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Judges

This book of the Bible stands out from its predecessor in the canon by virtue of its title. Unlike “Joshua,” whose title is simply the name of a prominent individual, “Judges” is named after an office, “judge,” which is put in the plural. While the Hebrew Bible has no book called “Prophets,” unlike the New Testament, which has a book called “Acts of the Apostles,” there is a good parallel for a title like “Judges,” and that is, of course, “Kings”—one word, in plural form, and indicating influential leaders.

The fact that Judges, unlike Joshua, does not bear a personal name in its title may be quite significant (note also the presence of Ruth after Judges, at least in the order of the books of the Old Testament in Christian tradition). Unlike the era of Joshua, no one individual is dominant enough to cast a shadow over the entire book. In fact, what does cast a shadow over Judges is the absence of such a leader. The episodic and ephemeral appearance of charismatic judges notwithstanding, just about everything “after the death of Joshua” is downhill. If Judges ends by saying, “In those days there was no king in Israel” (21:25), in effect it begins by saying, “In those days there was no Joshua in Israel.” “No Joshua” is retrospective. “No king” is prospective, suggesting that maybe filling the vacuum of “no king” (toward which the last chapter points) will be the solution to the vacuum of “no Joshua” (with which the first chapter begins).

Another difference between Joshua and Judges is that the former begins with a clearly designated event that marks its beginning (“After the death of Moses” [1:1]), and ends with an equally clearly designated event that marks its terminus (“Joshua … died” [24:29]; “Eleazar … died” [24:33]). Judges, too, opens with a recapitulatory death notice (“After the death of Joshua” [1:1]). However, no death announcements appear in the last chapter of Judges. This means that the last five chapters of Judges (17–21), usually dubbed “appendices,” do not function to chronologically terminate Judges, as does ch. 24 of Joshua for that book. In that sense, closure is not brought to Judges.

The earliest event in Judges, and really a prelude to the book, is the death of Joshua. The last event, and one of the few in this book that can be dated with any degree of specificity, is the one referred to in 18:30, the context for which is a stinging indictment of the idolatrous shrine at Dan. Verse 30 ends by saying, “Jonathan … and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the time the land went into captivity.” This last phrase probably refers to the displacement of the northern kingdom of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians toward the end of the 720s b.c. And it also suggests that whoever put this material together in Judges, at least in its final form, was somebody who lived after 722–721 b.c.

There are twelve “judges” in the book of Judges, whom we shall call, primarily on the basis of how much space is devoted to each, “major” and “minor” judges.

Major Judges

Minor Judges

1. Othniel (3:7–11)

1. Shamgar (3:31)

2. Ehud (3:12–30)

2. Tola (10:1–2)

3. Deborah (4:1–5:31)

3. Jair (10:3–5)

4. Gideon (6:1–8:35)

4. Ibzan (12:8–10)

5. Jephthah (10:6–12:7)

5. Elon (12:11–12)

6. Samson (13:1–16:31)

6. Abdon (12:13–15)

Almost all uses of the noun “judge(s)” (shophet/shophetim) are confined to the introductory 2:16–19 (plural: vv. 16, 17, 18; singular: vv. 18, 19). The only other place in Judges where “judge” occurs as a noun is in 11:27, and there it applies to Yahweh (“Let the Lord, who is judge, decide today”).

The verb “judge” (shaphat) is confined to the stories of the judges themselves in 3:7–16:31, but even there it is used minimally and spasmodically. Of the six major judges, the verb is used only with Othniel (3:10) and Deborah (4:4) without any chronological notice. With two of these judges it is used with a chronological note twice (“Jephthah judged Israel six years” [12:7]; “He [Samson] judged Israel … twenty years” [15:20; 16:31]).

In the two lists of six “minor” judges (10:1–5; 12:8–15) the verb is used without chronological notice with Ibzan (12:8), Elon (12:11a), Abdon (12:13), and with a chronological note with Tola (10:2); Jair (10:3); Ibzan (12:9); Elon (12:11b); Abdon (12:14). Putting all uses of the verb “judge” together, we see thirteen uses of it, five with the major judges, eight with the minor judges. Statistically at least, more attention is given to the judging done by the minor judges than to that done by the major judges.

Another word used besides “judge” is “deliver, save,” and it occurs as noun and verb both in the introductory 2:16–19 and in the stories of the judges. Thus, 2:16 speaks of Yahweh raising up judges who “delivered them,” and 2:18 of judges who “delivered them from the hand of their enemies.” The judges who are styled as “deliverers” of their people are Othniel (3:9), Ehud (3:15), Gideon (8:22), and Samson (13:5, but only in a promissory, predictive sense). None of the minor judges are called “deliverers” except for Shamgar (3:31). Thus, the judges, some of them at least, are deliverers, saviors, suggesting that their role may be more a military one than a juridical one.

The book of Judges falls into three distinct units of uneven length, which we may outline as follows:

1. In Those Days There Was No Joshua in Israel (1:1–3:6)

A. The results of this territorially (1:1–2:5)

B. The results of this spiritually (2:6–3:6)

2. In Those Days There Were Judges in Israel (3:7–16:31)

A. Othniel (3:7–12)

B. Ehud (3:12–30)

C. Shamgar (3:31)

D. Deborah and Barak (4:1–5:31)

E. Gideon (6:1–8:35)

F. Abimelech (9:1–57)

G. Two lists of minor judges (10:1–5; 12:8–15)

H. Jephthah (10:6–12:7)

I. Samson (13:1–16:31)

3. In Those Days There Was No King in Israel (17:1–21:25)

A. The results of this: spiritual and tribal migration (17:1–18:31)

B. More results of this: an all-Israelite civil war (19:1–21:25)

1. In Those Days There Was No Joshua in Israel (1:1–3:6)

A. 1:1–36. One of the first things the reader of Judges observes is that the book appears to have two introductions, the first addressing events that happened “after the death of Joshua” (1:1a, introducing 1b–2:5), and the second addressing events that start during the lifetime of Joshua and continue beyond his death and into future generations (2:6a, with its “when Joshua dismissed the people,” introducing 2:6b–3:6). In other words, in 1:1 Joshua is dead, but in 2:6 he is alive (and then dies again [2:8]), as the narrative suddenly backtracks, rewinds the tape, providing a kind of a momentary flashback.

For an analogy of a double introduction to one book, one may point to Genesis, which interpreters often claim has two introductions, 1:1–2:4a and 2:4b–23. It is fashionable among commentators to do two things with Judges’ double introduction. The first is to suggest that the two units have little, if anything, in common with each other, and that 1:1–2:5 is an alternate account of Israel’s conquest clashing with that presented previously in Joshua (speedy, complete conquest [Joshua 6–11] versus slow, partial conquest [Judg. 1:1–2:5]).

The second suggestion many commentators make is that the real introduction to Judg. 3:7–16:31 is 2:6–3:6; that is, it is the Deuteronomist(s) who composed 2:6–3:6. By contrast, 1:1–2:5 is an earlier document, a sort of a tendentious Judahite document vis-à-vis the conquest of Canaan, and it was added arbitrarily to 2:6–3:6 in later times merely as an appendix. Thus, according to this reconstruction, Judges begins (1:1–2:5) and ends (17:1–21:25) with appendices. Now by definition, an appendix is a nonvital, expendable organ. Thus, Judges’ first and last five chapters may be expunged without serious damage to the original heart of the book.

Our point of disagreement with these suggestions is not with the view that 1:1–2:5 and 2:6–3:6 may come from different hands. Rather, it is with the idea that the “bookends” of Judges have not been intentionally integrated with what follows or precedes. In what follows, we shall attempt to make the case for integration versus appendixing (and see the perspectives of Eslinger, Stone, and Webb, who so read the final form of the book).

To begin with, we note that the introductory words to ch. 1 are “After the death of Joshua,” which is very similar to the beginning of Joshua (“After the death of Moses”) and Second Samuel (“After the death of Saul”). Three key periods are identified in Old Testament history via the use of this formula: (1) the post-Moses era (for the most part, a glorious one); (2) the post-Joshua era (for the most part, an embarassing one); (3) the post-Saul era (which combines the features of (1) “glorious” and (2) “embarrassing”).

In the absence of a heroic Joshua the people do the natural and good thing—they “inquired of the Lord, ‘Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites?’ ” (Judg. 1:1b). To “inquire [sha’al b] of the Lord” more than likely refers to seeking the will of God by the use of the Urim and Thummim, those two small objects that could be thrown like dice to solicit a response from God. The Urim and Thummim could be consulted for a simple yes-or-no reply (see Josh. 18:6), but on other occasions they were consulted for additional and quite explicit information (in addition to Judg. 1:1, see 1 Sam. 10:22 [they reveal Saul’s hiding place]; 2 Sam. 2:1 [they reveal the city to which David is to go]; 2 Sam. 5:23–24 [they reveal the complex military strategy David is to use against the Philistines]).

This specificity of response occurs here in Judg. 1:1. Inquiring of Yahweh, via the Urim and Thummim, results in the designation of the tribe of Judah as the first tribe to go up and engage the Canaanites. What is of great interest here is that exactly the same “inquiring of God” (via the Urim and Thummim) takes place toward the end of the book (20:18). Exactly the same question is asked (“Who of us shall go up first to battle against the …?”). And exactly the same divine response is given: a specific tribe is designated, and it is Judah again.

But there is a profound difference between 1:1 and 20:18, and that difference will tell us, in a nutshell, where the people of God are going in the post-Joshua days of the judges:

1:1: “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?”

20:18: “Who of us shall go up first to battle against the Benjaminites?”

A book that starts with a reference to an offensive war by a united nation against a common enemy ends with a reference to that same nation at war with itself. Benjaminites, part of the family of God, have become Canaanites.

Several things about the structure of Judges 1 require attention. For one thing, the victorious tribe of Judah (vv. 2–20) is contrasted with the less successful and less achieving northern tribes of Israel (vv. 21–36). Victories for Judah after Joshua’s death take place in Bezek and over its leader/king, Adoni-bezek (vv. 4–7); in Jerusalem (v. 8); in Kiriatharba/Hebron (v. 10); in Kiriath-sepher/Debir (vv. 11–13); in Zephath/Hormah (v. 17); in Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron (v. 18).

The only nonvictorious note sounded in the Judah portion of the chapter is v. 19b: “[Judah] took possession of the hill country; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.” But even this single admission needs qualification. First, that v. 19 begins by stating that “the Lord was with Judah” would seem to indicate that the lack of success is not due to divine disfavor with Judah and hence the withdrawal of his presence, leaving Judah to fend for herself. Second, the text is ambiguous about the real reason for Judah’s inability to drive out the inhabitants of the plain. Was it because of the latter’s superior armaments in a place suitable to their employment (a flat plain), or was it because of Judah’s failure of vision?

Two other items reinforce this ambiguity. First, the phrases “could not drive out” of 1:19b and “did not drive out” (used of the northern tribes in the second half of the chapter—vv. 27, 28, 29, etc.), though using the same Hebrew verb (yarash in the Hiphil/causative stem) are different in the original. For those in the second half of the chapter, the Hebrew uses the straightforward perfect form of the verb, loʾ horish, “did not drive out.” By contrast, 1:19b uses an infinitive rather than a finite form of the verb (loʾ lehorish). So, 1:19b “uses an infinitive without specifying the verbal agent of the verb because it was impossible to relate failure explicitly to Judah” (Weinfeld 1993: 396).

The second item qualifying 1:19b is brought out by comparing it with Josh. 17:18: “The hill country shall be yours … for you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.” Note here that Joshua is speaking not to Judah, but “to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh,” that is, those tribal areas north of Judah and near the southern Galilee area (note the references in Josh. 17:16b to Bethshean and the Valley of Jezreel). If Judg. 1:19b is alluding to Josh. 17:16–18, then it is simply saying that the Judahites failed to take an area that was far beyond their own borders, hardly a damning indictment. Furthermore, “The presence of iron chariots is the closest approach to a legitimate excuse for failure in gaining possession of territory that can be found in Joshua or Judges” (Stone 1988: 217).

In the description of the military forays of the northern tribes in vv. 21–36, matters are quite different. Seven times the narrator says that a certain tribe did not drive out the inhabitants of a certain place or places (vv. 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33). It is failure after failure. In fact, there are twenty-one towns/cities reported not to have been conquered in vv. 21–36. Specifically, the tribes of Asher (seven cities) and Manasseh (five cities and their surrounding settlements) are cited for the highest number of failures. Additionally, because we read that some northern tribes, rather than driving out the inhabitants of the land, instead put them to “forced labor” (vv. 28, 30, 33, 35), we can conclude that the northern tribes chose this alternative. Presumbably, if they were strong enough to impose upon them forced labor, then they could have expelled them if they wanted to. Thus, the explanation of failure is not inability, but unwillingness.

Even the one account of a conquest by the “house of Joseph” (1:22–26), the taking of Bethel, is a “mixed bag.” The sending out of spies first, encountering a local resident with whom and with whose family a “deal” is worked out in return for vital information, and the subsequent destruction of the city beg comparison with the story of Jericho and Rahab (Joshua 2 and 6). But note also the differences between the two accounts (Gunn and Fewell 1993: 160). First, Rahab makes a confession of faith in Yahweh, the God of Israel, and it is this persuasion that empowers her to entertain the Hebrew spies. The anonymous “man of Bethel” makes no confession. He is an opportunist, not a convert. Second, Rahab gives no vital data about the city of Jericho. She merely talks about God and her family. The man of Bethel, on the other hand, “showed them the way into the city.” Third, Jericho is placed under the ban and left in ruins. Not so Bethel. The informant leaves the targeted city and builds another one with the same name elsewhere, a second Luz.

One also observes a process of degeneration in vv. 22–36 in terms of Israel’s relationship with the indigenous Canaanites.

1. Victory, however mitigated, for the house of Joseph (vv. 22–26)

2. Dominance, but not expulsion, by Manasseh and Ephraim: Canaanites continue to live in land (vv. 27–28)

3. Dominance, but not expulsion, by Ephraim: Canaanites live among them (v. 29)

4. same with Zebulon (v. 30)

5. Asher and Naphtali live among the Canaanites (vv. 31–33)

6. Dan repulsed by the Canaanites/Amorites, and confined to the hill country (v. 34)

Thus, the move is from victory (1) to partial victory (2, 3, 4), to substantial losses (5), to defeat (6). What begins in triumph (1) ends in confinement (6).

A second thing to notice about Judges 1 is that the mentioning of the various tribes moves in a south-to-north direction:

Dan (v. 34)

↑

Naphtali (v. 33)

↑

Asher (vv. 31–32)

↑

Zebulon (v. 30)

↑

Ephraim (v. 29) (actually, Manasseh is on top of Ephraim)

↑

Manasseh (vv. 27–28)

↑

house of Joseph (= all the northern tribes)

↑

(v. 22–26) Benjamin (v. 21)

↑

Judah (vv. 2–20)

We find exactly the same south-to-north sequence in the story of the major judges in 3:7–16:31:

Samson, from Dan (13:1–16:31)

↑

Jephthah, from Manasseh (10:6–12:7)

↑

Gideon, from Manasseh (6:1–8:35)

↑

Deborah, from Ephraim (4:1–5:31)

↑

Ehud, from Benjamin (3:12–30)

↑

Othniel, from Judah (3:7–11)

Not only are both ch. 1 and 3:7–16:11 arranged in a south-to-north direction, but each unit begins with a Judah that is both an exemplary tribe (1:2–20) and has an exemplary judge (Othniel, 3:7–11), and ends with a Dan that is both a lackluster tribe (1:34) and has a wild, unrestrained judge (Samson, 13:1–16:31). Here is a picture of a nation deeply fractured. To use New Testament language (Romans 8), part is living life in the Spirit, and part is living life in the flesh. One expels the enemy; the other cohabits with the enemy. One is incisive; the other is tolerant.

The third, and final, thing to note about Judges 1 is that much of its material is extracted from Joshua in the form of either quotations or allusions. Most often there is some modification in Judges 1 of the Joshua reference, and this modification is usually strategic. The direct quotations are:

1. Judg. 1:10, 20 = Josh. 15:13–14 (and 14:6–15): the taking and giving of Hebron

2. Judg. 1:11–15 = Josh. 15:15–19: Debir, Caleb, Achsah, and Othniel

3. Judg. 1:21 = Josh. 15:63: inability to drive out the Jebusites

4. Judg. 1:27–28 = Josh. 17:11–13: Manasseh’s failure to conquer

5. Judg. 1:29 = Josh. 16:10: Ephraim’s failure to conquer

Let us note, briefly, some of the comparisons that emerge:

1. Josh. 14:6–15 and 15:13–14 emphasize Joshua’s giving Hebron to Caleb, while Judg. 1:20 says Judah (the “was given” is a third-plural verb) did this, obviously because Joshua is dead (1:1). Joshua 15:13 states that it was Caleb who drove out the three sons of Anak: Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai. Judges attributes this feat to both Judah (1:10) and to Caleb (1:20), but names the three only in the Judah reference.

2. Caleb “went up” against the inhabitants of Debir in Josh. 15:15, but in Judg. 1:11 “they [Judah] went up against the inhabitants of Debir.” Joshua 15:17 identifies Othniel as “son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb.” Judges 1:13 expands that to “son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother” (as again in 3:9). This addition in Judges is necessary for the chronology of Othniel, whose judgeship begins after eight years of oppression (3:8), and whose death follows forty years of rest (3:11). Interestingly, this event, which is dated to during Joshua’s lifetime in Josh. 15:15–19, is placed in Judges “after the death of Joshua,” unless v. 1a be read as an editorial title to the book rather than merely to ch. 1.

3. Josh. 15:63 states that “the people of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” while Judg. 1:21 says that “the Benjamites did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem,” after having noted earlier that Judah had taken Jerusalem (1:18). Note also the Joshua reference “Judah could not drive out” (i.e., inability) versus the Judges reference “Benjamin did not drive out” (i.e., unwillingness, or at least an act of omission). According to Judges, Judah took Jerusalem (1:18). Benjamin failed to hold on to it (1:21). Not until David’s time is Jerusalem totally reclaimed (2 Sam. 5:6–9).

4. Judges turns Josh. 17:12, “Manesseh could not take possession of those towns,” into “Manasseh did not drive the inhabitants of …” (1:27), again shifting the explanation from inability to unwillingness, as in (3). Also, Judges deletes the information of Josh. 17:11, that the towns from which the Manassites could not expel the Canaanites were “within Issachar and Asher.”

5. Judg. 1:29 deletes the last line of Josh. 16:10, “… to this day, but have been made to do forced labor.”

Thus, the three features of Judges 1 (the contrast between Judah and the northern tribes, the south-to-north description, and the quotes from Joshua) all in their own way emphasize the radically different situation in Israel following the death of Joshua. The tribe of Judah, from which David will eventually emerge, models effective and authentic discipleship. Judah’s northern counterparts, by comparison, model ineffectiveness, compromise, and accommodation. But the narrator of ch. 1 reports all of the incidents matter-of-factly, without comment or evaluation of any kind. He neither commends nor chastises. He is descriptive, not prescriptive. That latter task will belong to the angel of the Lord.

B. 2:1–5. At the beginning of Judges, Yahweh speaks because the people inquired of him (1:1, which we shall call oracular divine speech). But now Yahweh speaks, via his intermediary, on his own initiative (which we shall call non-oracular divine speech, and which occurs again in Judges only in 2:20–21; 6:7–10; 10:11–14).

As with other passages of Scripture, Yahweh and his angel/messenger are interchangeable: “Now the angel of the Lord … said, ‘I brought you up from Egypt.’ ” Compare, for example, the story of the angel/messenger finding Hagar in the wilderness (Gen. 16:7), the conversation that follows between the two (Gen. 16:8–12), and Hagar’s words, “So she named the Lord who spoke to her” (Gen. 16:13). Here is a case where God himself appeared in the form of a human being, one who could be seen by a mortal.

One instance of oscillation between Yahweh and his angel/intermediary that includes an actual observable appearance in Judges is found in ch. 6. The angel “came and sat” near Gideon (6:11). The two then converse (6:12–13). Then the text says, “Then the Lord turned to him and said …” (6:14). Another Judges text with the same crossover is Judges 13, where the incident moves back and forth among “man,” “angel of the Lord,” “man of God,” and “God.”

There are, however, other texts in which the angel and God are interchangeable, but with no mention of an actual appearance (e.g., Gen. 22:11–12, 15–18). Whether or not one perceives a (human) appearance in 2:1 is dependent on what one makes of the statement “Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim” (2:1). One other thing about the angel’s presence in 2:1–5 is that it is one of the very few places where the angel appears to the community. Usually, the angel appears to individuals (e.g., Abraham, Hagar, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, the wife of Manoah).

The purpose of the angel’s mission is underscored by v. 1 saying that the angel went up (ʿalah) from Gilgal to Bochim. It is a verb used frequently in ch. 1 (vv. 1, 2, 3, 4, 16, 22), and, most importantly, every time it is used there it is referring to military assault, to “go up” in the sense of “move out against, invade.” Presumably, the verb carries that same martial sense in 2:1. But in a shocking reversal, Israel, in ch. 1 the subject of going up, becomes in 2:1 the object of a going up. Those who earlier laid siege are now under siege, but from no normal, mortal opponent.

The distribution of this verb in Judges 1–2 is nicely laid out by Webb (1987: 103):

A1 1:1–2: the assembled Israelites ask Yahweh, “Who will go up?”

B1 1:3–21: Judah goes up.

B2 1:22–36: Joseph goes up.

A2 2:1–5: the messenger of Yahweh goes up to indict the assembled Israelites.

