and Samson in Judges 14:6). For a discussion as to how “the idea of the spirit of YHWH expresses and makes present His (Ҵǻ’s) creative power, the power over human life, and the effective care of it through constant support, guidance and protection,” and how in “these texts the ruaḥ YHWH formula expresses the spiritual and material power of God, His wisdom and strength manifested in the concrete salvific will towards individuals and nations,” see Dariusz Dziadosz, “The Spirit of YHWH as the Charism of the Pre-Monarchic Liberators of Israel and the Theological Symbol of Ҵǻ’s Salvific Activity in the Book of Judges,” Biblica et Patristica Thoruniensia 11, no. 4 (2018): 490.
[61] McCann, Judges, 3.
[62] Provan et al., A Biblical History of Israel, 158.
[63] For the numerous allusions to biblical laws and Torah within Judges, see Younger, Judges, Ruth, 56–58.
[64] “Deuteronomy is far and away the most alluded to book of the Torah. The issue of the covenant (treaty) permeates the book. For God, it is the primary issue (2:1–5), and the writer stresses that Israel’s disobedience to the law is covenantal infidelity; it is spiritual prostitution (2:17; 8:27). The depth of the depravity of the Israelites can only truly be perceived by means of the reader’s familiarity with the Law (the Torah), especially the book of Deuteronomy.” Younger, Judges, Ruth, 58. For the book of Judges in the context of the larger canons, see McCann, Judges, 12–16. For an overview of biblical laws and covenants, see Shon D. Hopkin, “The Covenant Among Covenants: The Abrahamic Covenant and Biblical Covenant Making,” in Belnap and Schade, From Creation to Sinai, ed. Belnap and, 223–49.
[65] š貹ṭ (שָׁפַט) “to judge” in Judges means, most often, “to lead,” rather than to act as a judiciary. “In the book of Judges, the use of the verb signals that the judges were meant to lead the people out of the oppression by the foreign nations (2:16–19). A few kings are also said to judge or make decisions (1 Kings 3:9; 2 Kings 15:5). God desired that all the kings and leaders should judge according to what was just and right (Isa. 11:3–4). From the beginning God was viewed as the ultimate judge, always deciding what was right and just (Gen. 16:5; 18:25; Ps. 9:8). The psalmists appeal to the Lord to ‘vindicate’ them in his role as judge (Pss. 7:8; 26:1; 43:1). Solomon asks God to judge between the righteous and the wicked (1 Kings 8:32). . . . The act of decision-making reflects the general usage of š貹ṭ. Knowing that God is the ultimate judge is of theological significance.” Strauss and Longman, eds., “Judge,” in Baker Expository Dictionary, 446.
[66] For a discussion on the narratological coherence of the books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel via thematic, structural, and phraseological similarities, see Spronk, “Parallel Structures,” 306–18. There, the author discusses the similarities of these disparate constituents and how they are used to accentuate important differences and nuances within these books.
[67] Conway, Judging the Judges, 207.
[68] Conway, Judging the Judges, 211.
[69] Younger, Judges, Ruth, 192.
[70] Appendix 1: First Theological Lecture on Faith, circa January–May 1835, p. 1, www.josephsmithpapers.org.
[71] Conway, Judging the Judges, 206–7.
[72] History, 1838–1856, volume E-1 (1 July 1843–30 April 1844), p. 1778, www.josephsmithpapers.org.
[73]“Ḥe represents a complex idea, so it is difficult to find a suitable translation. Translations include ‘loving-kindness,’ ‘steadfast love,’ ‘tender love,’ ‘faithful love,’ ‘unfailing love,’ ‘compassion,’ ‘mercy,’ ‘kindness,’ and ‘loyalty.’ Ḥe was performed in a variety of relationships, including a son with his father (Gen. 47:29), a wife with her husband (Gen. 20:13), a friend with a friend (1 Sam. 20:8), a general with the royal house (2 Sam. 3:8), and God with those in covenant with him (Gen. 24:12, 14; Deut. 7:9, 12). Ḥe is done when one person in a relationship does for the other in the relationship what the latter must have to survive or thrive, and, from the perspective of the latter, only the former can do what is needed. . . . Ḥe is a chief aspect of Ҵǻ’s character in his relationships with others” (Strauss and Longman, eds., “Loving-Kindness,” in Baker Expository Dictionary, 502). See also, Daniel L. Belnap, “‘How Excellent is Thy Lovingkindness’: The Gospel Principle of Hesed,” in The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament: The 38th Annual BYU Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. D. Kelly Ogden et al. (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2009), 170–86.
[74] For a “theology of Ҵǻ’s lovingkindness and compassion” in the book of Judges, see JoAnna Hoyt, “Reassessing Repentance in Judges,” Bibliotheca Sacra 169 (April–June 2012): 157.
[75] See Younger, Judges, Ruth, 213.
[76] Younger, Judges, Ruth, 59–60.
[77] When priests are mentioned within Judges, they tend to have negative connotations. “There is also no mention of a high priest like Aaron or one of his descendants (see Exod 29)—only solitary Levites who are answerable to no higher authority and seem unconcerned with anything other than personal employment or personal welfare (Judg 17:7; 19:1).” Matthews, Judges and Ruth, 4. One of the most egregious episodes in the book revolves around a Levitical priest. See discussion of priests in Matthews, Judges and Ruth, chaps. 18–21.