There is one basic difference between the two times that Yahweh or his representative speaks to Israel. The first (2:1–3) is a proclamation: the angel speaks to Israel. The second (2:21–22) is a monologue: Yahweh speaks about Israel. The difference between a divine proclamation and a divine monologue explains why there is some kind of a response by Israel after 2:1–3 and none after 2:21–22.

The angel, speaking on Yahweh’s behalf, begins by talking about himself and Yahweh’s previous acts of benefaction—the exodus from Egypt in fulfillment of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his commitment never to be a covenant-terminating, covenant-violating God. He continues by talking about Israel’s acts of malfeasance, which contrast blatantly with his acts of benefaction. Israel, against his orders, has made a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and has not torn down their altars (2:2). All of the “not” phrases in Judg. 1:19–33 (“could/did not drive out”) connect with the one “not” sentence of the angel’s indictment, “You have not obeyed [listened to] my command.” Israel’s sin, whatever its final manifestation, is a sin of not listening. Whenever God’s voice and word are muted or ignored, the repercussions become almost unfathomable.

One of those repercussions is that Yahweh will not drive out the nations (v. 3). If Israel does not “drive out” the nations, neither will Yahweh. If Israel does not yarash the inhabitants (the verb used throughout ch. 1), Yahweh will not garash them (the verb used in 2:3). No yarash? Then no garash. Thus, the leaving of the nations as “adversaries” and “a snare” is a penalty, a consequence, for Israel’s faithlessness. Israel’s “lifting up their voices and weeping” (v. 4) appears a little vacuous, occasioned more by what the angel said in v. 3 rather than by what the angel said in vv. 1–2. It is the leaving of the nations in adversarial roles and not their own sin that they find disquieting. There are a lot of tears, but no repentance.

In essence, the angel tells Israel that if they had done what they did not do (1:19–33), then they would not have done what they did do (2:2). Israel may be sheep without a shepherd—there is no Joshua around—but that does not let Israel off the hook.

C. 2:6–3:6. Three items immediately separate 2:6–3:6 from 1:1–2:5. For one thing, the writer in 2:6–3:6 frequently presents his own analysis and evaluation of Israel’s behavior (among the many examples: “The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and worshiped the Baals” [2:11]). By contrast, the writer in 1:1–2:5 avoids analysis and evaluation, which he leaves to the angel of Yahweh, and whom he quotes on that in 2:1–3. So, 1:1–2:5 (or 1:1–36, anyway) reads more like a compendium of historico-geographical facts, while 2:6–3:6 reads more like a discourse. This distinction should not be pushed too far, however, for we have observed in our earlier analysis that the writer of 1:1–2:5 is more than an assembler of objective facts. Without ever using “preaching” language per se, his structuring of his data is done in such a way that his evaluation of Judah in contrast to the northern tribes is quite transparent. The reader is not unprepared for or caught off-guard by what the divine representative says in 2:1–3.

The second item separating 2:6–3:6 from 1:1–2:5 is that while the latter is replete with quotations and allusions from Joshua, the former has only one quotation from Joshua (Judg. 2:6–9 = Josh. 24:28–31). Also, 2:6–3:6, but not 1:1–2:5, is filled with phrases and vocabulary found in Deuteronomy. Some examples of this are:

2:7 and 2:10: “who had seen/did not know all the (great) work that the Lord had done for Israel”; Deut. 11:7: “your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the Lord did”

2:11: “the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (also 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1); Deut. 4:25: “thus doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God” (also 9:18; 17:2; 31:29)

2:12 and 2:19: “follow other gods”; Deut. 8:19: “and follow other gods” (also 11:28; 28:14)

2:12: “the gods of the peoples who were all around them”; Deut. 6:14: “do not follow … any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you” (also 9:18; 31:29)

2:12: “and they provoked the Lord to anger”; Deut. 4:25: “and provoking him to anger” (also 9:18; 31:29)

2:17 and 3:4: “obeyed the commandments”; Deut. 11:13: “if you will only heed/obey his every commandment” (also 11:27, 28; 28:13)

2:19: “and behave worse than” (or, “act more destructively than”); Deut. 4:16: “so that you do not act corruptly” (or, “so that you do not act destructively”) (also 4:25; 31:29)

2:20: “have transgressed my covenant”; Deut. 17:2: “and trangresses his covenant”

2:21 and 2:23: “drive out the/these nations,” with Yahweh as subject (Deut. 4:38; 9:4, 5; 11:23; 18:12) and with Israel as subject (Deut. 7:17; 9:1; 11:23)

2:22: “to walk in the way of the Lord”; Deut. 8:6: “by walking in his ways” (also 19:9; 26:17; 28:9; 30:16)

2:23: “not driving them out at once/quickly”; Deut. 9:3: “so that you may drive them out quickly”

The third element that distinguishes 2:6–3:6 from 1:1–2:5 is that 1:1–2:5 is replete with names of individuals and places: Adoni-bezek, Caleb, Achsah, Othniel, the man from Bethel, and about thirty place names. By contrast, the account in 2:6–3:6 is more general, less tribally oriented and more nation oriented. If 1:1–2:5 is a close-up of post-Joshua Israel, 2:6–3:6 is a wide-angle panorama of post-Joshua Israel.

This unit, 2:6–3:6, begins with a flashback to the final portion of Joshua’s career (vv. 6–9), which is a quote from Josh. 24:28–31. But several things stand out when the two passages are placed side-by-side. For one thing, Judg. 2:6–9 varies the sequence of the parallel verses in Josh. 24:28–31 thusly:

Judg. 2:6–9

Josh. 24:28–31

v. 6

=

v. 28

v. 7

=

v. 31

v. 8

=

v. 29

v. 9

=

v. 30

Judges 2 makes v. 31 of Joshua 24 a prescript to Joshua’s death, rather than a postscript to Joshua’s death, as it is in Josh. 24:31. This shift places into even bolder relief the contrast between the faithfulness of the generation of Joshua and his contemporaries vis-à-vis the following generation. Unlike the next faithless generation, Joshua and his generation “knew” (Josh. 24:31) and “saw” (Judg. 2:7) Yahweh’s (great) work he had done. That is, they had both existential and observational experience of Yahweh’s mighty acts. They have believed because they have seen firsthand, are eyewitnesses of, something God has done dramatically. In one sense, seeing is believing, but Jesus’ words to Thomas may be recalled. In response to Thomas’s statement that seeing is the sine qua non for believing, Jesus asks rhetorically, “Have you believed because you have seen me?” (John 20:29a). And then he adds this beatitude: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29b). The post-Joshua generation is a Thomas-like generation.

The information in v. 10 about “another generation” after them that knew neither Yahweh nor his work recalls a parallel in the opening chapter of Exodus—a double death notice of a significant person followed by somebody who does not know Yahweh:

Gen. 50:26: “And Joseph died.”

Josh. 24:29: “Joshua died.”

Exod. 1:6: “Then Joseph died.”

Judg. 2:8: “Joshua died.”

Exod. 1:8: “Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” And this king, or a successor, later states, “I do not know the Lord” (5:2).

Judg. 2:10: “Another generation grew up after them who did not know the Lord or the work he had done for Israel.”

If Judges 2 intends the reader to picture the succeeding generation as corresponding to the new pharaoh, then it clarifies what is meant by “know” in v. 10. Does it mean “not know” in the sense of “be ignorant about” or “never eyewitnessed it,” or does it mean “ignore, refuse to accept the reality of”? One cannot be faulted fully for ignorance, but one can be faulted fully for willful rejection.

The rest of this unit (2:11–3:6) spells out how a generation that does not “know” Yahweh behaves and how Yahweh responds to that (mis)behavior:

Israel’s behavior (cause)

Yahweh’s response (effect)

2:11–13 (forsook Yahweh, followed gods)

2:14–15 (“his anger kindled” [v. 14])

2:16–19 (after death of each judge, returned to following gods)

2:20–3:6 (“his anger kindled” [v. 20])

Everything written here about the post-Joshua generation(s) is censure. We encounter here for the first time the phrase “the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Never do we see “the Israelites did what was good in the sight of the Lord.” The evil that they did is apostasy (vv. 11–13) and not listening to the judges, thus opening Pandora’s box (vv. 16–19).

God graciously and continually raised up judges to rectify the situation, not because of any repentance from the people, but because of the kind of God he is: “for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them” (2:18b). “Groaning” (i.e., an appeal for help and respite) does not mean penitence and godly sorrow. If post-Joshua Israel is to survive from generation to generation, it will not be because of any up-and-down cycles of rebellion and repentance, but because of Yahweh’s merciful actions, which guarantee perpetuity—actions from a God whose judgment is always accompanied by his grief and pity (Fretheim 1983: 90, 94–95).

The judges are successful (vv. 16, 18–19), but only to a limited degree (v. 17). The judges successfully deliver Israel from plunderers (v. 16) and from oppressive enemies (v. 18), but not even the judges can deliver Israel from the greatest enemy of all—Israel itself (v. 17)! Philistines, Moabites, Midianites, Canaanites, and Ammonites are not nearly as formidable foes.

Three reasons are listed for the leaving of the nations (Stone 1988: 254):

1. a punitive one: “because this people have transgressed my covenant” (2:20–21)

2. a probative one: “in order to test Israel, whether or not they would take care to walk in the way of the Lord” (2:22–23; 3:4)

3. a pedagogical one: “to test all … who had no experience of any war in Canaan … to teach those who had no experience of it before” (3:1–2)

For this state of affairs Israel was responsible (vv. 20–21), but so is Yahweh, who, to begin with, did not hand these nations over even to Joshua (2:23b); in fact, he has “left” them (2:23a; 3:1a). The Hebrew actually says that Yahweh has “given them rest”—rest for the nations, turbulence for Israel.

The last two verses of the unit (3:5–6) summarize 1:1–3:4:

(1) 3:5–6a (“the Israelites lived among the Canaanites … and their daughters they gave to their sons”) = 1:1–2:5

(2) 3:6b (“and they worshiped their gods”) = 2:6–3:4

2. In Those Days There Were Judges in Israel (3:7–16:31)

A. Othniel (3:7–11)

Several items set Othniel apart from the other major judges. First, he is the only judge from Judah, and so once again, as in ch. 1, Judges precedes in a south-to-north direction. Second, the Othniel episode is the one judge segment of the six in which the behavior of the judge is totally exemplary. Othniel plunges a dagger into nobody, nails nobody’s head to the ground, puts no demand or test on God, makes no foolish vow, and does not consort with harlots. As in 1:1–3:6, where Judah is the model tribe, so in 3:7–16:31 the Judean judge is the model. Both one tribe and that tribe’s judge become the standard against which to measure all the other tribes and all the other judges.

Enforcing Othniel’s uniqueness vis-à-vis his counterparts is the note about his family in 3:9 (cf. 1:13):

Othniel: son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother (3:9)

Ehud: son of Gera (3:15)

Deborah: wife of Lappidoth (4:4); Barak son of Abinoam (4:6)

Gideon: son of Joash the Abiezrite (6:11)

Jephthah: son of a prostitute (11:1)

Samson: son of Manoah (13:2)

The clue here is Othniel’s connections with Caleb (he is Caleb’s nephew) and Caleb’s connections with Joshua. From the days of Moses to the opening chapters of Judges there have been three generations: (1) that of Moses, (2) that of Joshua and Caleb (2:7, 10a), and (3) another generation (10b):

Generation one, that of Moses and those exiting Egypt, is a faithless generation. All perish for sin except for Joshua and Caleb.

↓

Generation two, that of Joshua and Caleb (holdovers from generation one), those conquering Canaan, is a faithful generation.

↓

Generation three, the post-Joshua one, “those who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel,” is a faithless generation.

Joshua and Caleb are survivors of a faithless generation, but they immensely impact their own generation and those who outlive them (2:7). They model obedience and righteousness. Similarly, Othniel, who lives in Israel after the death of Joshua and the elders who outlived Joshua, models true judgeship for all who follow him in that position. There never is another Joshua, a survivor of a faithless generation, and there never is another Othniel, a survivor of a faithful generation.

The Othniel unit in Judges, more so than any other unit in 3:7–16:31, uses all the key phrases for the cycle of the judges.

Othniel’s career establishes the pattern. All other judges vary from this fundamental pattern to a greater or lesser degree. Note, for example, that of the twelve subsections in the Othniel story, nine of them are duplicated in the Jephthah story, seven in the Ehud story, but only five in the Samson story. Thus, 3:7–16:31 is not one record played over six times with merely cosmetic changes. “If there were no variations, characters in the narrative would be determined by the cyclical plot pattern. They would be absorbed by the repetition rather than stand out from it and would, consequently, all look alike. In other words, character depiction and variance from pattern are closely interrelated” (Kort 1988: 30).

The Othniel unit begins in vv. 7–8 with a general to specific statement. Verse 7a is general (“did evil”). Verse 7b is the specific—what kind of evil. Verse 8a is general (Yahweh’s anger kindled). Verse 8b is the specific—the manifestation of that anger. Cushan-rishathaim, Israel’s subjecting foreign king and then defeated king, functions much like Nebuchadnezzar (and Babylon) in Jeremiah. He moves from being an instrument of judgment to an object of judgment. Cushan-rishathaim is a mystery king. His name means “Cushan of double wickedness,” or “Cushan of double dastardliness,” or “Cushan of compound criminality” (Stone 1988: 282). His name rhymes with his country—Cushan-rishathaim of Aram Naharaim (Cushan of double wickedness from Aram of double rivers).

In response to the “cry” of his people, which we should interpret not as pentience, but neverthless as a real outcry to God for help against an oppressor, Yahweh “raises up” a deliverer (v. 9), whom he then gifts with “the spirit of the Lord” (v. 10).

The Old Testament knows of two types of leaders, those who inherit their office (i.e., kings and priests), and those who enter their office via some kind of direct experience with God (i.e., judges and prophets, who receive God’s spirit or his word, or occasionally both). The expression “raised up for” in v. 9 is the same (Hiphil stem of qum, plus preposition le) elsewhere for the appointment of a prophet: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet” (Deut. 18:15); “I will also raise up for them a prophet” (Deut. 18:18); and see Jer. 29:15 and Amos 2:11.

Othniel

Introduction

Ehud

Deborah

Gideon

Jephthah

Samson

Shamgar

Tola

Jair

Ibzan

Elon

Abdon

the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord

3:7a

2:11a

3:12a

4:1b

6:1

10:6a

13:1a

they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs

3:7b

2:11b, 12b; 3:6b

10:6b, 13a, 14a

the anger of the lord burned against Israel

3:8a

2:14a, 20a

10:7a

so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim

3:8b

2:14b (gave over), 14c (sold)

4:2a (sold)

10:7b (sold)

13:1b (gave over)

to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years

3:8c

3:14

but when they cried out to the Lord

3:9a

3:15a

4:3b

6:6b, 7

10:10a

he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them

3:9b

2:16, 18a

3:15b

3:31

10:1 (Qal qum)

10:3a (Qal qum)

the Spirit of the lord came upon him

3:10a

6:34 (took possession of)

11:29

13:25 (began to stir); 14:6, 19; 15:14 (rushed)

so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war

3:10b

4:4

12:7 (six years)

15:20; 16:31 (twenty years)

10:2a (twenty three years)

10:3b (twenty two years)

12:8, 9b (seven years)

12:11 (ten years)

12:13, 14b (eight years)

the Lord gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him

3:10c

3:28b

4:7

7:7b, 9b, 15b

11:30b, 32b

so the land had peace for forty years

3:11a

3:30b

5:31c

8:28b

until Othniel son of Kenaz died

3:11b

2:19a

4:1a

8:32

12:7b

16:30

10:2b

10:5

12:10

12:12

12:15

The note in v. 11 that the land had rest for forty years, followed by Othniel’s death notice, points to the enduring effectiveness of Othniel’s judgeship. The same complement is given to Ehud (3:30b), Deborah (5:31c), and Gideon (8:28c), but is glaringly absent from the end of both the Jephthah and Samson stories (see chart above). By contrast, Judges refers only to the length of their respective judgeships (Jephthah, six years [12:7]; Samson, twenty years [15:20; 16:31]). This, along with other data in Judges, strongly suggests that the movement in 3:7–16:31 is not cyclical but linear, and that in a precipitously downward direction.

B. Ehud (3:12–30)

Seven basic units form the Ehud story:

1. Israel serves the Moabites and Eglon for eighteen years due to their acts of evil (vv. 12–14)

2. God raises up Ehud as deliverer who is a tribute-bearing, dagger-toting envoy to Eglon (vv. 15–16)

3. Ehud presents the tribute (the dagger will follow!) to the obese king (vv. 17–18)

4. Ehud murders Eglon (vv. 19–23)

5. Eglon’s lifeless corpse discovered by his courtiers (vv. 24–25)

6. Ehud-led Israel engages Moabites in victorious battle (vv. 26–29)

7. Summarizing statement (v. 30)

The Ehud story shares several items with the preceding Othniel story. Like Othniel, Yahweh “raises” Ehud up to his position of deliverer (the only two judges with whom this phrase is used). Again, like the Othniel section, the Ehud story ends by stating (before it records his death [4:1]) that the land had rest for eighty years, thus again emphasizing the success of Ehud’s judgeship rather than merely the duration of his judgeship, as with some of the later judges.

But there are differences as well between the two. For one thing, while 3:7b in the Othniel unit specified the “evil” as forgetting Yahweh and worshiping Baals, no such specificity is present in 2:12. What the nature of the evil was we are not told.

A second difference is that there is no reference to the “spirit of the Lord” coming on Ehud, as there was with Othniel (3:10a), an omission in Judges that Ehud shares only with Deborah. It cannot be without some significance that the two judges who, apart from Othniel, are most successful, most untainted by flaw or defect, most luminous, operate without explicit reference to Yahweh’s spirit.

A third difference, albeit a necessary one, is the insertion of “again” in the opening, common formula, “The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Two things may be said about the “again.” First, does it mean resumption of a previous behavioral pattern (the cycle of evil and apostasy starts all over again after an interlude), or does it mean continuation of a current behavioral pattern (Israel continued to do evil)? The data of 2:18–19 seems to argue for the former (“But whenever the judge died, they would relapse” [v. 19a]), but the data in 2:17 seems to argue for the latter (“Yet they did not listen even to their judges, for they lusted after other gods” [v. 17a]).

The second item to be noticed about this adverb is that the one place where “again” does not occur in this formula in Judges, apart, of course, from 3:7, is 6:1 (Stone 1988: 302), that is, after the career and judgeship of Deborah and before the introduction of Gideon. Its absence there may well be a way of highlighting the ministry of Deborah. So effective was her leadership that the cycle of sin was broken, at least for a good, long while.

Ehud is a Benjaminite by tribal association, and a left-hander by bodily orientation. Since “Benjamin” means “son of the right hand,” Ehud is really a left-handed right-hander. Actually, the Hebrew text does not say he was “left-handed,” but rather, “hindered, impeded, handicapped [ʾitter] in his right hand.” Like some of the judges who follow him, Ehud represents an anomalous, subordinate segment of his society (Jobling 1989: 128). Ehud is a left-hander in a world of right-handers. Deborah is a woman, and a leader at that, in a world of men (leaders). Gideon is the youngest son in a world of older brothers. Jephthah is the son of a harlot in a world of “legitimate” children. Samson is a nonshaving, non-intoxicant-imbibing ascetic Nazirite in a world of “normal” people.

The people who are first the oppressors of Israel, and then their victims, are the Moabites and their bulky king, Eglon. Relationships between Israel and Moab were hardly ever cordial (Brettler 1992: 296–97). With the exceptions of Deut. 2:9, where Israel was told not to harass Moab or engage them in battle on their way to Canaan, and 1 Sam. 22:3–4, where David leaves his parents with the king of Moab as he seeks refuge from Saul, and Ruth the Moabite, all other Old Testament references picture Moab(ites) negatively. According to Gen. 19:37, Moab has its origin in an incestuous sexual act in a cave involving a drunken father and his older daughter. Balak, king of Moab, did his best, albeit unsuccessfully, to render Israel impotent (Numbers 22–24). One of Israel’s greatest acts of apostasy involved the Moabite women of Shittim (Numbers 25). Deuteronomy 23:3 prohibits admission to Yahweh’s assembly of any Ammonite or Moabite, even to the tenth generation. David subjugated the Moabites (2 Sam. 8:2), but sporadic fighting would later break out between Israel and Moab (2 Kings 1:1; 3:1–27; 13:20–21; 24:2). Frequently, the prophets castigated Moab in their oracles (Isa. 15:1–16:14; Jer. 48:21–47; Ezek. 25:8–11; Amos 2:1–3).

Judges 3 contributes to this depiction of Moab by describing Eglon as a “very fat man” (v. 17) who is duped by Ehud. “Eglon” reflects the word ʿegel, “calf”; so Eglon is quite literally “the fatted calf” (such as the father in Jesus’ parable had prepared for the homecoming of his lost son [Luke 15:23]). Furthermore, the Moabite soldiers share their king’s corpulence. The word that the nrsv uses to describe them in v. 29 as “strong” (shamen) is actually another word for “fat” or “stout.”

Also, both Eglon and his troops are made to look like fools. Rising from his chair to meet the tribute-bearing Ehud, and believing Ehud to have an oracular message from God, Eglon and his large body become an easy target for Ehud’s dagger. Similarly, his servants wait in silence outside his room, believing that his protracted silence is because he is using the toilet, a belief advanced, no doubt, by the release of the anal feces in Eglon’s death spasm (“and the dirt came out” [v. 22d]). Again, the kingless Moabites, ten thousand of them, are lured to their grave by Ehud and his small army when they find themselves trapped in a setting from which there is no escape (v. 28). Interestingly, the verb used to describe Ehud’s “thrusting” his dagger into Eglon (v. 21) and for Ehud’s later “sounding” the trumpet to rally his troops (v. 27) is the same (taqaʿ).

But Judges is careful to make the point that Israel defeated Eglon and the Moabites not because the latter were a bunch of stupid, blundering, overweight idiots. Rather, Ehud and his kin are victorious because of a divinely raised-up deliverer (v. 15), and because Yahweh is the victory granter (v. 28). The outcome would have been the same even if Eglon and the Moabites were slender and suave paragons of astuteness.

Ehud’s weapon is a “sword with two edges” (v. 16), literally, “two mouths” (possibly another oblique reference to Eglon—anybody that big needs two mouths!). It is short enough (“a cubit in length”) to be hidden by being strapped against the left-hander’s right thigh. This is different from the normal sword of that period, which was curved and would be used for slashing one’s enemies (Yadin 1963: 254–55). The word from God that Ehud claims to have is actually the concealed sword. The connection of “word from God” with a two-edged dagger invites comparison with the New Testament claim that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow” (Heb. 4:12).

Ehud has been variously described by interpreters: “duplicitous” (Klein 1988: 40); “cleverly ruthless” (Stone 1992: 335); “boldly resourceful” (Alter 1981: 38); “not particularly likeable” (Polzin 1980: 160); “deadly cunning” and “a devious assassin” (Webb 1987: 130, 132); “a great warrior with special skills” (Amit 1989: 106).

C. Shamgar (3:31)

Sandwiched between the Ehud and Deborah stories is the one-verse reference to Shamgar son of Anath. His only other mention in Scripture is in Deborah’s song in 5:6 (“In the days of Shamgar son of Anath … caravans ceased and travelers kept to the byways”).

Two items are credited to him. He killed six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad and he delivered Israel. This second accolade he shares with Othniel (3:9c). The first remark appears to be present in the pre-Samson reference in 10:11, “And the Lord said to the Israelites, ‘Did I not deliver you from … the Philistines?’ ”

Yet, he remains an elusive individual. Is “Shamgar” even an Israelite name? Many scholars think it is not. And does the reference to his parent, “son of Anath,” have any connection with the famous Canaanite goddess of the same name?

Two observations may be advanced on Shamgar’s judgeship. First, his weapon is a primitive one. He uses an ox-goad, for which the Hebrew uses the phrase malmad habaqar. The first of these two words, malmad, is from the verb lamad, “teach, learn,” but whose original meaning is “to train.” Hence, malmad habaqar is “that which is used for the training of the oxen.” The text suggests that Yahweh honors those who use what they have and what is available to them rather than excusing themselves from commitment with “If I only had …” or some other evasive statement.

The second thing to be said is that Shamgar shares with Samson a battle against the Philistines. But there is one major difference. Samson will only “begin to deliver” Israel from the Philistines (13:5), whereas Shamgar “delivered Israel.” Thus, Shamgar is eminently more successful against a common foe than is Samson. Yet, while the judge with mitigated success against the Philistines rates four full chapters in Judges (13–16), the judge with delivering success against the Philistines rates one verse. Shamgar is a minor judge with a magisterial ministry. That he is placed between the judgeships of Ehud and Deborah may reinforce the perception of Judges’ editor/compiler that the era of Ehud-Shamgar-Deborah is head and shoulders above that of the remaining judges (Stone 1988: 365).

D. Deborah and Barak (4:1–5:31)

The story of Deborah and Barak appears twice in Judges, first in a prose account (4:1–24) and then in a poetic version (5:1–31). Chapter 4 tells the story and ch. 5 sings the story. Narration gives way to celebration. The only parallel to this in the Old Testament is the account of the exodus from Egypt, told first in prose (Exod. 12:37–42; 13:17–14:31), then in poetry (Exod. 15:1–21). Our comments will focus first on the prose, then on the poem.

1. 4:1–24. Several things separate the Deborah story from the others in Judges. For one thing, the death notice about the previous judge, Ehud, does not so much end the Ehud story as it does introduce the Deborah story: “after Ehud died” (4:16). Putting Ehud’s death notice in the Deborah story links these two judges, and is a further evidence of their qualitative superiority over the following judges. Judges emphasizes more the success of Ehud’s judgeship than his death by (1) stating the land had rest for eighty years (3:30b), that is, well beyond his lifetime, and (2) reducing Ehud’s death notice to an almost parenthetical remark in the Deborah story: “The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord—by the way, Ehud had died” (Stone 1988: 345).

For another thing, as with Ehud, never does the text say that the spirit of Yahweh came upon Deborah—the only two judges for whom this formula is absent. And yet, these “spiritless” judges are the exemplary judges! Deborah is a “prophetess” (4:5). This does not of itself suggest her possession of Yahweh’s spirit. Rather, it suggests that her supernatural possession is the word of God rather than the spirit of God. In this respect, she is like Samuel, who has the divine word, but who is never associated with the divine spirit. Note that the spiritless Ehud, too, claimed to have a word from God (3:20b). In 4:6b the narrator quotes Deborah quoting God. While other judges talk to God or about God, Deborah is the one judge who speaks for God. She is his mouthpiece.

A third thing is that the formula “the Lord raised up a judge/deliverer,” present in the introduction (2:16a, 18a), with Othniel (3:9b), and with Ehud (3:15b), is missing here (and throughout the rest of Judges). The absence of the phrase in the prose account may be tempered somewhat by a line in the following poem that the nrsv renders as “because you arose, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel” (5:7b). The Hebrew construction is a difficult one, and may also be translated “because I, Deborah arose, arose as a mother in Israel,” or even “until you raised me, Deborah, up, raised me up as a mother in Israel.”

The fourth thing to notice is that Deborah is the only major judge whose death is never mentioned (see 3:11b; 4:1b; 8:32a; 12:7b; 16:30 for the others). Given the information of 2:19a (“but whenever the judge died, they would relapse”), the absence of a death announcement for Deborah may be Judges’ way of underscoring the effectiveness of her tenure.

A fifth thing setting the Deborah story apart is that the oppressing nation is actually in Israel’s own borders. The enemy is the Canaanites, led by their Hazor-based king, Jabin, and his commander, Sisera. Compare this situation with the other judges:

Judge

Oppressing Nation

Othniel

Mesopotamia

Ehud

Moabites

Gideon

Midianites

Jephthah

Ammonites

Samson

Philistines

Finally, this portion of Judges begins with the spotlight on a woman, Deborah, and ends with a woman, Jael (vv. 17–22). Both of their spouses are named. Deborah is “wife of Lappidoth” (v. 4). Jael is “wife of Heber” (v. 17). But neither husband says or does anything. Each stands in his wife’s shadow. “Lappidoth” may not even be the name of Deborah’s husband. The word lappid, meaning “torch, fire,” is a non-Semitic loanword in early Hebrew (compare Greek lampades), brought by the technically superior Philistines, who introduced new kinds of torches and lamps to Palestine. We could render ʾeshet lappidot as “woman of torches” (van Wolde 1995: 240) or “woman of fire,” that is, “a spirited woman” (Fewell and Gunn 1990: 391) or “fiery woman” (Rasmussen 1989: 93). If Lappidoth be retained as the name of Deborah’s spouse, then his presence in no way “illuminates” the narrative.

Jael’s husband, Heber, is equally quiet. All that gives him notoriety is his wife. “Heber” is very close to the Hebrew word for “associate, friend.” While there is peace between the clan of Heber and King Jabin of Hazor (v. 17b), Jael turns out to be a “Heber” more to Israel than to the Canaanites by smiting Sisera in her tent.

The reader will observe here (v. 11) that Heber is called a “Kenite,” and the Kenites (“the Cainites”) are the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law. In Judg. 1:16 and 4:11 and in Num. 10:29 Moses’ father-in-law is Hobab (“loved one, friend, client”). Elsewhere, this same person is identified as Reuel, a priest of Midian (Exod. 2:18), and as Jethro (Exod. 4:18; 18:1–12). Numbers 10:29 further identifies Reuel as the father of Hobab. Thus, who is Moses’ father-in-law: Hobab, Reuel, or Jethro? And is he a Midianite or a Kenite? One solution to this enigma is to attribute the differences in names to different literary sources behind our Pentateuch (e.g., Hobab in Numbers 10 from the J source and Jethro in Exodus 4 and 18 from the E source). Another approach, however, suggests that the father-in-law has two names, Hobab and Jethro, and that Reuel is either the clan name or the father of Hobab/Jethro (Num. 10:29), thus necessitating reading “daughters” and “father” in Exod. 2:16–18 as “granddaughters” and “grandfather.” What then of Midianite versus Kenite? Midianite appears to be the name not of one people but of a confederation of peoples, one of which is the Kenites. For some evidence to support this, note that Enoch (Hanoch) is the son of Cain (Kenite) in Gen. 4:17, and a Hanoch is the son of Midian in Gen. 25:4. Kenite means “smith,” individuals who worked the mines in the areas of Sinai and Midian. That they were also a guild of itinerant craftsmen and metalworkers is evidenced by their presence as far south as Arad in the Negeb (Judg. 1:16), and as far north as Kedesh near Elon-bezaanannim in Naphtali (Judg. 4:11).

After the introduction (vv. 1–3) Deborah first appears. As prophetess, it is not surprising that she speaks for God. Rather than lead the troops herself, she assigns that responsibility to Barak (“flash of lightning”) from Naphtali (vv. 4–7). There is one possible ambiguity in Deborah’s charge to Barak. Who is the “I” in “I will draw out Sisera … I will give him into your hand” (v. 7)? Yahweh? Deborah?

Barak’s response is interesting: “If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go” (v. 8). It is common to interpret Barak’s words as cowardice. This may be the case, but not necessarily so. His words sound much like Moses’ words to God: “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us?” (Exod. 33:15–16). As a prophetess with unmediated access to God, Deborah’s presence is both welcomed and salutary. Again, since Barak has not heard Yahweh speak this word, he is “being asked to risk his life as well as the lives of ten thousand men on the strength of this woman’s unconfirmable word. Barak’s conditional proposal, then, is a test: if Deborah is willing to stake her own life on this word, then he will believe and obey” (Fewell and Gunn 1990: 398).

To Barak’s response comes Deborah’s counterresponse: “The road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (v. 9b). Here is another ambiguity in Deborah’s talk. What woman? Presumably Deborah, we think, and so does Barak. We are surprised, and Barak is surprised, and maybe even Deborah herself is surprised, to find out later who this woman is.

The battle scene is described in vv. 10–16. Ten thousand Israelite infantry descend from the safety of Mount Tabor against Sisera’s nine hundred chariots of iron mobilized by the river Kishon. Once again, Deborah is a stimulus to Barak (v. 14), this time, however, intentionally deleting any reminder about Yahweh selling Sisera into a woman’s hand. Israel is victorious, with credit going to Yahweh (v. 14c; 15a). Deborah has “initiated and forced the battle; God has won it; and Barak remains with a mopping-up operation to his credit” (Sternberg 1987: 277).

Sisera manages to escape the slaughter and flee to Elon-bezaanannim, where he seeks refuge and cover, not in the tent of Heber his ally, but in the tent of Heber’s wife, Jael (v. 17). Jael is like Ehud. She pretends to be the sympathetic hostess, just like Ehud pretended to have a word from God; and like Ehud with Eglon, she singlehandedly murders the gullible and unsuspecting Sisera.

Jael invites the fleeing and distraught Sisera into her tent (“Turn aside, my lord, turn aside,” in which there is a similarity of sound between “turn aside” [surah] and “Sisera” [siseraʾ] [v. 18a]), reassures him of her care (“have no fear” [v. 18b]), and covers him with a rug, both for warmth and for concealment (v. 18c). She gives him milk instead of the water for which he had asked (v. 19b). Once asleep, she hammers a tent peg into his temple. The same verb (taqaʿ) is used in v. 21 for Jael’s driving the tent peg into the side of his head as was used in 3:21 for Ehud thrusting the sword into Eglon’s stomach. And the Hebrew word for “into his temple” (beraqqato) contains the name of Barak (baraq). Jael is “a heroine who offers milk instead of water, death in place of sleep, a corpse instead of a captive” (Polzin 1980: 166). Interestingly, when Barak does show up (v. 22), he has no reaction and says nothing. He only observes, reinforcing the idea that at best, Barak’s contribution is “a junior partnership in a female enterprise” (Sternberg 1987: 283).

The text never comments on any motivation of Jael in her elimination of Sisera (Amit 1987: 97; Culley 1992: 102). Her words to Barak in v. 22 (“Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking”) indicate that she has some knowledge of what has been going on. Did she do it to protect her honor and that of her husband (Matthews 1991: 17)? After all, Sisera is alone with Jael in her tent, and he ordered her to be dishonest, as Abram had done with Sarai (Gen. 12:10–20). He is an obvious refugee, hiding from somebody. Or did she do what she did out of commitment to the God of Deborah and Barak, thus allowing the story to extol “the heroics of an ordinary person choosing the Lord’s side” (Stone 1992: 335; compare these remarks on Jael: Heber “had a loyal Yahwist wife” and “Jael was a covenant loyalist” [Boling 1975: 97, 100])? Or, is Jael caught between a rock and a hard place? What would Sisera do to her if she rebuffs him? On the other hand, what happens to Jael when the Israelite pursuers come to her tent and find she has given aid and comfort to the enemy? “Her best bet for survival … is to turn Sisera’s presence in her tent into proof of her own personal allegiance to the victors. The body of Sisera will be her trump card” (Fewell and Gunn 1990: 396).

2. 5:1–31. While in English translation “Deborah and Barak … sang on that day” sounds like two singers, the verb “sang” here is not plural. It is feminine-singular, “And she sang, Deborah, and Barak.” It is like Num. 12:1, where the English translation says, “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses,” implying a plural verb for “spoke.” Actually, the verb is feminine-singular, “And she spoke, Miriam, and Aaron, against Moses.”

It is amazing how much God does for his people again and again throughout the books of Joshua and Judges (and First Samuel). Act of deliverance follows act of deliverance. Equally amazing is how few are the expressions of praise and gratitude for those divine interventions. They are limited to this song of Deborah (the only act of praise in Judges) and the song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1–11), thus leading Ballentine (1993: 222) to say, “Only with Hannah and Deborah is there any praise in the canonical presentation of Israel’s history between settlement and kingship.”

As is to be expected, some differences exist between the prose account in ch. 4 and the poetic account in ch. 5. Some of the more significant are the following.

(1) Tribal participation: Chapter 4 mentions the mustering of ten thousand troops from Naphtali and Zebulon (v. 6), while ch. 5 boosts the level of the militia to forty thousand (v. 8) and includes the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir (= Manasseh) (v. 14), and Issachar (v. 15). The poetic account also castigates four tribes for not joining in the battle (Reuben [vv. 15b–16], and Gilead [= Gad], Dan, and Asher [v. 17]). Judah, Simeon, and Levi are never mentioned in either account.

(2) How the battle was fought and won: Chapter 4 reports the battle in most general terms: “The Lord threw Sisera and all his chariots and all his army into a panic” (v. 15), using a verb (hamam) that connotes panic and confusion, and that frequently occurs in the descriptions of divine war (Exod. 14:24; Deut. 7:23; Josh. 10:10; 1 Sam. 7:10). Chapter 5 says that “the stars from heaven fought against Sisera” (v. 20) and “the torrent Kishon swept them away” (v. 21). God’s powerful actions through these heavenly and terrestrial bodies “evoke an aura of miracle, of cosmic involvement in the process of history” (Brenner 1990: 134).

(3) Geography: Chapter 4 states that Barak led his ten thousand warriors from Mount Tabor (v. 14), which is just southwest of the Sea of Galilee and on the northern rim of the Jezreel Valley. Chapter 5 locates the action at “Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo” (v. 19), which is on the southern rim of the Jezreel Valley.

(4) Sisera: Chapter 5 deletes the fact recorded in ch. 4 that Jael slew Sisera only after he “was lying fast asleep from weariness” (v. 21). Also, the milk that Jael brought to Sisera she brought in either “a skin” (4:19) or a “lordly bowl” (5:25).

(5) The prose account never refers to Sisera’s mother waiting for her son to return from battle with the spoils of war (5:28–30).

It is difficult to divide the poem into clear, distinct units or stanzas. Two of the more penetrating attempts are those of Globe (1974: 495–96) and Coogan (1978: 143–66, and followed closely by Webb 1987: 140–41).

Globe:

I. vv. 2–11d: an introductory thanksgiving hymn

A. vv. 2–3: calling on the people to hear the poet’s praise

B. vv. 4–5: Yahweh, the source of Israel’s help

C. vv. 6–8: the oppression of Israel

D. vv. 9–11d: a call to Israel to celebrate their God

II. vv. 11e–18: the muster of the Israelite tribes

A. vv. 11e–15c, the assembly of the tribes and the participants

B. vv. 15d–18, censure for four tribes, honor for two tribes

III. vv. 19–31: the battle and its aftermath

A. vv. 19–23: the battle and the rout

B. vv. 24–27: Jael kills Sisera

C. vv. 28–30: a taunt of Sisera’s anxious mother

D. v. 31: a conclusion

Coogan/Webb:

I. vv. 2–8

A. vv. 2–5: hear the song; Yahweh is the coming divine warrior

B. vv. 6–8: prebattle conditions in Israel

II. vv. 9–13: a summons to join in the battle

III. 14–18: the response of the tribes, positive and negative

IV. vv. 19–23: the battle

V. vv. 24–31

A. vv. 24–27: the death of Sisera

B. vv. 28–30: Sisera’s mother waits in vain

C. v. 31: concluding invocation of Yahweh

The poem begins by extolling those who volunteered and dedicated themselves to the cause of the moment, moving the poet twice to exclaim “Bless the Lord!” (vv. 2, 9). This is the thrust of the first line of v. 2, “When locks are long in Israel” (mysteriously rendered in the niv as “When the princes of Israel take the lead,” but probably taken from the first line of v. 9). It is probably an early reference to Naziritism. The militia (probably we should render “people” as “fighting force/men” in vv. 2, 9, 11, 13) fighting in these wars would dedicate themselves, and this dedication would include not shaving the hair on their head.

If the poem begins by talking about the dedication of the fighting force, it continues by talking directly to God (vv. 4–5). He is the God who comes from the arid regions of Seir and Edom of the south. God has moved with his people. As they have marched from the southern wilderness to Canaan, so has he. That divine presence makes all the difference.

The next few verses (6–11) are difficult both to translate and to interpret. It appears that having spoken about the infantry (v. 2) and Yahweh (vv. 3–5), Deborah now talks about herself. We are inclined to think that in vv. 6–7a she is describing the cessation of open settlements (perazon [v. 7a]) in her land because of fear of attack (and here following the niv in v. 7a, “village life in Israel ceased,” rather than the nrsv, “the peasantry prospered in Israel”), an attack due to the apostasy of her people alluded to in v. 8 (“when new gods were chosen”).

But that all changed when Deborah came on the scene. She is the divinely raised-up deliverer (“because you arose, Deborah” [nrsv]; “until I, Deborah, arose” [niv]). Both the well-to-do (v. 10 ab) and the poor (v. 10c) are summoned to sing of God’s great victory (v. 11ab) and the return to normal, tranquil life in the open villages (v. 11c). Even the absence of defensive (“shield”) or offensive weapons (“spear”) is not critical in winning this battle, for the battle is the Lord’s (v. 8c).

The victory already celebrated (vv. 10–11) is now recounted in some detail, beginning with the mustering of the tribal troops (vv. 11–15b), moving to a statement or inquiry about tribes who did not get involved (vv. 15c–17), another commendation of the two principal tribal participants (v. 18), the account of the battle (vv. 19–22), and finally, a curse on the city of Meroz (v. 23), a city presumably in the vicinity of the battle. Why one city should be cursed for noninvolvement while whole tribes are merely asked about noninvolvement is not clear.

The rest of the poem, except the last verse, focuses on two women, Jael (vv. 24–27) and Sisera’s mother (vv. 28–30). Notice the play-off in v. 26 and v. 27 between the subjects of the staccato verbs: “she put … struck … crushed … shattered … pierced; he fell … lay still … sank … fell … sank … fell dead.” This is a graphic illustration of parataxis in poetry (see Hauser 1980), in which phrases and/or clauses are placed side by side without any connectives such as “and.” The presence in v. 27 not only of parataxis, but also of repetition (sank … fell, … sank … fell, … sank … fell), “produces an effect of slow motion that mimics Sisera’s death agony” (Alter 1985: 45). The language is graphic and brutal. As Halpern (1988: 81) has stated, “A more epicurean relish over Sisera’s collapse could not be expressed.” This section is a mother in Israel (v. 7d) praising the deed (“most blessed of women be Jael”) of a mother of the Kenites.

Contrasting with Jael is the mother of Sisera (vv. 28–30) looking out the window of her palace. Her ignorance of why her son has not yet returned from battle matches the ignorance of Eglon’s servants as to why he stayed so long in the bathroom (3:24–25) (Polzin 1980: 167). Her hunch is that her son is delayed because he is gathering up some spoils from war, specifically, “a girl or two” for the men and embroidered dye stuffs for the ladies. The Hebrew for “a girl or two” is actually “a womb, two wombs,” thus in Sisera’s mother’s estimation, reducing the captured Israelite women to “body parts, receptacles for male invasion” (Fewell and Gunn 1990: 407).

The poem concludes, as it began (v. 4), by addressing God directly. If vv. 24–30 contrast Jael with Sisera’s mother, v. 31 contrasts Yahweh’s enemies with his friends/lovers. This final verse is hardly a suspicious tack-on to the poem. Rather, “It is a liturgical statement climaxing and ending the poem and a paranetic extension and universalizing of the specific victory celebrated in the song” (Miller 1973: 101).

The Deborah/Barak story concludes, “And the land had rest for forty years” (v. 31c). Note briefly three things here. First, Deborah is the only judge whose death is not recorded. Second, the word “again” is not used in the formula “the Israelites did what was evil” that introduces the Gideon story (6:1). Third, as with the judges ahead of Deborah, the years of rest in the land are greater than the years of subjugation to an oppressor, but this pattern breaks down later in Judges. There is no rest for the land after Jephthah and Samson.

Years of subjugation

Years of rest for the land

Othniel: 8 years (3:8)

40 years (3:11)

Ehud: 18 years (3:14)

80 years (3:30)

Deborah: 20 years (4:3)

40 years (5:31)

Gideon: 7 years (6:1)

40 years (8:28)

Jephthah: 18 years (10:8)

none

Samson: 40 years (13:1)

none

E. Gideon (6:1–8:35)

The next character in Judges is Gideon, from the tribe of Manasseh. His name is from the verb gadaʿ, “cut down, cut off, break,” and has the on suffix that Hebrew grammarians refer to as “the characterizing suffix/affix” (as in Eglon, Samson). So his name means “destroyer, shatterer” or even “hacker, hewer, chopper.” In the one place where Gideon literally lives up to his name, the cutting down of the Asherah pole adjacent to his father’s altar to Baal (6:25–32), the text uses the verb karat (vv. 25, 28, 30) rather than gadaʿ. By contrast, Deut. 7:5 (“hew down their sacred poles”) and 12:3 (“and hew down the idols of their gods”) both used the verb gadaʿ. The pagan icons are to be “gideoned.”

Outside of Judges 6–8, Gideon never again appears in the Old Testament as “Gideon.” He does, however, have another name, Jerubbaal (“let Baal contend/sue/make a complaint”), conferred on him by his father (6:32). If Cushan-rishathaim (3:8) is Cush of “double wickedness,” then Gideon is the judge of “double name.” Twice, both names occur together (7:1; 8:35): “Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon).” But in ch. 9 only Jerubbaal appears. Later on yet, there is remembrance in 2 Sam. 11:21 of Jerubbaal. Actually, the Septuagint Greek reads “Jerubbaal,” but the Hebrew has “Jerubbesheth,” replacing “-baal” with “-besheth.” Thus, Jerubbesheth means “let shame contend,” with the removal of the -baal element, as in Ishbaal/Ishbosheth (1 Chron. 8:33 and 2 Sam. 3:7). Thus, Gideon’s name with patently pagan vestiges (“let Baal contend”) endures in the scriptural narrative, while “Gideon” slips into oblivion.

The following episodes fill up the Gideon narrative:

1. Midian humbles the evildoing Israel, causing Israel once again to cry to Yahweh (6:1–6).

2. Yahweh sends not a judge but a prophet, who speaks of God’s gracious acts and Israel’s refusal to listen (6:7–10).

3. The angel of the Lord reveals himself to Gideon and commissions him, to which Gideon responds with an objection and a sign request (6:11–18).

4. The sign given is divine fire, which completely consumes Gideon’s present/minkha, alleviating Gideon’s uncertainty but filling him with fear (6:19–24).

5. Gideon/Jerubbaal tears down at night his father’s altar to Baal and the nearby Asherah pole, and so provokes the ire of the residents of Ophrah (6:25–32).

6. Clothed with the spirit, Gideon assembles a fighting force mainly from the northern tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali to engage the Midianites and others by the Valley of Jezreel (as with Barak in ch. 4) (6:33–35).

7. Gideon seeks further confirmation from God by the fleece of wool and the threshing floor (6:36–40).

8. Yahweh reduces Gideon’s fighting force of twenty-two thousand by some 98 percent, leaving him with just three hundred of the original troops (7:1–8).

9. Accompanied by his servant Purah, Gideon goes at night to the Midianite camp, where he overhears a Midianite tell a fellow Midianite a dream whose interpretation predicts victory for Gideon (7:9–14).

10. Gideon and his troops, armed with trumpets, empty jars, and torches, attack the Midianite camp at night, throwing the latter into panic and rout (7:15–23).

11. Ephraim joins their northern neighbors and adds the finishing touches, killing two Midianite captains, Oreb (“raven”) and Zeeb (“wolf”), and presenting their heads to Gideon as war trophies (7:24–25).

12. The Ephraimites scold Gideon for their last-minute summons to battle by Gideon, but are satisfied by his proverblike response to their censure (8:1–3).

13. After his defeat of Midian, Gideon and his three hundred warriors cross the Jordan in pursuit of two fleeing kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna (8:4–12).

14. Returning with his two captives, Gideon rebukes and punishes severely the Cisjordanian/Manassite cities of Succoth and Penuel for their earlier refusal to offer assistance in the form of food when he went after the two Midianite kings (8:13–17).

15. After Gideon’s oldest son, Jether, refuses to kill the two captured Midianite kings, Gideon does so himself to avenge their earlier murdering of his brothers (8:18–21).

16. Gideon rejects the offer of hereditary rule, but makes an ephod from the people’s contribution of jewelry and cloth items to which the Israelites prostitute themselves (8:22–28).

17. Gideon fathers a large family (seventy-one sons in all, including Abimelech, mothered by his Shechemite concubine); he dies (8:29–32).

18. Israel relapses immediately into idolatry after his death. Gideon has no postmortem influence. Nobody shows loyalty either to Yahweh or to Gideon’s household, his good work for Israel notwithstanding (8:33–35).

Unparalleled in any other judge story is the length of the description of the severe oppression that the camel-riding Midianites brought on Israel for seven years (episode 1, 6:1–6). That oppression took the form of depredations of livestock and on pasture land, depriving Israel of crops (“no sustenance”), sheep (for food and clothes), oxen (for farming and plowing), and donkeys (for transport), and forcing them to hide out in places like mountains and caves (6:2–4). The result for Israel is impoverishment and destitution.

God’s displeasure with his people is indicated by the fact that he first sends not a deliverer to save, but a prophet to indict. And while the unexpected emergence of a prophet here may be compared with the opening reference to “Deborah the prophetess” in the preceding unit (4:4), Deborah does not fulminate against Israel as does this anonymous prophet. The words of this prophet are much closer to those of the angel of the Lord in 2:1–3 than they are to Deborah’s. Both speak in the first person for God. Both begin by stressing God’s gracious deliverance acts for his people (2:1, 6:8–9). Both sound the warning against false covenants/gods (2:2ab; 6:10a), a warning that went unheeded (2:2c; 6:10b).

Gideon’s call by God, via the angel of the Lord (episode 3, 6:11–18), is not without Old Testament parallel. Possibly the closest parallel is the call of Moses, which shares at least six elements with that of Gideon (Habel 1965: 297–305).

Moses

Gideon

1. divine confrontation

Exod. 3:1–4a

Judg. 6:11–12a

2. an introductory word

Exod. 3:4b–9

Judg. 6:12b–13

3. commission

Exod. 3:10

Judg. 6:14

4. objection

Exod. 3:11

Judg. 6:15

5. reassurance

Exod. 3:12a

Judg. 6:16

6. a sign

Exod. 3:12b

Judg. 6:17

The most patent difference between the two is (6), where in Exod. 3:12 God volunteers to give Moses a sign, while in Judg. 6:17 Gideon requests a sign. Throughout this call narrative cracks appear in Gideon’s character. His response to the messenger’s claims and commands are “why” (v. 13), “where” (v. 13), “how” (v. 15), and “show me” (v. 17). First, Gideon throws questions at the messenger: “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds?” (see Macartney 1948: 68–77.) These are not exploratory questions. They are angry, defiant, confrontational questions. Then, Gideon looks for an escape route by appealing to his insignificant roots (“My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family”). And finally, he tests the messenger (v. 17), even after hearing words that any Israelite would have recognized as divine speech (vv. 14, 16).

Interestingly, Gideon is not censured for his questions or his sign demand. Rather, the angel’s response is (1) a challenge (v. 14), (2) a guarantee of the Lord’s presence and victory over the Midianites (v. 16), and (3) consumption by fire of Gideon’s sign/present (episode 4, 6:19–24). That Gideon, even before raising a hand, is assured of victory by the divine messenger indicates that “the tension in the story does not reside in whether or not Gideon will succeed, but rather in how he will succeed” (Culley 1992: 105).

It is odd that Gideon’s father would have his own altar to the Canaanite Baal, plus an Asherah pole near it. (An “Asherah pole” refers to Asherah, the female element of divinity in Canaanite religion, who was the wife of El, the head of the pantheon at Ugarit. The term refers to either a tree [Deut. 16:21] or a wooden pole [Exod. 34:13], which was removed either by cutting it down [karat, Judg. 6:25; gadaʿ, Deut. 7:5] or by burning it [Deut. 12:3].)

If his father’s possessions are suspect, so is the new name he gives his son: Jerubbaal (6:32). Here we have the oddity of a Hebrew, who himself has a Yahwistic name, “Joash” (“Yahweh has given”), giving his son a Baal name! And Gideon hardly commends himself to the reader by destroying the pole and altar at night for fear of both his family and the townspeople of Ophrah (6:27).

That the spirit of the Lord takes possession of Gideon (episode 6, 6:33–35) should harbinger better things ahead. Actually, Judg. 6:34 says, “And the spirit of the Lord clothed [lavash] Gideon.” This verb is used again with the spirit of God coming on somebody only in two later sources in the Old Testament: 1 Chron. 12:18, “then the spirit clothed Amasai,” and 2 Chron. 24:20, “then the spirit of God clothed Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada.” To clothe, or to invest, means to authorize, to empower.

But in spite of his charismatic endowment, Gideon remains skeptical. Hence, his two famous tests involving the fleece of wool and the threshing floor (episode 7, 6:36–40). The first test is the more predictable one: wet fleece, dry ground. The fleece would normally retain the night dew and moisture, while the ground would absorb it. The second test (dry fleece, wet ground) is, then, the more abnormal.

Believers, trying to ascertain God’s will, often do so, they say, by “putting out a fleece” (à la Gideon). “If you want me to do this, then let such-and-such happen.” Whether Gideon’s fleece serves as a model of one way of finding God’s will has advocates and opponents. Perhaps something in the text will tilt the matter toward the latter. First, note the decided preference for “the Lord” or “the Lord your God” so far versus “God” in the Gideon story: 6:1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34 (“angel of God” does occur in v. 20.) Suddenly in this incident “Lord” is replaced exclusively by the more generic “God” (vv. 36, 39, 40). Second, although Gideon is the only judge to whom God speaks directly in Judges, this is one of only two incidents (the other is 7:13–14) in which “the deity is described as sending a communication without any divine words being reported” (Polzin 1980: 171–72).

While Gideon, having assembled a large number of troops, prepares to engage the enemy in battle, Yahweh pulls a surprise on him (episode 8, 7:1–8). Yahweh first reduces Gideon’s army from twenty-two thousand to ten thousand (7:3). Those who return home do so because they are the “fearful and trembling” ones. This dismissal reflects the teachings on waging holy war as spelled out in Deut. 20:8: “Is anyone afraid or disheartened? He should go back to his house, or he might cause the heart of his comrades to melt like his own.” But Gideon himself is still fearful (7:10)! The final chopping, as God “cuts down” the size of Gideon’s army, reduces the troop number from ten thousand to three hundred (7:6). Those who lap water from their hands, go; those who kneel to drink, stay. To be sure, God is trying to teach Gideon that he is a God who can save by little or by much, and that counting on God is more important than counting noses. But there is more. As Tanner (1992: 157) has observed, “The reduction of the army does more than emphasize God’s ability.… It is dealing with a struggle within Gideon.” If he found it hard to believe God with a force of twenty-two thousand, what will he do with a meager force of three hundred?

What finally brings Gideon to full belief is a dream he overhears one Midianite telling another Midianite (episode 9, 7:9–14). But that is certainly both ironic and pathetic. “Hearing the promise from a Midianite soldier convinced him, but not hearing it directly from God” (Tanner 1992: 159). But then again, this may be but another way in the Gideon story by which Yahweh speaks to his servant: (1) a prophet; (2) an angelophany; (3) fire; (4) direct speech; (5) the dew; (6) an overheard dream and its interpretation (Standaert 1996: 200).

The actual account of Gideon’s attack (episodes 10, 11; 7:15–25) describes a nocturnal campaign. This tactic reflects the nomad’s dislike of nighttime fighting. His three hundred troops are armed only with musical instruments (“trumpets”), household commodities (“jars”), and incendiary devices (“torches”). Unexpected noise (during the tranquil night) and unexpected light (during the dark night) are Gideon’s weapons.

A victorious war behind him, Gideon finds himself faced with an internal threat to Israel’s intertribal unity (episode 12, 8:1–3). Ephraim protests being excluded from the first military rally of tribes. Actually, the verb “upbraided” in 8:1 is rib, the verb in the first part of Gideon’s other name, yerubbaʿal. The Ephraimites contend with Gideon. It is not just that the Ephraimites feel slighted; their absence may mean a loss of their share of the war spoils.

The accusation of the Ephraimites against Gideon may be compared with their accusation later against Jephthah (12:1). Gideon’s way to solve the crisis is more salutary than that of Jephthah. The latter, concerned only to exonerate himself, slaughters forty-two thousand of the malcontents (12:6)! Gideon, by contrast, assuages deep emotional feelings by placing a premium on the Ephraimites’ role thus far—they killed two of the Midianite captains, Oreb and Zeeb. They are mollified by Gideon’s proverblike expression “Is not the gleaning of grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?” Interpreted, that seems to say, “The limited effort of the strong is better than the major effort of the weak” (Fontaine 1982: 82). Indeed, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Prov. 15:1). Further, “To make an apt answer is a joy to anyone, and a word in season, how good it is!” (Prov. 15:23).

The next few episodes (13–15, 8:4–21) describe Gideon’s crossing the Jordan in pursuit of the Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna. We the readers assume that Gideon, lacking any specific divine directive, does this only to complete his victory over the Midianites, the safe escape of two major figures being a flaw in an otherwise successful campaign. But that is not the reason at all. We discover, to our surprise, that Gideon pursues these two fugitives for personal motivation, to avenge the death of his own (half-)brothers at the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna (8:18–19). The narrative has nowhere referred to Gideon’s brothers, dead or alive. And in the process, he reaks havoc against the contract-breaching, nonsupporting Manassite towns of Succoth and Penuel (familiar from the Jacob story in Genesis: 32:22–32 [Penuel/Peniel]; 33:17 [Succoth]), leading Klein (1988: 62) to say, “This judge seems to have no compunctions about torturing or killing those Israelites who have doubts in him.”

On the surface at least, Gideon, on the heels of his victory, rejects an offer from his people to establish hereditary, dynastic leadership (episode 16, 8:22–28). But that being the case, is it not ironic that Gideon names his son by the Shechemite concubine “Abimelech,” that is, “my father [is] king” (8:31)? The desire of the Israelites to put into the head office of the land an individual who has been eminently successful in war finds a parallel in America and the movement of General Eisenhower to President Eisenhower.

But what Gideon does do is offer “an alternative to his own rule: his own religion!” (Stone 1992: 337). Like Aaron, who collected jewelry to make the golden calf (Exod. 32:1–4), Gideon collects earrings from the people, and together with materials taken from the Midianite camels and kings, makes an ephod (8:24–27). Ordinarily, the ephod is an apronlike garment worn by the high priest that covers the loins and is suspended from two shoulder pieces. It is made of gold, of blue, red, and purple woolen threads, and of fine linen (Exod. 28:6–14). There is also a linen ephod worn by an ordinary priest (1 Sam. 2:18; 22:18; cf. 2 Sam. 6:14 [David]), and an oracular ephod (1 Sam. 23:6–14), although the same basic garment may be intended in all these texts. Judges 8:27 makes Gideon’s ephod seem to be a statue; yet it is possible that merely the ornamental garments gave the object a statuelike appearance.

In any case, the ephod turns out to be an idolatrous cult implement. Interestingly and sadly, the only other place in Judges where the root zanah (“go a whoring after,” kjv) is used to describe promiscuous idolatry, apart from the introductory 2:17, is in the Gideon story. The verb is present in 8:27, “And all Israel prostituted themselves to it there,” and in 8:33, “As soon as Gideon died, the Israelites relapsed and prostituted themselves with the Baals” (Stone 1988: 303).

Gideon exits the scene, and the forty years of peace for the land (8:28c), while welcomed, is confined clearly to Gideon’s lifetime—“rest for forty years in the days of Gideon.” Those who outlive and live after Gideon (8:33–35) look much like the generation that comes after Joshua.

The climactic charge brought against the Israelites in these post-Gideon days is that they did not “exhibit loyalty” to the house of Jerubbaal/Gideon (v. 35). The Hebrew word for “loyalty” is khesed. This charge of no khesed means one of two things: either Israel as a whole did not come to the rescue of Gideon’s seventy sons from Abimelech and Shechem (ch. 9) (Sakenfeld 1978: 57), or once they found out about the massacre, they did nothing to bring the murderers to justice (Clark 1993: 222).

F. Abimelech (9:1–57)

The death of Gideon and his refusal of royal dignity (8:23) open the door for his concubine’s son, Abimelech from Shechem (8:31), to seize that power in Shechem and do so by an act of massive fatricide—killing his seventy half-brothers. That all this violence and illegal usurpation should take place in the city of Shechem, where Joshua earlier had led his people in the renewal of their covenant vows to Yahweh (Joshua 24), makes Abimelech’s actions even more heinous. It is certainly no accident that Yahweh never appears or speaks, or is mentioned in this chapter. Jotham uses “God” (v. 7), as does the narrator (vv. 23, 56, 57), but neither employ “Yahweh.”

Following Boogart (1985: 52–53) with a few minor changes, we may outline the Abimelech story as follows:

I. Opening Narrative (vv. 1–22): the evil of Abimelech and of Shechem’s lords

A. vv. 1–6: the elimination of potential rivals via fratricide

B. vv. 7–21: Jotham’s poetic fable and its prosaic application

C. v. 22: Abimelech is allowed to rule for three years

II. Transition (vv. 23–25): God sends an evil spirit, which will result in future retribution on Abimelech and on Shechem’s lords

III. Closing Narrative (vv. 26–41): retribution visited on Abimelech and on Shechem’s lords, and vv. 23–25 actualized

A. vv. 26–41: Gaal ben-Ebed challenges Abimelech, only to be routed by Abimelech

B. vv. 42–45: Abimelech murders the ordinary people of Shechem

C. vv. 46–49: Abimelech kills the lords at Migdal-Shechem as they seek refuge

D. vv. 50–54: Abimelech himself is killed

E. v. 55: everybody “goes home” after Abimelech’s death

IV. Conclusion (vv. 56–57): God has repaid Abimelech and the guilty Shechemites for their dastardly deeds, thus fulfilling Jotham’s curse on them

Abimelech uses his Shechemite connections to the fullest to persuade the “lords” of Shechem (the leading citizens or some kind of small presbyterian council) that it is in their best interest to have one ruler rather than seventy, monarchy rather than polyarchy. They agree not only with his argument, but also with the means of eliminating the opposition, which they bankroll by taking funds from their temple treasury (v. 4). The fraternal rivals gone, Abimelech is made king (v. 6).

One brother, Jotham, escapes the bloodbath and goes to nearby Mount Gerizim, where he utters his famous fable (Vater Solomon 1985: 114–25). While the majority of fables involve talking animals, this one involves talking plants/trees. The olive tree, the fig tree, and the (grape) vine all reject the invitation to reign over their fellow trees. Finally, the bramble bush readily accepts and invites all the other trees to seek protection under the shade of his kingship. The bramble bush being the fourth after a preceding three (olive, fig, grape, bramble) seems to be another illustration in the Old Testament of a threefold reference that climaxes with the fourth. Recall Delilah’s four attempts to wrest from Samson the secret of his strength, with only her final one being successful (Judg. 16:6–9, 10–12, 13–14, 15–21); or Yahweh’s call of young Samuel, the divine source of which is perceived only on the fourth time (1 Sam. 3:4–5, 6–7, 8–9, 10–14); or Noah’s sending out from the ark a raven and then a dove three times, and on this last time the dove does not return (Gen. 8:6–7, 8–9, 10–11, 12); or Job’s four tragedies, of which the last one is the climatic one (Job 1:13–15, 16, 17, 18–19).

But do thorns offer protection? Why allow “Rex Thorn” to reign? The issue here is the stupidity of the coronators. The fable is “directed primarily against those who were foolish enough to anoint a worthless man as king, and, secondarily, against the worthless king himself” (Maly 1960: 304). A thorn promising protection will become a thorn in the side, but the convincing rhetoric of the candidate blinds them to reality.

For three years, while Abimelech rules, God does nothing to change the situation (v. 22). (Compare Absalom’s avenging the rape of his sister Tamar, but not until two years later [2 Sam. 13:23].) It is of interest that while the previous verses have used the verb malak (and noun melek, “king”) frequently (v. 6, “they made Abimelech king”; vv. 8, 10, 12, 14, “reign over us”; v. 15 “if … you are anointing me king over you”), v. 22 does not use the verb malak for “reign, rule.” Rather, it uses the verb sarar, which “denotes the exercise of power at a level lower than that wielded by kings” (Stone 1988: 382). Abimelech is no king, but a tyrant.

This time God sends not his benevolent spirit to empower and equip, but an “evil spirit” between, not on, Abimelech and his Shechemite supporters (v. 23). The concept of an evil spirit sent from God finds a parallel with Saul. After the departure of the spirit of the Lord from Saul, there came “an evil spirit from the Lord” to torment him (1 Sam. 16:14; cf. similar phraseology in 1 Sam. 16:15; 18:10; 19:9). In fact, at many points the kingship style and career of Abimelech matches that of Saul (O’Connell 1996: 291–92). What the seventy brothers are to Abimelech, David is to Saul (or so thinks Saul): rivals. In both cases, Yahweh sends an evil spirit on a king lacking integrity and righteousness. Both kings slaughter large groups of people. Jotham’s fable matches Samuel’s rebuke of Saul. Both kings, while seriously wounded, request an armor bearer to end their life (Judg. 9:54; 1 Sam. 31:4).

We should not understand “evil spirit” as referring to some supernatural force or demon sent by God as a wedge. Nor is the evil spirit sent by Satan or some other cosmic archdemon. The sender is God. What “evil spirit” means here is a disruptive, alienating, and gradually burgeoning divisiveness between a king and his crowners. Amicability gives way in stages to hostility.

The first to attempt to put a chink in Abimelech’s armor comes in the form of Gaal son of Ebed (v. 26–41). He is, however, hardly a foe to challenge Abimelech. He is a laughable, pathetic figure, possibly intoxicated at the time (v. 27), and it appears that the “antidote is worse than the poison” (Klein 1988: 74). Abimelech quickly and effortlessly dispatches him.

But such challenges to his position only enrage a pathological Abimelech and send him on further rampages, first against the citizenry of Shechem (vv. 42–45), and then against approximately one thousand men and women hiding out in a temple at the Tower of Shechem (most likely a tiny city located in the area of Shechem’s jurisdiction) (vv. 46–49).

It is difficult to sheathe anger and retaliation once they have been unsheathed. Thus, Abimelech attacks Thebez (v. 50–55), a town located about twelve miles northeast of Shechem. Abimelech almost succeeds again in a mass killing. This time, however, he is thwarted by a woman up in the tower who “throws” (interestingly, the text does not say “drops”) a millstone on his head, crushing his skull (v. 53). His death hardly encourages mourning. The text simply states, “When the Israelites saw that Abimelech was dead, they all went home” (v. 55)—no weeping, no burial, no lamentation, no repentance (Polzin 1980: 174).

Janzen (1987) has caught the irony of this incident by noticing the various uses of the adjective “one” throughout the chapter, the preposition “on” (ʿal), and the noun “head”:

v. 2: “Which is better … or that one [ʾekhad] rule over you?”

v. 5: “Jerubbaal killed his brothers on [ʿal] one [ʾekhat] stone.”

v. 18: “You have killed his sons on [ʿal] one [ʾekhat] stone.”

v. 37: “Gaal spoke, ‘one [ʾekhad] company [ro’sh] is coming’ ”

v. 53: “But a certain [ʾakhat] woman threw an upper millstone on [ʿal] Abimelech’s head [ro’sh].”

v. 57: “God made all the wickedness … fall back on their heads [ro’sham].”

The retribution visited on Abimelech moves beyond simply the one who kills with a stone himself being killed by a stone. Here, as Janzen (1987: 35) states, “One who would rule Shechem single-handedly as its head (v. 37), and who to that end killed seventy brothers upon (ʿal) a single stone, in the end is killed by a single woman who drops a millstone, upon (ʿal) his head.”

The last two verses of the chapter (vv. 56–57) give a theological verdict. All that happened to Abimelech (v. 56) and to the lords of Shechem (v. 57) is the result of God punishing them for their ruthlessness and wave of carnage, beginning with that perpetrated on Gideon’s surviving family. The punishment fits the crime.

The italicized words in “God repaid Abimelech for the crime he committed” (v. 56) and “God made all the wickedness of the people of Shechem fall back on their heads” (v. 57) are the same in Hebrew. Both use the Hiphil of shuv + raʿah. Thus, literally, “God returned the evil of Abimelech” and “All the evil of the men of Shechem God returned upon their heads.” The construction appears again, in Gen. 50:15, on the lips of Joseph’s brothers: “What if … he pays us back in full for all the wrong we did to him?” and in 1 Sam. 25:39: “The Lord has returned the evildoing of Nabal upon his own head.”

G. Two Lists of Minor Judges (10:1–5; 12:8–15)

Including Shamgar (3:31), whom we have already discussed, five other judges receive brief mention in chs. 3–16: Tola (10:1–2); Jair (10:3–5); Ibzan (12:8–10); Elon (12:11–12); Abdon (12:13–15). It is common to refer to these six individuals as the minor judges to distinguish them from their six counterparts, the major judges. This distinction, however, is arbitrary, as much as the distinction between major prophets (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah) and minor prophets (e.g., Hosea, Amos). The biblical text itself never makes such a dichotomy.

There have been several attempts to distinguish between these two groups of judges vis-à-vis their office and responsibility. For example, one suggestion, advanced by the brilliant scholar Martin Noth, is that we have in these two sets of judges two distinct groups. Noting that the major judges engage consistently in battle and are spirit-inspired in contradistinction to the minor ones, he suggests that they were charismatic leaders who appear sporadically on the scene in premonarchic Israel when crises emerged, and who were not judges at all. These gifted leaders represent the anthithesis of institutionalized, routinized governmental administration. By contrast, the minor judges were real judges, the proclaimers of the law to the nascent Israelite community. Only when the traditions about the charismatics and the judges were conjoined by the Deuteronomistic historian was the title of the latter extended to the former.

Noth’s reconstruction, while appealing and containing more than a germ of plausibility, is increasingly suspect, if only because the attempt to assign military responsibilities to one group and juridical/civil responsibilities to the other lacks the necessary confirming evidence, and appears not to be supported by the text itself. Hauser (1975: 190) seems more on target when he suggests, “The only legitimate distinction between these categories is one which refers to the length and style of the literary material preserved in the case of each figure.”

The form in which the minor judge figures appear, exluding Shamgar, is as follows, with “PN” indicating a personal name and “n” indicating a number (and see Halpern 1983: 190):

I. Introduction

A. After PN1 arose PN2 (+ tribal/geographical detail) (10:1, 3), or,

B. After him PN (+ tribal/geographical detail) judged Israel (12:8, 11, 13)

II. A notice about children (10:4 [after III]; 12:9, 14)

III. The length of the judging

He judged Israel n years (10:2a, 3b; 12:9d, 11b, 14c)

IV. Death and burial

PN died and was buried in (place name) (10:2b, 5; 12:7b, 10, 12, 15)

Some of these four elements are also present in a few of the major-judge units. For example, the Jephthah story contains elements III (12:7a) and IV (12:7b). The same goes for the Gideon unit, which contains elements II (8:30) and IV (8:32). Element III is present in the Samson story in 15:20 and 16:31c.

The presence of parallels between major- and minor-judge units suggests that the distinction between these two should not be forced. Also, note that the parallels are with the Gideon-Jephthah-Samson portion rather than with the Othniel-Ehud-Deborah portion, suggesting some kind of connection between these lesser-known judges and the three last, more prominent ones.

In fact, the three placements of the minor judges come at interesting points:

I. Ehud (3:12–30)—Shamgar (3:31)—Deborah (4:1–5:31)

II. Gideon and Abimelech (6:1–9:57)—Tola, Jair (10:1–5)—Jephthah (10:6–12:7)

III. Jephthah (10:6–12:7)—Ibzan, Elon, Abdon (12:8–15)—Samson (13:1–16:31)

Or, we may observe how the minor judges are bookends to the Jephthah story:

Tola, Jair (10:1–5)—Jephthah (10:6–12:7)—Ibzan, Elon, Abdon (12:8–15)

Thus, the first minor judge comes between Ehud and Deborah, two eminently successful judges. Tola and Jair come between two judges with major flaws in their character and performance. The last three minor judges come between Jephthah, a seriously flawed judge, and Samson, a parade example of charisma gone sour.

It is only with the first and second set of minor judges that the verb “deliver, save” (yashaʿ) occurs—with Shamgar in 3:31 and with Tola in 10:1. In fact, Tola appears specifically to save Israel from the bloody, macabre effects of Abimelech’s rule (“After Abimelech, Tola … rose to deliver Israel”). That there is no reference to the land enjoying rest after Abimelech’s reign would indicate that the “after” points not merely to “some time later” but to a more “intimate temporal sequence” (Mullen 1982: 194). No minor judge in the third set is said to deliver Israel.

Nor is it said of any judge in the last set that “he arose,” as in 10:1, 3. The use of the verb qum (“rise”) in the Qal stem there finds its best parallel with 2:16, 18 (the introduction), 3:9 (Othniel), and 3:15 (Ehud), all of which use the Hiphil stem of qum for the divine upraising of the judges.

Also, the total years of the first two minor judges’ judging (Tola, 23 + Jair, 22 = 55) is over twice that of the last three minor judges (Ibzan, 7 + Elon, 10 + Abdon, 8 = 25). All this provides further evidence of the fact that, if Gideon-Jephthah-Samson do not “stack up” against Othniel-Ehud-Deborah, neither do Ibzan-Elon-Abdon against Tola-Jair-Shamgar.

With the exception of Shamgar, none of these minor judges engages in military action. At least, the text records none. They simply “judged Israel” or “judged Israel n years.” Military action is probably implied for Tola in 10:1, simply because everywhere else “deliver” is used in Judges it refers to military action (2:16, 18; 3:9, 15, 31; 6:14, 15, 36; 8:22; 13:5; see also, in a bit different light, “deliver” in 10:11, 12; 12:2–3 [Hauser 1975: 199]).

And yet, the war machine is quiet with these minor judges. None of them, so the text, ever were the recipient of a divine afflatus and empowerment. They simply did their job without fanfare, did their job well, and did it sucessfully. Their only claim to fame in Scripture’s annals is a verse or two with a modicum of details. Perhaps their presence in Judges indicates that one of the fundamental needs of the people of God is “order, not heroics; character, not charisma” (Stone 1992: 339).

H. Jephthah (10:6–12:7)

The Jephthah story has five major units:

1. 10:6–16: Israelite evil (v. 6) provokes Yahweh’s response of judgment via the Ammonites (vv. 7–9), which in turn evokes Israel’s repentance (vv. 10, 15–16a) and a second response from Yahweh (vv. 11–14, 16b).

2. 10:17–11:11: Under siege by the Ammonites, the residents of Gilead by consensus select Jephthah to be their military leader, only after Jephthah elicits a guarantee of permanent civil leadership if victorious in battle.

3. 11:12–28: Jephthah attempts, unsuccessfully, to resolve the dispute with the Ammonites through diplomacy.

4. 11:29–40: Upon receiving the divine spirit, Jephthah makes his infamous vow that if he returns victorious from battle, he will offer whoever comes out of his house to meet him upon his return as an offering to Yahweh, and so he sacrifices his daughter.

5. 12:1–7: Jephthah responds to the complaints of the Ephraimites by a massive slaughtering of the malcontents; he dies and is buried somewhere in Gilead.

(1) In some ways, the first of these five sections, 10:6–16, parallels other introductory portions of the judge stories. Israel is “sold” into the hands of an oppressor because of infidelity, because of “again doing evil” before Yahweh. Israel “cries” to Yahweh and he responds.

However, several items set this introduction apart from others. First, this is the only place where Yahweh sells/gives over his people for oppressive judgment to two nations: “and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites” (v. 7b). Since only the latter appear in the Jephthah story, and the former appear in the ensuing Samson story, then possibly we should read these few verses as prelude to both the Jephthah and Samson stories.

Second, this is the only time where we are not only told that Israel cried to Yahweh, but also are informed of the content of that cry. Not once, but twice (vv. 10, 15), Israel acknowledges “we have sinned,” and once tells Yahweh specifically the nature of that sin (“We have abandoned our God and worshiped the Baals”). While communal confession (“we have sinned”) is common enough in the Old Testament (Num. 12:11; 14:40; 21:7; Deut. 1:41; 1 Sam. 7:6; 12:10; 1 Kings 8:47; Neh. 1:6; Jer. 14:20; Dan. 9:5, 8), this is the only place where such confession is recorded in the book of Judges.

One may debate whether confession of sin or the acknowledgment of the presence of sin is the same as the repudiation and repentance of sin (and this Judges passage does use confession language rather than repentance language); nevertheless, the confessional cry appears genuine if their appeal “deliver us this day” (v. 15b) includes a desire for deliverance not only from the Ammonites, but also from the evil that brought on the Ammonites.

The third unique item here is God’s response. He is far from pleased. On the contrary, he appears to reject their confession, and instead counsels them to call on these surrogate gods they have pursued to see if they are saving and delivering gods (v. 14).

Verse 16 is a difficult verse to interpret, especially because of its second half. The first part is clear enough and self-explanatory, and the actions described therein commendable: “they put away the foreign gods among them and worshiped the Lord.” There is no problem if one reads the last part of the verse as “and he could no longer bear to see Israel suffer” (nrsv) or “and he could bear Israel’s misery no longer” (niv). That is, God responds to their confession and putting away of foreign gods with “enough is enough.” Compassionate Yahweh finds Israel’s continued misery unendurable (Webb 1987: 48).

Others, however, read the phrase differently: “he grew annoyed [or impatient] with the troubled efforts of Israel” (Polzin 1980: 177); or “his soul became short [or aggravated] at Israel’s toil” (Stone 1988: 320–23; 1992: 340). According to this reading, Yahweh’s response to Israel’s sin, oppression, and confession is not compassion, but extreme aggravation.

The problem lies in how best to translate the verb qatsar (“to be short”) (15× in the Old Testament) and the noun ʿamal (“labor, toil”) (55× in the Old Testament) in this verse. The closest verbal parallels to Judg. 10:16b are Num. 21:4 and Zech. 11:8, because all three have the verb qatsar with the subject nephesh (“soul”), followed by a word to which the preposition be is prefixed and which expresses the cause of the shortness/impatience: “the people became impatient on [because of] the way” (Num. 21:4); “for I had become impatient with them” (Zech. 11:8). Judges 16:16 uses the verb qatsar and the subject nephesh, but not the preposition be attached to a following word: “After she had nagged him … he was tired to death.”

Perhaps the passage is intentionally ambiguous, for it may designate either Yahweh’s growing impatience with those troubling Israel, or Yahweh’s growing impatience with Israel’s self-imposed troubles. Those who favor the first interpretation distinguish sharply between Yahweh’s first response (vv. 11–14) and second response (v. 16b), a move from rejection to compassion. Those who favor the second interpretation will read Yahweh’s second response as reinforcing his first.

(2) In 10:17–11:11 we meet Jephthah. From the start he is a paradox. Negatively, he is “the son of a prostitute” and his father is “Gilead” (which is another way of saying, “who his father was, nobody knows; it could be just about any Gileadite man who had visited this unnamed prostitute”). Positively, he is “a mighty warrior.” Thus, he combines “the desirable with the unacceptable” (Exum 1989: 64).

Jephthah is the only judge among the major judges not given to the people as judge/deliverer directly by Yahweh. Rather, this rejected one (11:2) now becomes the accepted one by popular acclaim (11:6, 8, 10). It is not difficult to connect Jephthah’s words in 11:7 (“Are you not the very ones who rejected me.… So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?”) with Yahweh’s words to Israel in the previous section (“You have abandoned me.… Go and cry to the gods you have chosen” [10:13–14]). Jephthah drives a hard bargain, for which he holds most of the chips. He spurns the offer of (temporary) military commander (“be our commander” [11:6]), only to press for the (permanent) civilian leadership of Gilead (“become head over us” [11:8]; “I will be your head,” [11:9]). He obtains both positions (“and the people made him head and commander” [11:11]; note which comes first).

(3) Before he becomes militant, Jephthah attempts to be diplomatic (11:12–28). Via messengers, he reminds the king of the Ammonites of Israel’s past history in the Transjordan area in the Mosaic era, in what one author has called “a remarkable but entirely credible command of the minutiae of the ancestral migration from Nile to Jordan” (Sternberg 1985: 116).

Jephthah recalls Israel’s previous interactions with Edom (v. 17a), Moab (vv. 17b–18), and King Sihon of the Amorites (vv. 19–21), ending with Israel’s occupation of all the territory “from the Arnon [north] to the Jabbok,” about fifty miles (v. 22). Moab first occupied this strip of land in the Transjordan, but then it was conquered by Sihon (Num. 21:26, “Sihon … fought against the former king of Moab and captured all its land as far as the Arnon”). By the time of Jephthah, the Ammonites have claimed it (cf. Jer. 49:1–2).

This Moabite/Ammonite occupation of the same strip of land may explain why Jephthah says in v. 24, “Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess?” This is the one place where Chemosh is the god of the Ammonites. Elsewhere their god is Milcom/Molech (1 Kings 11:5, 7, 33; Jer. 49:1, 3). Chemosh, on the other hand, is the god of the Moabites (1 Kings 11:7, 33). Or else, Jephthah is guilty of a “diplomatic faux pas” (Gunn and Fewell 1993: 115).

And if his knowledge of who’s who among the gods of neighboring peoples is false, so is his theology questionable: “You possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess, and we will possess everything that the Lord our God has conquered for our benefit.” Hardly a monotheistic creed! At best, it is henotheism, the worship of one god but recognizing that other people worship other legitimate gods. Again, this may be more a part of the give-and-take for the courtesy of political diplomacy than an expression of Jephthah’s theology.

It is predictable that Jephthah’s final proposal, “Let the Lord, who is judge, decide today for the Israelites or for the Ammonites” (v. 27), will not be enthusiastically accepted by the Ammonites. Should the Ammonites allow the final arbiter to be the God of Israel (v. 28) (Klein 1988: 89)?

(4) Jephthah is the third judge after Othniel (3:10) and Gideon (6:34) to receive a divine charisma, the gift of the spirit of the Lord (11:29). The parallels between Gideon and Jephthah are particularly telling in that each does something far from commendable and exemplary immediately after receiving Yahweh’s spirit:

Gideon

Jephthah

Receives the spirit (6:34).

Receives the spirit (11:29).

↓

↓

Makes a test for God

Makes a vow to God

↓

↓

involving an “if … then” construction (6:36–40, esp. v. 37).

involving an “if … then” construction (11:30–40).

↓

↓

God responds to the test.

God accepts the payment of the vow.

Jephthah’s vow is well known. He promises that if God grants him victory over the Ammonites, “whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me … shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering” (11:30b–31).

This vow is like others in the Old Testament:

1. Gen. 28:20–21: “Then Jacob made a vow saying, ‘If God will be with me … then the Lord shall be my God.’ ”

2. Num. 21:2: “Then Israel made a vow to the Lord and said, ‘If you will indeed give this people into our hands, then we will utterly destroy their towns.’ ”

3. 1 Sam. 1:11: “She [Hannah] made this vow: ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant … give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death.’ ”

4. 2 Sam. 15:8: “For your servant [Absalom] made a vow.… If the Lord will bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will worship the Lord in Hebron.”

Several characteristics of biblical vows emerge when Jephthah’s vow and these four vows are grouped together. First, all vows are directed to God. Second, vows are promissory. The person making the vow promises to do something if the right circumstances eventuate. Third, vows are conditional. They start with a protasis introduced by “if …” and conclude with an apodosis introduced by “then.…” This is what distinguishes a vow from an oath. An oath is also promissory (see, e.g., the oath made by David that Solomon would succeed him [1 Kings 1:13, 17, 30]), but usually not conditional (Milgrom 1990: 488). Fourth, vows involve dedication of something or somebody to God or the sanctuary (for Jacob, tithing; for the Israelites, the Canaanite spoils of war as kherem; for Jephthah, his daughter as a sacrifice; for Hannah, her son as a lifelong Nazirite in the sanctuary; for Absalom, sacrifices offered at Hebron). Fifth, vows are made in situations of anxiety, such as the need of a safe return home after an extended absence, facing a military engagement, or starting a family (Parker 1979: 699).

Scripture speaks of the importance of “paying” one’s vows (e.g., Ps. 116:14, 18; Prov. 7:14), and accordingly warns against impulsive vows, which, if unfulfilled, arouse God’s wrath (Prov. 20:25; Eccl. 5:4–6). Scripture makes no provision for withdrawing or annulling a vow made to God. That would be done later by postbiblical rabbinic tradition: “Four kinds of vows the sages have declared not to be binding: vows of incitement, vows of exaggeration, vows made in error, and vows of constraint” (Mishnah Nedarim 3:1).

It is unlikely that Jephthah anticipated that, upon returning home from battle, he would be met by a servant or some kind of an animal. In fact, the verbs “come out” and “meet” (11:31, and again in v. 34 with the addition of “timbrels” and “dancing”) appear in 1 Sam. 18:6–7. In both, female dancers come out to meet returning, successful male warriors/survivors. Exodus 15:20–21 uses the word “come out,” but not “meet,” to refer to the actions of Miriam and other women just after Yahweh’s deliverance of his people from the pursuing Egyptians. Thus, for Jephthah, who better than his daughter to come out and meet him after eliminating the Ammonites?

The clear reading of the text is that Jephthah did indeed sacrifice his daughter: “he did to her according to the vow he had made” (v. 39). Only twice in the Old Testament is a human being a “burnt offering”: Jephthah’s daughter (Judg. 11:31) and Isaac (Gen. 22:2). There are other parallels between these two stories; for example, Isaac is Abraham’s “only” son (Gen. 22:2), and the daughter is Jephthah’s “only” child (11:34), and in both somebody goes to the mountains (Gen. 22:2; Judg. 11:37). Unlike the Abraham story, in the Jephthah story God supplies no surrogate sacrifice for the daughter.

To make matters worse, Jephthah places the blame on his daughter! “You have brought me very low [karaʿ, used also to refer to a soldier who has been felled, as earlier in the Song of Deborah: “he [Sisera] sank … at her feet” (5:27)]; you have become the cause of great trouble to me” (11:35). Apparently, he is unaware that he has become the cause of great trouble to his daughter and to God.

Her only request is that she be allowed two months to wander on the mountains and bewail her virginity, accompanied by her friends (v. 37). The source of the daughter’s tears is manifold. She will die husbandless. She will die childless. She will die without ever being sexual. She will die with an unfulfilled life. She will die an unnatural death. She will die a premature death. She will die a violent death (Trible 1984: 104; Gerstein 1989: 192). It is not without significance that she “opts to spend her remaining days not with Jephthah, but with other young women who will be with her and grieve her fate and remember her” (Gunn and Fewell 1993: 116).

Jephthah is remembered by generations to come (he is cited affirmatively in 1 Sam. 12:11 and Heb. 11:32). But so is his daughter, at least four days of every year (v. 40). The nrsv says that her death is “lamented” on those four days. Elsewhere, this verb (tanah) is translated “sing, tell, recite,” as in Judg. 5:11, and maybe means that here too. The daughter’s death is “commemorated” four days of every year, lest others forget (Bal 1989: 226–27).

(5) The last unit in the Jephthah story is 12:1–7. The story line does not improve. This time Jephthah is involved with some of his own people, the Ephraimites, who are upset because Jephthah was delinquent in not calling them to battle against the Ammonites (v. 1), suggesting either hurt egos or the loss of war spoils.

Jephthah, who had engaged in such polite diplomacy with the Ammonites (11:12–28), is not nearly so diplomatic with his own flesh and blood. So enraged is he by their diatribe, that he orders the Gileadites into battle against them, and to block the fords of the Jordan and there give the Ephraimite fugitives a word test. If they could say “shibboleth,” they were allowed to cross over. But the Ephraimites could only say “sibboleth,” thus revealing their tribal connections. Jephthah promptly murdered forty-two thousand of them!

“Shibboleth” is a Hebrew homonym that can mean “ear of corn” (Gen. 41:5, 6, 7, 22, 23, 24—Pharaoh’s dream of the seven healthy ears of grain and seven emaciated ears of grain) or “channel of water” (Isa. 27:12; Ps. 69:2, 15). The majority of commentators believe that this shibboleth/sibboleth incident reveals dialectical differences among the tribes of Israel; different tribes pronounced the s sign differently. To use a modern example, it is as if the Ephraimites could not say “God save the king,” but only “God shave the king.”

Possibly it has nothing to do with dialectical differences in early Israel at all. It may indicate merely that the Ephraimites were not only malcontents, but also that they could not even repeat a test word spoken first by the Gileadite guards (Marcus 1992: 100). The text states that the Gileadite troops used the word first: “Say ‘shibboleth.’ ” They did not silently hold up a picture of an ear of corn and ask, “What is this?” To give a modern example, a New Englander, faced with a map of the Caribbean and asked to identify the island immediately to the south of Florida, will probably say “Cubar.” But asked to say “Cuba,” he or she probably will say “Cuba.”

The death count of the Ephraimites is staggering: forty-two thousand. That number is higher than the number of adult male troops of first-generation Ephraimites (40,500 [Num. 1:33]) and of the second-generation Ephraimites (32,500 [Num. 26:37])!

Furthermore, Jephthah kills more of his tribal brothers than all the judges together kill of the enemy:

Jephthah—42,000 Ephraimites

Ehud

—

10,000 (3:29)

Deborah

—

901 (approx.) (4:3, 21)

Gideon

—

4 (7:25, 8:21)

Samson

—

30 (14:19)

—

1000 (15:15)

—

3000 (16:27)

total

—

14,935

Of course, there are more than some fifteen thousand enemy casualties if one includes phrases like “Othniel went out to war” (3:10), or Gideon’s strategy that caused the Midianites in a panic to kill each other (7:22), or Jephthah inflicting “a massive defeat on the Ammonites” (11:33) in which the count of enemy dead is not given. Nevertheless, Jephthah, it appears, is a far greater threat to Israel than are the Ammonites!

A comparison of the three times that the Ephraimites appear opposite a major judge further exposes this downward trend in Judges (Ehud, 3:27–29; Gideon, 8:1–3; Jephthah, 12:1–6). Ehud uses these mighty men of valor to eliminate the Moabites. Gideon assuages them. Jephthah slaughters them.

For the first time in Judges, we do not see “the land had rest for [x] years” (3:11; 3:30; 5:31; 8:28) after/during the career of a major judge. How can there be rest following such a tumultuous period?

And also for the first time, the years of oppression outnumber the years of rest for the land or the tenure of the judge (Stone 1992: 341).

Years of oppression

Years of rest/tenure

Othniel, 8 (3:8)

40 (3:11)

Ehud, 18 (3:14)

80 (3:30)

Deborah, 20 (4:3)

40 (5:31)

Gideon, 7 (6:1)

40 (8:28)

Jephthah, 18 (10:8)

6 (12:7)

I. Samson (13:1–16:31)

The last judge story in Judges is Samson’s, spread over four chapters (13–16). In spite of the length of his narrative, and the climactic position of his story, Samson appears very rarely in Scripture outside of these four chapters in Judges. Samuel, in his farewell address (1 Samuel 12), reminds his audience of those individuals Yahweh had sent to rescue the people from their enemies. The list (v. 11) includes Jerrubbaal, Barak, Jephthah, and Samson. This is the reading of the nrsv, which states in a footnote that the Hebrew text has Samuel rather than Samson (cf. niv). In the New Testament, Heb. 11:32 includes Samson in its hall of fame of the faithful (where, surprisingly, his name precedes that of Jephthah).

While there are various ways to divide up the Samson story according to scholarly analysis, our study will focus on seven incidents:

1. 13:1–25: Samson’s birth announcement and the revelation by the angel of his life work to his parents, his birth, his name, and his first experience with the spirit of Yahweh.

2. 14:1–20: Samson’s marriage to a Philistine woman over his parents’ protest, the lion episode, the riddle episode, and Samson’s second and third experiences with the spirit of Yahweh.

3. 15:1–8: Upon discovering that in his absence his father-in-law gave Samson’s wife to another man, Samson traps three hundred foxes, attaches incendiary devices to their tails, and sends them into the grain fields of the Philistines, burning and destroying their crops.

4. 15:9–20: The Philistines respond by raiding Judah, whose warriors in turn bind Samson and turn him over to the enemy. A fourth experience of the spirit enables him to break free of his bonds and kill one thousand Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone. Thirsty, he prays.

5. 16:1–3: In Philistine Gaza, Samson sleeps with a harlot, and tears the doors of the city gates off their hinges in response to being “set up” and carries them to Hebron.

6. 16:4–22: Delilah successfully entices Samson to reveal the source of his strength. His hair is shaved. His strength leaves. God leaves. The Philistines capture him and mutilate their prize prisoner.

7. 16:23–31: While the Philistines gloat and praise their god Dagon, Samson prays for a second time. God gives him back his strength one more time, and he takes vengeance on his captors, taking his own life in the process.

1. 13:1–25. The Samson story begins in a traditional fashion (“the Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord”), but curiously lacks any reference to the people of God “crying out” to Yahweh for relief from the four decades of Philistine oppression. Rather, the text moves immediately into the triad of the angel of the Lord, Manoah and his wife, and the ensuing revelation that is about to unfold.

In many ways the birth announcement of Samson has parallels to other birth announcements in Scripture, especially those of Ishmael (Genesis 16), Isaac (Genesis 17), John the Baptist (Luke 1), and Jesus (Matthew 1; Luke 1).

This type of announcement has five stages (for which see Brown 1977: 156):

1. The appearance of the Lord or his angel to a human (13:3)

2. Fear and/or prostration by the human recipient of the revelation (13:20, 22)

3. The divine message:

a. the human is addressed by name

b. some additional information about the human recipient

c. the recipient is told not to be afraid

d. a woman is with child or shortly will be (13:3)

e. the woman will give birth to a son (13:3, 5)

f. the name by which the child will be called

g. an etymology explaining the name’s significance

h. the future accomplishments of the child (13:5)

4. The parent-to-be raises an objection or presses for further information or a sign (13:8, 17)

5. A sign is given and the recipient understands or is reassured (13:18–21)

The primary focus in ch. 13 is on Samson’s parents—his father, Manoah (the same as “Noah” with a prefixed ma-, and meaning something like “place of relief/security”), and his nameless mother—and the appearance of Yahweh’s angel to them.

“The angel of the Lord” is the term always used by the narrator to describe the one who speaks to Manoah’s wife, except in v. 9 (“the angel of God”). His wife calls the visitor either “a man of God” (v. 6) or simply “the man” (v. 10). Manoah shows the same variation, using both “the man of God” (v. 8) and “the man” (v. 11). Among all the places in Scripture where Yahweh’s angel appears to a visionary, Judg. 13:6 is the only one that suggests that the theophanic recipient perceived something significantly different than a normal human form: “his appearance was like that of an angel of God, most awe-inspiring.”

Unlike other barren wives, for example, Rachel and her “Give me children, or I shall die” (Gen. 30:1), or Hannah and her “If … you will give your servant a male child” (1 Sam. 1:11), who lament their childlessness, nothing indicates that Manoah’s wife is languishing over her condition. Nor is anything said about her advanced age, as one finds with Sarah or Elizabeth.

The angel comes uninvited to a barren wife and discloses that she will bear a son (v. 3). She receives three additional pieces of information, two of which apply to her (“Be careful not to drink wine or strong drink” and “Do not eat anything unclean”), and one of which applies to her son (“No razor is to come on his head”). The reason for these avoidances by mother and child is explained in what follows: “For the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth” (literally, “from the womb”). And what this Nazirite is to do in adult years is “begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” Samson will have a beginning ministry, but not a finishing ministry.

Interestingly, when she relays this information to Manoah, she makes some changes (v. 7):

13:3–5

13:7

“You shall conceive and bear a son.

You shall conceive and bear a son.

Be careful not to drink wine or strong drink,

Drink no wine or strong drink,

or eat anything unclean,

eat nothing unclean,

for you shall conceive and bear a son.

X

No razor is to come on his head,

X

for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth.

for the boy shall be a nazirite to God from birth to the day of his death.”

It is he who shall begin to deliver Israel.”

X

Two deletions stand out in the retelling (nothing about no razor on his head and nothing about the lad beginning to deliver Israel from the Philistines), as does one expansion (“a nazirite from birth to the day of his death”). It is odd that she would delete information about how God will use their son to throw off the Philistine menace. Does the angel’s phrase “begin to deliver” throw her off and maybe confuse her, thus restraining her from sharing this bit of data? And when she adds that their boy will be a nazirite to God “to the day of his death,” does “death” carry some kind of independent negative force—their son, before he dies, will sow as much destruction as salvation (Alter 1981: 101; Reinhartz 1992: 31)—or is “until the day of his death” her way of paraphrasing the angel’s “he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (Savran 1988: 83)?

A few words are in order about the Nazirite. The verb nazar means “separate oneself (by practicing abstinence and self-denial).” Derived from the verb is the noun nazir in the form of a passive participle, hence, “one set apart, restricted.” The word nazir is grammatically analagous to a word like nasiʾ, “one elevated, a chief,” from the verb nasaʾ, “lift up.”

Numbers 6:1–21, which details the law of the Nazirite, deals only with the temporary Nazirite. By contrast, Samson and Samuel are lifelong Nazirites. Analogously, we distinguish today between short-term missionaries and career missionaries. One of the differences between the Nazirites is that the vow of the temporary Nazirite (Numbers 6) is taken voluntarily and is self-imposed. By contrast, the vow of the lifelong Nazirite is imposed by others, usually a mother-to-be (Judges 13).

As a lifelong position the Nazirite has special parallels with the office of the prophet. Neither inherits the position. Both commence their activities by an experience with God, either through his spirit or his word. Both men and women could fill the office. That Samson is to be a Nazirite to God “from the womb” recalls Yahweh’s word to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer. 1:5); or the words of Isaiah’s servant: “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me” (Isa. 49:1). John the Baptist, an Elijah-like prophet, also reflects this lifelong association. The angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his forthcoming son “must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:15) and the parallels between Samson’s and John the Baptist’s birth announcements are Luke’s way of saying that John the Baptist is a Nazirite from infancy.

The same may be true of Jesus. When Matthew states that Jesus made “his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean’ ” (Matt. 2:23), the question is immediately raised, To what prophets is Matthew referring? There is no Old Testament text that says “he will be called a Nazorean.” While it is unquestionable that the primary reason that Jesus is called a Nazorean/Nazarene is because he took up residence at Nazareth, it is possible that in some secondary fashion Matthew is connecting Jesus the Nazorean/Nazarene with the nazir, especially of Judges 13 (one dedicated to God’s service from birth) and the netser, “branch,” specifically the messianic branch of the House of David (“A shoot shall come up from the stump of Jesse and a branch [netser] shall grow out of his roots” [Isa. 11:1]). Thus, the prophets Matthew is referring to are the author of Judges (in Hebrew tradition, one of the “earlier” prophetic books) and Isaiah. (See Brown 1977: 209–13, 223–25.)

Finally, we may note Luke’s reference to Paul having his hair cut at Cenchreae, “for he was under a vow” (Acts 18:18), and Paul’s own reference to being set apart by God “before I was born” (Gal. 1:15).

This coupling of Nazirites with prophets is particularly clear in Amos (2:11–12): “And I raised up some of your children to be prophets and some of your youths to be nazirites.… But you made the nazirites drink wine.” In fact, Amos 2:11 is the only Old Testament text where the Nazirite’s selection is described expressly as reflective of God’s goodness and favor to his people Israel.

Three vows of absention mark the Nazirite:

1. He must be disciplined in his appetites: no drinking of wine or strong drink, no eating grapes.

2. He must be distinctive in his appearance: no razor shall come upon his head.

3. He must be discreet in his associations: he must not go near a corpse (even of close family members) and thus contact impurity.

It is clear that we know a lot more about what the Nazirite could not do than what he could do or did do. Numbers 6 is not so much a job description as it is a job disqualification description. That Amos couples Nazirites with prophets, both of whom served a divine purpose, indicates, however, that the Nazirites must have enjoyed some status.

The Nazirite office is known in the New Testament period, as evidenced by the reference in Acts 21:23–24 to Paul assuming the costs of four Nazirites for shaving their heads and undergoing the rite of purification. How the Nazirite was viewed in postbiblical Judaism may be observed in the section of the Mishnah known as Nazir.

Like the angel who appears to the women at the resurrection, who in turn pass the news along to the absent men, the angel of Yahweh appears to the mother-to-be while she is alone (vv. 3, 9). She then goes quickly to share that news with her husband (vv. 6, 10). And Manoah is much like the male disciples in the Gospels who hear the womens’ report—uncertain, unconvinced, wanting more details, wanting to know himself and not able to accept his wife’s testimony. When the truth does dawn on Manoah (v. 21), he draws the wrong conclusion (v. 22), only to be set straight by his wife’s commonsense, logical response (v. 23).

The child is born and named “Samson” (“Shimshon” in Hebrew) by his mother (v. 24). No etymology is given for his name. While some have connected it with the word shem (“name”) (Greenstein 1981: 241), more likely we should connect his name with the word shemesh (“sun”), and thus render Samson/Shimshon as “Sun Child” (Niditch 1990: 611). Samson is another of the names in Judges ending in on: Eglon, Gideon, Dagon. Given the number of times Samson is involved with fire, with something burning or melting, and his fiery temperament, his name connection with the fiery, hot, blazing sun may be quite appropriate. “Fire has become a metonymic image of Samson himself: a blind, uncontrolled force, leaving a terrible swath of destruction behind it, finally consuming itself together with whatever stands in its way” (Alter 1981: 94–95).

It is not certain how best to translate Samson’s first encounter with the spirit of the Lord (v. 25). Both the nrsv and the niv have “The spirit of the Lord begin to stir him.”

Judges uses four different verbs to describe the spirit’s engagement of a judge:

hayah ʿal (“be/was upon”)

lavash (“clothe, invest”)

paʿam (“stir”?)

tsalakh ʿal (“rush upon”)

3:10 (Othniel)

6:34 (Gideon)

13:25 (Samson)

14:6 (Samson)

14:19 (Samson)

15:14 (Samson)

1 Sam. 10:10; 11:6 (Saul)

The verb paʿam occurs only a few more times in the Old Testament, to describe the troubled spirit of a king after a disturbing dream that the king can neither interpret nor control (Gen. 41:8; Dan. 2:1, 3), and a lament of a distraught psalmist, “I am so troubled that I cannot speak” (Ps. 77:4b). All are used with ruakh (“spirit”), except Ps. 77:4. The verb appears to come from a term meaning “foot,” and its basic meaning is “to stamp, pound.” The noun paʿam means “time,” for times were counted by stamping the foot. Thus, in Judg. 13:25 the spirit of the Lord begins to “drive” Samson (Alter 1990: 49), “to beat on him” (Gunn 1992: 231), “to pulsate in him” (B. Levine, Numbers, New York 1993: 340), “to harass, plague, afflict him” (Stone 1992: 342).

2. 14:1–20. There are either three scenes in this chapter: vv. 1–4, 5–9, 10–20 (Blenkinsopp 1963: 66); or four: vv. 1–4, 5–6, 7–9, 10–20 (Exum 1981:12–13); or maybe even five, each of which is introduced with the verb “went down”:

1. v. 1: “Samson went down to Timnah.”

2. v. 5: “Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah.”

3. v. 7: “Then he went down and talked with the woman.”

4. v. 10: “His father went down to the woman.”

5. v. 19: “And he went down to Ashkelon.”

Samson “went down” to the Philistine village of Timnah (for reasons unexplained) and there spotted a beautiful Philistine damsel. On another occasion, Jacob’s son Judah “went up” to Timnah to sheer his sheep and there spotted a beautiful prostitute who, in fact, was his disguised daughter-in-law (Gen. 38:12–14). Samson does not talk to her. He simply sees and likes what he sees, and following protocol, asks his parents to get her for him. The reason for his request is, “She pleases me” (v. 3; cf. v. 7). The Hebrew actually says, “She is right in my eyes.” The expression “right in my eyes” is the exact one we find two times in the concluding sections of Judges, 17:6 and 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” “To do what is right in one’s eyes” in Judges always carries a sinister nuance—to place my way of doing things over anybody else’s way of doing things, including God’s.

The narrator knows something that neither Samson nor his parents know (and for a second time in back-to-back chapters, Manoah does not know something—cf. 13:16 with 14:4). None of the actors knows that “this was from the Lord” (v. 4). How is one to explain that “a born deliverer would want to enter into an exogamous marriage with a member of the oppressing nation at that” (Sternberg 1987: 237–38)? The phrase does not imply that Yahweh incited Samson’s sexual desire for the Timnite, that he stimulates romance and raging hormones as a prelude to slaughter, or even that Yahweh “itches for a fight” (Crenshaw 1978: 70). Rather, it suggests that Yahweh may use even those who are controlled by carnal self-will to advance his work. Here is one of the great theological themes of the Samson story. “God takes a bully boy and muscle man bent on the gratification of his own drives and instincts, and makes him the instrument of a nation’s defense and rescue as well as authenticating the divinity’s power of salvation, and therefore his right to be regarded as the true God in contrast to false claimants like Dagon” (Vickery 1981: 61).

The spirit of Yahweh always comes to and upon Samson unbidden. While Samson does pray at times for other things (for water to assuage thirst [15:18]; for a renewal of strength to exact vengeance [16:28]), he never prays for an endowment of the spirit. God comes in the Samson story both sovereignly and in response to petitionary prayer. On this occasion, the spirit renders Samson “Tarzanesque,” as he rips to pieces barehandedly the lion that pounced on him as he makes his way to Timnah (v. 6a). That he did not tell his parents (who must have been somewhat geographically removed from the procession) indicates that Samson was aware of his Nazirite status, part of which involved no contact with anything dead (v. 6b).

On a repeat visit to Timnah (v. 8), this time to marry the woman, Samson comes across the carcass of this lion, in which bees are starting to produce honey (by the way, this is the only explicit reference in the Old Testament to bee honey versus wild fruit/date honey; note also that in the expression “swarm of bees,” “swarm” is the word [ʿedah] used extensively for the “community” of Israel).

For a second time, Samson conceals his behavior from his parents. He refrains from telling them the source of the honey that he is sharing with them, for this is an intentional contact with something deceased, and thus a flagrant violation of his Nazirite vow (v. 9c). But how will they ever find out? Cannot such “little” sins be kept under wraps? Or will his sins find him out (Num. 32:23; Gal. 6:7)?

Anybody who has ever attended a Little League baseball game knows that what starts out as a bit of innocent fun and games can turn into something deadly serious (for the parents, that is). That is what happens here. Samson, fresh off the honey-from-the-lion episode, proposes a riddle to the wedding guests. The setting is a “feast” (v. 10), and while the word for “feast” (mishteh) implies a “drinking bout,” we are not sure whether or not Samson partook of the intoxicants. If he did, it is another violation of his Nazirite vow.

Three things stand out about Samson’s riddle (v. 14). While the word “know” is not used here, his riddle is based on “I know something you don’t know” (Niditch 1990: 620–21), and reflects Samson’s hubristic confidence. God could have said that too in ch. 14, but it was left to the narrator. Second, the riddle is in the form of a statement (“Out of the eater came … Out of the strong came …”), and the answer to the riddle is in the form of a question (“What is sweeter than …? What is stronger than …?”). Normally, the riddle takes the form of a question, and the answer takes the form of a statement (Bal 1987: 46). Third, there is not a chance in a million that the guests could decipher the riddle, for it is based on an isolated incident in Samson’s life to which no one is privy except Samson.

This latter point may explain why the wedding guests become as hostile as they do to Samson’s bride: “Coax your husband … or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire” (v. 15). As guests, they have been humiliated and exploited, made to look like fools and nincompoops.

Samson is hardly sympathetic to his bride’s entreaty. His “Look, I have not told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you?” (v. 16) is hardly intended to bolster her self-image or buttress their young marriage.

In a rage, Samson goes from Timnah down to Ashkelon (v. 19), one of five main Philistine cities and situated on the southern Mediterranean coast, thirty of whose people he will massacre and then rob to pay off his debts to the party-goers back at Timnah. All this is prefaced by “Then the spirit of the Lord rushed on him.” Samson’s rage is a spirit-energized rage. Might one compare the plagues that fell on Egypt in Gen. 12:17 because pharaoh plowed with Sarai, Abram’s heifer?

3. 15:1–8. When 15:1 states that Samson returned to Timnah to “visit” his wife, this is probably the Old Testament’s way of saying that Samson returned to his bride’s village to consummate their marriage. This interpretation is reinforced by two items in the text. First, Samson brought a “kid” (gedi ʿizzim) for his wife. While this is exactly the same animal that his father, Manoah, brought to God as an offering (13:15, 19), a better parallel is found in Genesis, where Judah offers to give a “kid” for his payment of sex with a prostitute (Gen. 38:17, 20). In both Genesis 38 and Judges 15 a man presents a kid to a woman as a prelude to sexual intimacy. Second, Samson’s words “I want to go into my wife’s room” are self-explanatory.

High expectations give way to unbridled rage when he discovers that his father-in-law interpreted Samson’s return to his father’s house as a de facto divorcing of his wife (“I was so sure you had rejected [literally, “hated”] her”), so that the father-in-law gave her to another man. Samson’s rejection of the prettier and younger sister shows his real love for his bride. She is not merely a sex object.

Samson prefaces his forthcoming revenge by saying, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame” (v. 3). This suggests an admission of guilt by Samson about his earlier behavior at Ashkelon. What he did there was without justification. Not so on this occasion.

Samson does not need the spirit of the Lord to help him catch three hundred foxes. He simply needs excellent trapping skills. If one wants to do as much damage as possible to the opponents’ crops, then the most propitious time to do that is “wheat harvest” (v. 1).

It is now the Philistines’ turn to respond in this incessant vendetta marked by retaliation and revenge. Samson’s bride and her father are burned by their own countrymen (v. 6). Either way, Samson’s bride was doomed. Had she not coaxed the meaning of the riddle, she and father would have been burned to death (14:15). Because she was willing to coax the meaning of the riddle, that provokes Samson to leave abruptly, return, lose his bride, and incinerate their fields, all leading to her and her father’s burning by fire (Polzin 1980: 187).

For her death Samson seeks revenge (v. 7). The nrsv’s “I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you” and the niv’s “I won’t stop until I get my revenge on you” are not good translations of the Hebrew. The rsv’s “I swear I will be avenged upon you, and after that I will quit” is much better. Addictions to anything, however, including retaliation, are not so easily arrested. “Bondage always cries, ‘Once more, and I’m through!’ ” (Stone 1992: 343). Agur was quite correct: “Three things are never satisfied; four never say, ‘Enough’: Sheol, the barren womb, the earth ever thirsty for water, and the fire that never says, ‘Enough’ ” (Prov. 30:15–16).

4. 15:9–20. The crop-deprived Philistines come to seize Samson. Judah will not provide a refuge for Samson; rather, the Judeans will bind Samson and hand him over to the Philistines to do as they wish. There are a number of references, about a dozen, in chs. 15 and 16 to the “binding” of Samson, the word for which is ʾasar. Now what makes this interesting is that in the most extended discussion of oaths/vows in the Old Testament, Numbers 30, the verb ʾasar is used frequently to refer to a vow/oath by which one binds oneself (e.g., v. 2). Samson is already “bound” by his Nazirite vow. Now the Philistines wish to “bind” him in a different way.

Samson’s fourth encounter with Yahweh’s spirit (v. 14) enables him to break free of his confinement. In fiery fashion his bonds disintegrate and melt. His hand now free, he uses the jawbone of a donkey (hardly a formidable instrument of war; compare Shamgar’s oxgoad in 3:31) to kill one thousand Philistines (v. 16). With mother and father out of the way and out of the story, there is no need for the narrator to inform us that Samson did not tell his parents what he had done with the dead donkey, unlike earlier, when the narrator informed us that Samson kept his parents in the dark about the dead lion (14:6).

Samson briefly becomes a poet (v. 16), composing a four-line celebration victory ode that highlights his accomplishments (“I have slain a thousand men”). And he memorializes the event by giving the place a name, Ramath-lehi, that is, “Jawbone Hill.”

Samson can contest the Philistines with the help of Yahweh’s spirit, but he has no resources to deal with his thirst, and so, for one of two times, Samson prays (v. 18), and God graciously provides water (v. 19). Samson’s actions in vv. 16–17 and Yahweh’s actions in vv. 18–19 “provide a contrast between the self-centeredness of Samson and the power and grace of Yahweh” (Exum 1983: 41). Furthermore, Samson’s prayer reveals both Samson’s utter dependence on Yahweh and Yahweh’s openness to supplication (Exum 1983: 45).

The narrator does what Samson just did with Ramath-lehi. The narrator memorializes the place where God supernaturally supplied (once again) water from the rock by giving it a name: “En-hakkore,” that is, “Wailer’s Well,” or “Crier’s Spring,” or “Namer’s Spring.” Actually, the Hebrew (ʿen haqqoreʾ) contains the same verb (qaraʾ) found in 14:5 (the lion came to “meet” him) and in 15:14 (the Philistines came to “meet” him).

5. 16:1–3. Four women are involved in the Samson story:

13:3: a mother (“The angel of the Lord appeared to the woman”)

14:1: a bride (“Once Samson … saw a Philistine woman”)

16:1: a prostitute (“Once Samson … saw a woman, a prostitute”)

16:4: a mistress (“He fell in love with a woman”)

In 14:2 Samson says, “I saw a Philistine woman.” Here, 16:1 says, “He saw a prostitute at Gaza.” Whatever he sees seems always to get him in trouble. It sounds like this is a trap into which Samson has fallen. It is a set-up, and he has foolishly taken the bait. This might explain why Samson acts as violently as he does (v. 3), ripping the doors of the city gates off their hinges, hoisting them on to his shoulders, and carrying them toward Hebron (about forty miles away and uphill all the way!). What a contrast between Samson carrying wooden gates on his back and Jesus carrying a wooden cross on his back! Jesus is walking the via dolorosa, while Samson is walking the via concupiscentia.

Once to Abraham (Gen. 22:17) and once to Rebekah (Gen. 24:60) the promise was made that they (or their offspring) would “possess the gate(s) of their enemies,” a promise that carries the guarantee of a complete victory over one’s adversaries (Wharton 1973: 53). Breaking and removing the bars of a city gate marks a decisive stage in the ultimate defeat of the city, for the city is then fully exposed and vulnerable to invasion from without. Thus, Jeremiah refers in his oracle of Babylon’s destruction to the breaking of the bars of Babylon’s city gate (Jer. 51:30). Jerusalem was vulnerable to invasion because God had “ruined and broken her bars” (Lam. 2:9). God also threatens to “break the gate bars of Damsacus” (Amos 1:5).

6. 16:4–22. The only woman Samson is said to love, and the only woman named, appears here—Delilah. We do not read that Delilah loved Samson. So the love here operates on a one-way street.

As they did with Samson’s bride, the Philistines ask Delilah to coax from Samson (14:15 and 16:5 use the imperative verb patti) something they cannot themselves discover. But there are two major differences between the two episodes. First, his bride is asked merely to entice him into explaining his riddle. By contrast, Delilah is asked to entice Samson into revealing the source of his strength, so that the Philistines “may overpower him, so that we may bind him in order to subdue him” (v. 5). Their intent is clear. In fact, the last verb (ʿanah) elsewhere may carry the meaning of “rape” (as in Amnon’s violation of his half-sister Tamar: “No, my brother, do not force me.… Being stronger than she, he forced her.… Absalom hated Amnon, because he had raped his sister Tamar” [2 Sam. 13:12, 14, 22]).

The second difference between the two episodes is that his bride is threatened with death by burning if she does not cooperate (14:15b). Here, Delilah is herself coaxed into coaxing with the offer of a large sum of money if she accepts and is successful (16:5c). While her willingness to be bribed may be rooted in economic necessity, it is more likely that her willingness is rooted in avarice. One author (Vickery 1981: 69) has argued that both of the women in ch. 16 are prostitutes. “The difference is that the former is an honest one explicitly plying her trade in exchange for money and restricting her involvement to physical functions. Delilah is, as it were, a whore at heart aware of the hero’s love for her and how his emotions may be manipulated to serve her greed and lust for power.”

The incident with Delilah is an expected and natural sequel to the one with the prostitute in 16:1–3. Gaza is prominent in both (vv. 1, 21), and Samson’s destruction of the city gates at Gaza “furnishes the Philistines with the motive for seeking vengeance on Samson through their intrigues with Delilah” (O’Connell 1996: 217). Lack of consensus remains about the meaning of Delilah’s name. But here again there may be a connection with 16:1–3, which emphasizes the nightime (when harlots typically work). The Gazites lay in wait “all night” (v. 2) and kept quiet “all night” (v. 2). But Samson lay only until “midnight” (v. 3), then at “midnight” got up (v. 3). Now the consonants of the Hebrew word for “night” are l-y-l-h and the consonants of “Delilah” are d-l-y-l-h. Delilah is literally a “lady of the night,” and Samson, the Sun Child, is seduced by Delilah, the Night Lady (Klein 1988: 119).

Delilah seeks four times to elicit from Samson the source of his incredulous strength and four times he makes a response, “in a game of psychological brinkmanship” (Alter 1990: 53):

1. vv. 6–9 (“if they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings”)

2. vv. 10–12 (“if they bind me with new ropes”)

3. vv. 13–14 (“if you weave the seven locks of my head”)

4. vv. 15–22 (“a razor has never come upon my head”)

We meet here a Samson who (1) offers no resistance; (2) lacks any sense of discernment; (3) at least attributes his power to God; (4) is guilty of gross presumption (“I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free” [v. 20c]); and (5) is spiritually ignorant (“He did not know that the Lord had left him” [v. 20d]). The verb used for Yahweh leaving (sur) somebody whom he has rejected appears again in Saul’s attempts to contact the spirit of Samuel through a medium: “God has turned away from me and answers me no more” (1 Sam. 28:15). What Samson did not know (16:20) is even more tragic than what his parents did not know (14:4): when God departs, he may depart without fanfare. The cutting of Samson’s hair marks the third and final violation of his Nazirite vow, and the only part of the vow that earlier had been expressly placed on Samson himself (13:5) rather than on his mother (13:4).

7. 16:23–31. Not only is Samson godless and strengthless, but he is also sightless, thanks to his Philistine captors (16:21; for gouging out the eyes as a punishment on a prisoner, see 2 Kings 25:7; Jer. 39:7; 52:11, all referring to Nebuchadnezzar’s treatment of Zedekiah).

Samson represents a prize catch for the Philistines, the end of all their ravagement, or so they think. It is appropriate, therefore, that they celebrate the power and victory of Dagon their god. While the Philistines could easily have killed Samson, he is at the moment of more value to them alive than dead. A hapless entertainer is more fun than a corpse.

At this moment Samson does something for only the second time: he prays (v. 28). His prayer is not quite “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He asks for God to strengthen him one more time “so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes” (v. 28b). The verb behind the nrsv’s “with this one act of revenge I may pay back” is naqam, which appeared earlier in Samson’s response upon hearing that the Philistines had burned to death his wife and father-in-law: “I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you” (15:7b).

Samson’s prayer is composed of four parts:

1. An introductory formula provided by the narrator (“then Samson called to/on the Lord and said”), the exact same introductory formula one finds in Samson’s first prayer (15:18). The formula features the verb qaraʾ for “call,” and here the verb refers to a desperate calling out to God for help by somebody in dire straits. Accordingly, the verb is prominent in the lament prayers in the Psalter (e.g., “I cry aloud to the Lord” [3:4]; “Answer me when I call” [4:1]; “The Lord hears when I call to him” [4:3]; “I call upon you, for you will answer me” [17:6], and many others).

2. An address/invocation: “Lord God … O God.”

3. A petition: “Remember me and strengthen me only this once.” For other prayers in which the supplicant begins by petitioning God “to remember me,” see 2 Kings 20:3 (“Remember now … how I [Hezekiah] have walked before you in faithfulness”) or Luke 23:42 (“Remember me when you come into your kingdom”). Prayers calling upon God to remember something or somebody are especially prominent in Nehemiah (5:19; 6:14; 13:14, 22, 29, 31).

4. A motivation: “so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes.”

What may surprise some readers of Scripture is that God answers affirmatively even this kind of a prayer. Samson’s strength returns one time, not because his hair starts to grow back again (v. 22), or even because of one last rushing of the spirit, but because God chooses to honor Samson’s prayer.

Samson desires not revenge (taking the law into one’s own hands) but vengeance (appealing to a higher legal power for retributive justice). The word naqam has here to do with “punitive vindication in redress of wrong suffered by an individual … the concept of Yahweh’s granting individual acts of successful exercise of power over enemies in specific situations of jeopardy” (Mendenhall 1973: 92–93). “Here Samson, beyond all hope of ever seeing procedural justice done him for his enemies, entreats God to empower him to exact extraordinary retribution for himself—for him, there can be no other kind; and the God of nqm complies” (Greenberg 1983: 13).

Empowered one final time, Samson “leans” his hands on the two middle pillars of the temple (the same verb [samak] used in Lev. 1:4; 3:2, 8, 13; 4:4, 15, 24, 29 for the laying of a hand on the sacrifice by the worshiper), causing the building to crash, and sending three thousand Philistines and Samson himself to their death (v. 30). So ends the Samson saga.

There are two different ways of evaluating this last scene and Samson’s whole life. One could say that “the best thing Samson ever did for Israel was to die” (Stone 1988: 346, 372; 1992: 343). Or, one might say that “his death is his greatest performance” (Bal 1987: 63). Given that this final episode takes place in a Philistine temple, Dagon’s turf, Gunn (1992: 247) states that “to bring low the god of the Philistines is perhaps Samson’s real contribution to Yahweh’s purposes, and thus his achievement is not a physical one, but a theological one.”

3. In Those Days There Was No King in Israel (17:1–21:25)

A. 17:1–18:31. In a nutshell, the incident in these two chapters unfolds as follows. A Levite from Bethlehem, from the “clan” (mishpakhah) of Judah, had made his way northward to the hill country of Ephraim (in search of employment and use of his skills?). There he is retained by a well-to-do private citizen, Micah, who already has his own shrine (17:5), complete with a molten image he had made from previously stolen money that he returned to his mother (17:2), plus ephod and teraphim (household gods). Even though he has appointed his own son as priest (17:5c), he installs (literally, “fills the hands of”) the Levite as his personal priest (17:12), indicating that in Israel a member of the Levitical tribe was the preferred priest. In return for his services, Micah provides his personal priest support and a modest stipend—ten shekels of silver per year, plus clothing and keep (17:10b).

Subsequently, this Levite relocates to Dan, in northern Galilee, when migrating Danites pass through Micah’s town and make him a better offer by appointing him as priest over an entire tribe (18:19). In today’s language we would say that he leaves a small, rural pastoral charge to become pastor of an urban megachurch.

This event transpires because the Danites (i.e., Samson’s turf), hard pressed by the Philistines, seek a territory of their own elsewhere in Canaan where they can settle unharassed by potent and preying neighbors. Accordingly, they send a group of five spies, who stop off at Micah’s house in Ephraim, where they meet and are impressed by this Levite (18:2–6). Continuing on their way, the spies travel north and come to the city of Laish. It is for them an ideal land, for it is an unfortified, undefended territory, and one whose residents are wealthy but unaccustomed to warfare (18:7, 10, 27) and therefore incapable of offering any kind of resistance to militant outsiders. The city is captured and renamed “Dan” (18:29). The Levite at the center of this episode is named only at the end. He is Jonathan (18:30), a grandson of Moses (!), thus allowing the Danite priesthood to claim Mosaic lineage.

Not one of the characters in this story is wholesome. Micah’s mother consecrates by oral declaration the eleven hundred pieces of silver to Yahweh, and then transfers them to her son, who uses but two hundred of the silver pieces to make his sculptured image (17:3b–4). Micah (or Micayhu, the longer form of the name in 17:1, 4) never lives up to his name. This one whose name means “Who is like Yahweh?” is a thief along the lines of Prov. 28:24 (“Anyone who robs father or mother …”), an idolater, a godmaker (“You take my gods that I made” [18:24]), with his own private clergy. He is an “Israelite betrayer of Israelite values without reason” (Klein 1988: 144).

The Levite is not impressive either. He is “an arch-opportunist” (Polzin 1980: 198), as ready to give God’s blessing to the Danite spies (18:6) as were the four hundred prophets to Ahab (1 Kings 22:12), a yes-man without a conscience or the mind of God. Similarly, the migrating Danites appear distasteful. Apostasy now escalates from a family to a tribal level (O’Connell 1996: 239) as they establish their own shrine and worship center at Dan, an alternative to the legitimate house of God at Shiloh (18:31b). In their conquest of Laish one gets the impression “that their confidence lies less in indomitable faith in Yahweh than in the knowledge that they have found easy prey” (Webb 1987: 186).

It cannot be denied that this incident is related in some way to the Danite cult that became important after the northern kingdom of Israel was established in the late 900s b.c. According to 1 Kings 12:29–31, the Israelite king Jeroboam I established a sanctuary at Dan (and Bethel), employed non-Levitical priests to serve, and set up there an idolatrous golden calf.

But what is its function in relationship to the rest of Judges, that is, the sixteen chapters that have preceded it? It is common to refer to the stories of chs. 17–18 and 19–21 as “appendices.” By definition, an appendix is a somewhat artificial appendage to a story that can be cut away without serious loss or damage to the whole. That is hardly the case here.

A clue may be found in an expression that occurs four times in these five chapters, twice in a fuller form, twice in a shorter form:

17:6: “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”

18:1a: “In those days there was no king in Israel.”

19:1a: “In those days, when there was no king in Israel.…”

21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”

One might suggest that these four passages function as refrains, and are concluding summaries for each respective unit (Stone 1988: 457):

Unit 1: 17:1–5; concluding summary: 17:6

Unit 2: 17:7–13; concluding summary: 18:1a

Unit 3: 18:1b–31; concluding summary: 19:1a

Unit 4: 19:1b–21:24; concluding summary: 21:25

In the case of the longer expression with two parts—really two sentences in apposition to each other—the second may be understood as having a casual relationship to the first: “Because there was no king in Israel in those days, all the people continued to do what was right in their own eyes.” Situation A precipitates situation B. Chapters 17–18 are one illustration of autonomy gone amuck at the level of one tribe (Dan), while chs. 19–21 illustrate the same at the level of all Israel.

It is inevitable that if a nation chooses to do “evil in the eyes of Yahweh” (3:7–16:31), then it will also choose to do “what is right in their own eyes” (chs. 17–21). Repudiation of God inexorably leads to exaltation of self and self-determination. Written over 3:7–16:31 is “Not your will be done”; written over chs. 17–21 is “My will be done.” Israel’s sin is not only apostasy and idolatry (3:7–16:31) but arrogance and presumption (chs. 17–21).

To correct that downward tumble (started in the prologue [1:1–3:6], fleshed out in the judge stories [3:7–16:31], and reaching a climax in chs. 17–21), Israel needs a king, “but not a king who, like the judges, will go to battle against foreign foes. Israel needs a king who will function as a guardian of the covenant, the very thing which the premonarchic order ultimately put at risk. Fundamental to safeguarding Israel’s covenant fidelty is confronting the enemy which took more Hebrew lives than any foreign oppressor. A king is needed who will save Israel from its greatest threat: itself” (Stone 1988: 477).

B. 19–21:25. If the Levite of chs. 17–18 is Mr. Opportunist, the Levite of ch. 19 is Mr. Insensitivity personified quintessentially. For some unexplained reason, the Bethlehem concubine of this Levite from Ephraim leaves him (in itself, almost unheard of in the rest of the Old Testament) and returns to her father’s house (19:2), much as Samson did with his spouse and father (14:19). Although the nrsv’s rendering of 19:2, “she became angry with him,” is a less faithful reading of the Hebrew than the niv’s “she was unfaithful to him” or the kjv’s “played the whore,” we need not assume that she literally was sexually promiscuous. After all, she seeks out her father, not a lover. She is more interested in a friendly roof over her head than in cohabitation. Possibly, we should understand “play the harlot” (zanah) metaphorically: she, for all practical purposes, played the harlot by walking out on her husband (Webb 1987: 188).

If she is angry or unfaithful, the Levite is conciliatory. He goes in search of his aberrant concubine, to speak tenderly to her, and to return her to his house, much as Jesus told of the shepherd who goes in search of the lost sheep to find it and to restore it to the flock (Matt. 18:12–14). This is the only point in which the Levite appears in commendable light.

Although the woman is consistently called a concubine rather than a wife, her father is the Levite’s “father-in-law,” who persuades his son-in-law to stay five days before he leaves with his daughter (19:3–9). Throughout this period, the only recorded chit-chat is between son-in-law and father-in-law, a kind of “exercise in male bonding” (Trible 1984: 68). The concubine never speaks and is never spoken to.

The Levite, his male attendant, and his concubine head back to his home, passing near Jerusalem/Jebus, as yet a non-Israelite city and thus potentially hostile, and continue on their way until they reach Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin (19:10–14). Presumably, they are now on friendly turf.

But that hunch is doubly wrong. First, the locals do not roll out the welcome mat to this threesome, and were it not for the kindness of a transplanted Ephraimite sojourning in Gibeah, they would have slept in the open square of the city under the stars (19:15–21). Apparently, Gibeah is not Hospitalityville.

The second surprise for the Levite is his forthcoming shocking discovery that not every Gibeahite trumpets traditional family values. A group of depraved men, which the nrsv calls “a perverse lot” (19:22), and which Boling (1975: 276) calls “the local hell-raisers,” descends on the house with the intention of sodomizing the Levite guest: “Bring out the man who came into your house so that we may have intercourse with him [literally, ‘so that we may know him’]” (19:22).

The host offers an alternative to assauge their lust. He makes available (without consulting them) his own virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine (v. 24). Thus, “To prevent the rape of one man the host offers the rape of two women” (K. Stone 1996: 80). The host also offers “two females to satisfy the gamut of heterosexual preferences. One is virgin property; the other, seasoned and experienced” (Trible 1984: 74). At this point the Levite sends his concubine outside, where she is gang raped and tortured through the night hours (19:25). At dawnbreak they release her (a phrase recalling the “man” who wrestled with Jacob and then said, “Let me go, for for the dawn is breaking” [Gen. 32:26] [both passages use the Piel of shalakh]).

The parallels between this passage and the story of the two angels/messengers who visit Lot in Sodom (Genesis 19) are obvious, with scholars arguing either for the dependence of the Genesis story on the Judges story (e.g., Niditch 1982), or the dependence of the Judges story on the Genesis story (e.g., Lasine 1984). The major difference between the two, of course, is that Lot’s daughters are not violated, but the concubine is. Maybe the concubine’s destiny would have been different if the host’s guests were angels, as at Sodom.

As outrageous as is the behavior of the mob vis-à-vis the concubine, it is matched by the Levite’s behavior at three points. First, seeing her disheveled, humiliated, and at death’s door, he coldly says, “Get up, we are going” (19:28), as if she has been through nothing more than a felicitous night on the town and chose to sleep outdoors. Second, he dismembers his concubine’s corpse into twelve sections and “mails” them throughout the tribal area—his way of calling for revenge upon the perpetrators (19:29). (The expression “he took the knife” occurs again in the Old Testament only in Gen. 22:10 with Abraham and Isaac, but what a contrast between a delivered Isaac and a dismembered concubine!) Third, his explanation to the larger assembly of what happened is twisted and perverted (20:4–6). For example, he says that the Gibeahites wanted to “kill” him (20:5), when in fact they wanted to “know” him (19:22). Again, he says nothing about “seizing” his concubine and thrusting her outside (19:25). Nor does he say anything about his host’s offer of the two women (19:24), or about his callous words to his concubine as if she had just returned from a refreshing morning aerobic workout (19:28).

The modern reader certainly feels for the unfortunate concubine, a marginal woman without speech or power in a man’s world. But can we be sure that the ancient reader felt the same? Thus, Penchansky (1992: 83) asks, “Is there here a deliberately feminist impulse … or might one see these texts as anti-feminist, reflecting a general misogynistic polemic … or is the entire feminine issue irrelevant to the text?”

As repugnant as is the account of the ravishing of the concubine, as far as Judges 19–21 is concerned, it is “only the pebble that starts the landslide” (L. Stone 1988: 403). What emerges in chs. 20 and 21 is the graphic inability of premonarchic Israel and their judicial apparatus to handle even local disputes without them burgeoning into civil wars.

Chapter 20 focuses on the war of revenge against Benjamin, in which the city of Gibeah is located. Unlike the host and Levite, who are more than ready to hand over women to the mob, the Benjaminites refuse to hand over the culprits (20:13), and so become the villains and the objects of punishment themselves. An enormous civil war ensues in which twenty-five thousand of the Benjaminites are killed (20:46), with only six hundred escaping (20:47), and only after the Benjaminites in self-defense have managed to kill over forty thousand of their Israelite kin (20:21, 25, 31).

The last chapter of Judges describes the nefarious attempts of the prosecuting tribes to repopulate the almost decimated tribe of Benjamin. Given that they have made an oath not to give their own daughters in marriage to the villainous Benjaminites (21:1), what are their options?

There are two. First, because only the city of Jabesh-gilead did not heed the call to arms, it is to be “devoted to destruction” (the only narrative of Israel conducting a kherem war against Israel). Only four hundred young virgins are spared, for the sake of becoming wives to the mateless Benjaminites (21:12). Since that number is inadequate, the Benjaminites obtain permission to take for themselves the young dancing women who participate in some kind of a vintage festival at Shiloh (21:14–24).

There can be no doubt that this incident not only looks back to the Lot/Sodom story, but also anticipates the story of King Saul. A few of the parallels and connections (also see Brettler 1989: 412–15; Amit 1994: 31–35) include:

1. The Levite’s dismembering of his concubine parallels Saul’s dismembering of a yoke of oxen (1 Sam. 11:7), and both times the individual sends out the portions throughout Israel as a call to arms for revenge.

2. The cities of Gibeah and Jabesh-gilead, which appear prominently in Judges 19 and 20, figure in the Saul story as his home and capital (Gibeah: 1 Sam. 10:26; 11:4; 15:34), and as a city he saved from destruction (Jabesh-gilead, 1 Sam. 11:1–13).

3. Saul is a Benjaminite, and it is the Benjaminites who in Judges 20 are almost annihilated.

4. On his return to Ephraim, the Levite makes it as far as Gibeah, but not as far as “Ramah” (Judg. 19:13). Ramah (1 Sam. 7:17) is more than likely the place where Saul first met Samuel when he went looking for his father’s donkeys (1 Sam. 9:3).

5. An old man from Ephraim hosts and entertains a Levite, and Samuel, a man from Ephraim, hosts and entertains Saul (1 Sam. 9:22–26).

6. There are six hundred Benjaminite survivors (Judg. 20:47), and Saul has six hundred followers (1 Sam. 13:15; 14:2).

7. In Saul’s time, Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, agreed to a treaty with Jabesh-gilead provided he could gouge out everyone’s “right eye” (1 Sam. 11:2), and the Benjaminites are “the sons of the right (hand).” Part of the strategy of Jabesh-gilead was to say to Nahash, “Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you” (1 Sam. 11:10). The latter expression reads literally, “and do for yourselves what is good in your eyes”—surely a reverberation of Judg. 21:25.

Judges 19–21 also looks forward to First Samuel and Saul in another way. Indeed, the guilt-by-association idea inherent in Judges 19–21 suggests proleptically that Saul is not the final solution to a kingless, confederate Israel in which all the people do what is right in their own eyes. At best, he is an interim solution; at worst, he compounds the problem. Is there one to come after Saul who will be the real savior and deliverer?

This last story in Judges provides another footnote to the grimness of the days of the Judges. Here are the Israelites in Judges who meet a violent death:

The violently killed

The perpetrator

Reference

70 sons of Jerubbaal

Abimelech

9:5

Abimelech

a woman

9:53

a daughter

Jephthah

11:39

42,000 Ephraimites

Jephthah

12:6

Samson

Samson

16:30

40,030 Israelites

Benjaminites

20:21, 25, 31

25,000 Benjaminites

Israelites

20:46

men, women, children from Jabesh-gilead

Israelites

21:10–11

The evidence is clear. Every Israelite in Judges who dies violently at the hand of another dies at the hand of a fellow Israelite! No Israelite is said to be put to death by any Midianite or Moabite or Philistine. It is a book about kindred killing kindred. That is a gruesome part of the savagery of the era.

Bibliography (Judges)

Commentaries and Major Studies

Bal, M. 1988. Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Bodine, W. R. 1980. The Greek Text of Judges: Recensional Developments. HSM 23. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press.

Boling, Robert G. 1975. Judges. Anchor Bible 6A. New York: Doubleday.

Brenner, A., ed. 1993. A Feminist Companion to Judges. The Feminist Companion to the Bible 4. Sheffield: JSOT Press.

Burney, C. F. 1970 [1903]. The Book of Judges with Introduction and Notes. New York: Ktav.

Cundall, A. E. 1968. Judges: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity.

Davis, D. R. 1990. Such a Great Salvation. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Gray, John. 1986. Joshua, Judges, Ruth. New Century Bible. London: Nelson. Pp. 201–396.

Hamlin, E. J. 1990. At Risk in the Promised Land: A Commentary on the Book of Judges. International Theological Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Klein, L. R. 1988. The Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges. JSOT Supplement 68; Bible and Literature Series 14 Sheffield: Almond.

Lindars, B. 1995. Judges 1–5: A New Translation and Commentary. Ed. A. D. H. Mayes. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

Martin, J. D. 1975. The Book of Judges. Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge University Press.

Mayes, A. D. H. 1974. Israel in the Period of the Judges. London: SCM.

Moore, G. F. 1976 [1895]. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

O’Connell, Robert H. 1996. The Rhetoric of the Book of Judges. VTSup 63. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Polzin, Robert. 1980. Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomistic History. New York: Seabury. Pp. 146–204.

Simpson, C. A. 1957. Composition of the Book of Judges. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Soggin, J. Alberto. 1981. Judges: A Commentary. Trans. J. Bowden. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster.

Stone, Lawson G. 1988. “From Tribal Confederation to Monarchic State: The Editorial Perspective of the Book of Judges.” Ph.D. diss. Yale University.

Webb, Barry G. 1987. The Book of the Judges: Grace Abounding. The Bible Speaks Today Series. Leicester: Inter-Varsity.

Wood, L. 1975. Distressing Days of the Judges. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Yee, Gale A., ed. 1995. Judges & Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Shorter Studies

Ahlström, G. W. 1993. The History of Ancient Palestine. Minneapolis: Fortress. Pp. 371–90.

Block, D. I. 1988. “The Period of the Judges: Religious Disintegration under Tribal Rule.” In Israel’s Apostasy and Restoration: Essays in Honor of Roland K. Harrison. Ed. A. Gileadi. Grand Rapids: Baker. Pp. 39–57.

Brettler, Marc. 1989. “The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics.” JBL 108: 395–418.

Bright, John. 1981. A History of Israel. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Westminster. Pp. 173–82.

Brueggemann, Walter. 1981. “Social Criticism and Social Vision in the Deuteronomic Formula of the Judges.” In Die Botschaft und die Boten: Festschrift für Hans Walter Wolff zum 70. Geburtstag. Ed. J. Jeremias and L. Perlitt. Neukirchen: Neukirchen Verlag. Pp. 101–14.

Buber, Martin. 1967. “The Books of Judges and the Book of Judges.” In The Kingship of God. 3rd ed. New York: Harper and Row. Pp. 66–84.

Callaway, Joseph A. 1988. “The Settlement in Canaan: The Period of the Judges.” In Ancient Israel: A Short History from Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple. Ed. H. A. Shanks. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Pp. 53–84.

Chalcraft, D. J. 1990. “Deviance and Legitimate Action in the Book of Judges.” In The Bible in Three Dimensions: Essays in Celebration of Forty Years of Biblical Studies in the University of Sheffield. JSOT Supplement 87. Ed. D. J. A. Clines, S. E. Fowl and S. E. Porter. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp.177–96.

Childs, Brevard. 1979. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. Philadelphia: Fortress. Pp. 254–62.

Cundall, A. E. 1970. “Judges—An Apology for the Monarchy?” ExpT 81:178–81.

Dumbrell, W. J. 1983. “ ‘In Those Days There Was No King in Israel; Every Man Did What Was Right in His Own Eyes’: The Purpose of the Book of Judges Reconsidered.” JSOT 25:23–33.

Exum, J. C. 1990. “The Centre Cannot Hold: Thematic and Textual Instabilities in Judges.” CBQ 52:410–31.

Fensham, F. C. 1991. “Literary Observations on Historical Narratives in Sections of Judges.” In Storia e tradizoni di Israel: Scritti in onore di J. Alberto Soggin. Brescia: Queriniana. Pp. 77–87.

Gooding, D. W. 1982. “The Composition of the Book of Judges.” Eretz Israel 16:70–79.

Gros Louis, Kenneth R. R. 1974. “The Book of Judges.” In Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narrative. Ed. K. Gros Louis, J. Ackerman, and T. Warshaw. Nashville: Abingdon. Pp. 141–62.

Guest, P. D. 1998. “Can Judges Survive without Sources? Challenging the Consensus.” JSOT 78:43–61.

Gunn, D. M. 1974. “Narrative Patterns and Oral Traditions in Judges and Samuel.” VT 24:286–317.

———. 1987. “Joshua and Judges.” In The Literary Guide to the Bible. Ed. R. Alter and F. Kermode. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap. Pp. 102–21.

Hauser, A. J. 1979. “Unity and Diversity in Early Israel before Samuel.” JETS 22:289–303.

Howard, D. M., Jr. 1993. An Introduction to the Historical Books. Chicago: Moody. Pp. 99–123.

Ishida, T. 1973. “The Leaders of the Tribal League ‘Israel’ in the Premonarchic Period.” RB 80:514–30.

Kort, W. A. 1988. Story, Text, and Scripture: Literary Interests in Biblical Narrative. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press. Pp. 29–35.

Lilley, J. P. U. 1967. “A Literary Appreciation of the Book of Judges.” TynB 18:94–102.

Malamat, A. 1976. “Charismatic Leadership in the Book of Judges.” In Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright. Ed. F. M. Cross, W. E. Lemke, and P. D. Miller. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Pp. 152–68.

Mayes, A. D. H. 1977. “The Period of the Judges and the Rise of the Monarchy.” In Israelite and Judaean History. Ed. J. H. Hayes and J. M. Miller. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International. Pp. 285–331.

McKenzie, D. A. 1975. “The Judge of Israel.” VT 25 (1975) 118–21.

McKenzie, J. L. 1966. The World of the Judges. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Mullen, T. E., Jr. 1993. Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries: The Deuteronomistic Historian and the Creation of Israelite National Identity. SBLSS. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 121–80.

Patton, C. L. 1996. “From Heroic Individuals to Nameless Victims: Women in the Social World of the Judges.” In Biblical and Humane: A Festschrift for John F. Priest. Ed. L. B. Elder, D. L. Barr, and E. S. Malbon. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 33–46.

Roger, M. G. 1970. “Judges, Book of.” IDBSup, 509–14.

Smend, R. 1970. Yahweh War and Tribal Confederation. Nashville: Abingdon.

Stone, Lawson G. 1992. “Judges.” In Asbury Bible Commentary. Ed. E. E. Carpenter and W. McCown. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Pp. 329–46.

Vaux, Roland de. 1978. The Early History of Israel. Trans. David Smith. Philadelphia: Westminster. Pp. 681–93, 751–63.

Judges 1:1–3:6 (Introduction)

Auld, A. G. 1975. “Judges 1 and History: A Reconsideration.” VT 25:261–85.

Brettler, Marc. 1989. “Judges 1:1–2:10: From Appendix to Prologue.” ZAW 101:433–35.

Eslinger, L. M. 1989. “A New Generation in Israel.” In Into the Hands of the Living God. Bible and Literature Series 24. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 55–80.

Fretheim, T. E. 1983. Deuteronomic History. Interpreting Biblical Texts. Nashville: Abingdon. Pp. 87–98.

Gunn, D. M., and Danna N. Fewell. 1993. Narrative in the Hebrew Bible. The Oxford Bible Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 158–63.

Mullen, T. E., Jr. 1984. “Judges 1:1–3:6: The Deuteronomistic Reintroduction of the Book of Judges.” HTR 77:33–54.

Nelson, R. D. 1981. The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History. JSOT Supplement 18. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 43–53.

O’Doherty, E. 1956. “The Literary Problem of Judges 1, 1–3, 6.” CBQ 28:1–7.

Weinfeld, M. 1967. “The Period of the Conquest and of the Judges as Seen by the Earlier and the Later Sources.” VT 17:93–113.

———. 1993. “Judges 1:1–2:5: The Conquest under the Leadership of the House of Judah.” In Understanding Poets and Prophets: Essays in Honor of George Wishart Anderson. JSOT Supplement 152. Ed. A. G. Auld. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 388–400.

Williams, J. G. 1991. “The Structure of Judges 2:6–16:31.” JSOT 49:77–86.

Wright, G. Ernest. 1946. “The Literary and Historical Problem of Joshua 10 and Judges 1.” JNES 5:105–14.

Younger, K. L., Jr. 1994. “Judges 1 in Its Near Eastern Literary Context.” In Faith, Tradition, History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context. Ed. J. K. Hoffmeier, A. R. Millard, and D. W. Baker. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 207–27.

———. 1995. “The Configuring of Judicial Preliminaries: Judges 1:1–2:5 and Its Dependence on the Book of Joshua.” JSOT 68:75–92.

Judges 3:7–11 (Othniel)

Stone, Lawson G. 1988. “From Tribal Confederation to Monarchic State: The Editorial Perspective of the Book of Judges.” Ph.D. diss. Yale University. Pp. 260–89.

Judges 3:12–30 (Ehud)

Alter, Robert. 1981. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books. Pp. 37–41.

Amit, Y. 1988. “The Story of Ehud (Judges 3:12–30): The Form and the Message.” In Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus. Ed. J. Cheryl Exum. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Pp. 97–123.

Brettler, Marc. 1991. “Never the Twain Shall Meet? The Ehud Story as History and Literature.” HUCA 62:285–304.

Culley, R. C. 1992. Themes and Variations: A Study of Action in Biblical Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 99–100.

Halpern, B. 1988. The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Pp. 39–75.

Handy, L. K. 1992. “Uneasy Laughter: Ehud and Eglon as Ethnic Humor.” SJOT 6:233–46.

Jobling, D. 1988. “Right-Brained Story of Left-Handed Man: An Antiphon to Yairah Amit.” In Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus. Ed. J. Cheryl Exum. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Pp. 125–31.

Knauf, E. A. 1991. “Eglon and Ophran: Two Toponymic Notes on the Book of Judges.” JSOT 51:15–44.

Ogden, G. S. 1991. “The Special Features of a Story: A Study of Judges 3:12–30.” BT 42:408–14.

Sternberg, M. 1985. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pp. 331–37.

Yadin, Yigael. 1963. The Art of Warfare in the Biblical Lands According to Archaeological Finds. New York: McGraw Hill.

Judges 3:31 (Shamgar)

Craigie, P. C. 1972. “A Reconsideration of Shamgar ben Anath (Judges 3:31 and 5:6).” JBL 91:239–40.

Fensham, F. C. 1989. “Shamgar ben Anath.” JNES 20:197–98.

Shupak, N. 1989. “New Light on Shamgar ben Anath [Judges 3, 31].” Bib 70:517–25.

Stone, Lawson G. 1988. “From Tribal Confederation to Monarchic State: The Editorial Perspective of the Book of Judges.” Ph.D. diss. Yale University. Pp. 364–66.

Van Selms, A. 1964. “Judge Shamgar.” VT 14:294–309.

Judges 4:1–5:31 (Deborah and Barak)

Ackerman, J. 1975. “Prophecy and Warfare in Early Israel: A Study of the Deborah-Barak Story.” BASOR 220:5–12.

Amit, Y. 1987. “Judges 4: Its Content and Form.” JSOT 39:89–111.

Bal, Mieke. 1988. Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera’s Death. Trans. M. Grumpert. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Block, D. I. 1994. “Deborah among the Judges: The Perspective of the Hebrew Historian.” In Faith, Tradition, and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context. Ed. A. Millard, J. K. Hoffmeier, and D. W. Baker. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 229–53.

Culley, R. C. 1992. Themes and Variations: A Study of Action in Biblical Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 100–104.

Exum, J. C. 1985. “ ‘Mother in Israel’: A Familiar Figure Reconsidered.” In Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. Ed. L. M. Russell. Philadelphia: Westminster. Pp. 73–85.

Fewell, D. N., and D. M. Gunn. 1990. “Controlling Perspectives: Women, Men, and the Authority of Violence in Judges 4 and 5.” JAAR 56:389–411.

Halpern, Baruch. 1983. The Emergence of Israel in Canaan. SBLMS 29. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press. Pp. 116–23, 146–49.

———. 1988. The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Pp. 76–103.

Hanselman, S. W. 1989. “Narrative Theory, Ideology, and Transformation in Judges 4.” In Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible. JSOT Supplement 81; Bible and Literature Series 22. Ed. M. Bal. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 95–112.

Margalit, B. 1995. “Observations on the Jael-Sisera Story (Judges 4–5).” In Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom. Ed. D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 629–41.

Matthews, V. H. 1991. “Hospitality and Hostility in Judges 4.” BTB 21:13–21.

de Moor, J. C. 1995. “Deborah.” Daughters of Sarah 21:34–37.

Murray, D. F. 1979. “Narrative Structure and Techniques in the Deborah-Barak Story (Judges IV 4–22).” In Studies in the Historical Books of the Old Testament. VTSup 30. Ed. J. A. Emerton. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Pp. 155–89.

Na’aman, N. 1990. “Literary and Topographical Notes on the Battle of Kishon.” VT 40:423–26.

Niditch, S. 1989. “Eroticism and Death in the Tale of Jael.” In Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. Ed. P. L. Day. Minneapolis: Fortress. Pp. 43–57.

Ogden, G. S. 1994. “Poetry, Prose, and Their Relationship: Some Reflections Based on Judges 4 and 5.” In Discourse Perspectives on Hebrew Poetry in the Scriptures. Ed. E. R. Wendland. UBS Monograph Series 7. New York: United Bible Societies. Pp. 111–30.

Rasmussen, R. C. 1989. “Deborah the Woman Warrior.” In Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible. JSOT Supplement 81; Bible and Literature Series 22. Ed. M. Bal. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 79–93.

Stek, J. H. 1986. “The Bee and the Mountain Goat: A Literary Reading of Judges 4.” In A Tribute to Gleason Archer. Ed. W. C. Kaiser Jr. and R. F. Youngblood. Chicago: Moody. Pp. 53–86.

Sternberg, M. 1985. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pp. 270–83.

van Wolde, E. 1995. “Yaʿel in Judges 4.” ZAW 107:240–46.

Yee, Gale A. 1993. “By the Hand of a