[78] Schneider, Judges, xvii.
[79] In the Hebrew Bible the word translated here for “house of God” is Bethel. This could mean a house of God or refer to a place. What seems implied is that it is a place where the people draw closer to God through worship.
[80] “Now their destination is not simply ‘before the Lord’ but ‘to Bethel,’ where ‘they sat before the Lord.’ Now they express their grief not simply by ‘weeping until evening’ but by ‘weeping and fasting until the evening.’ They also ‘offered whole burnt and peace offerings to the Lord.’ The reference to offerings is especially telling, suggesting the Israelites may have finally come to realize that their covenant relationship with Yahweh is in doubt.” Block, Judges, Ruth, 560. While we don’t have all the details as to where this took place, for the first time in a long time within the story we are witnessing a cultic gathering involving the ark that includes the involvement of ritual, sacrifices, and unified worship of God: “Weeping and fasting were acts of repentance (cf. 2:4). They had concluded from what happened that the Lord was angry with them. The burnt offering (see Lv. 1) symbolized the complete consecration of the offerer to God. Fellowship offerings (see Lv. 3), which included a meal, symbolized restored fellowship with God and with one another. In this period the ark was sometimes moved from the central sanctuary, especially in wartime (cf. 1 Sa. 4:4–5 where, as here, the central sanctuary was at Shiloh).” Webb, “Judges,” 285. For the similar but starkly contrasted circumstances between the gatherings and intents of Judges 1 and 20, see discussion in Wilcock, Message of Judges, 171–72.
[81] McCann, Judges, 12.
[82] These Book of Mormon verses offer informative glimpses into the story of Balaam encountered in the book of Numbers, a story that attests to the potential of God spreading his word throughout this region prior to the period of the Judges. Individuals there may have thus encountered principles forwarded through Ҵǻ’s laws and his prophets. Balaam’s intentions are unclear in the story, but he may have eventually used moral teachings as a weapon against Israel, enabling him to both proclaim Ҵǻ’s word in favor of Israel, while simultaneously providing a means to weaken them through disobedience. In the New Testament, the Book of Revelations condemns the actions of Balaam describing his deliberate opposition against Ҵǻ’s prophecies (although simultaneously proclaiming some of them) and leading the children of Israel into acts of idolatry and fornication (Revelation 2:14). See, D. Mangum, ed., Lexham Context Commentary: New Testament (Re 2:12–17) (Lexham Press, 2020); Alan F. Johnson, “Revelation,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation, ed. Frank E. Gæbelein, vol. 12 (Zondervan, 1981), 441; Leon Morris, The Book of Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary (InterVarsity Press, 1987), 71. We thus encounter the tension of a spiritual law meant to strengthen, that was applied with the intent to weaken as it was broken. The ambiguity of Balaam and his purpose and intent is presented within the framework of God sending him to save and alleviate destruction, not facilitate it. For a discussion on Balaam, see Dana M. Pike, “Balaam in the Book of Numbers,” in From Creation to Sinai, ed. Belnap and Schade, 561–98.
[83] McCaan, Judges, 19.
[84] Leonard J. Greenspoon, “Rahab (Person),” in Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. Freedman, 5:611; David M. Howard Jr., Joshua, New American Commentary 5 (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998), 103; Kenneth A. Mathews, Joshua, ed. Mark L. Strauss and John H. Walton (Baker Books, 2016), 21.
[85] G. V. Smith, “Ruth,” in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Geoffrey. W. Bromiley, vol. 4, rev. ed. (Eerdmans, 1979–88), 245; Edward F. Campbell Jr., Ruth: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary, vol. 7 (Yale University Press, 2008), 75.
[86] Just as Ҵǻ’s ḥe is prominent in Judges, ḥe is also a crucial component in the book of Ruth. Importantly, it was this loving-kindness of ḥe in Ruth that was engaged both by Moabites and Israelites that bound a diverse community of individuals together—although it was a difficult process.
[87] For the application of such laws to extend compassion to refugees amid conflict throughout scripture, see Krystal V. L. Pierce, “The Gēr in the Pentateuch and the Book of Mormon: Refugee Treatment under the Mosaic Law,” in Covenant of Compassion: Caring for the Marginalized and Disadvantaged in the Old Testament, ed. Avram R. Shannon et al. (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2021), 353–79. For a discussion on the Exodus and its origins rooted in a “mixed multitude” (compare Exodus 12:38) and the acceptance of diversity that implies, see Killebrew, Biblical Peoples, 149–55.
[88] See chapter 2 in this volume and the variations of the application of the ḥe.
[89] George Athas, Deuteronomy: One Nation under God, ed. Paul Barnett (Aquila Press, 2016), 234–39. See also, See Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (Eerdmans, 1976), 276; Robert G. Boling and Mark A. Powell, “Ban,” in HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed. (HarperOne, 2011), 78; S. J. Andrews and R. D. Bergen, Deuteronomy (Broadman & Holman, 2009), 245–46; and Edward J. Woods, Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. David G. Firth, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 5 (InterVarsity Press, 2011), 231.
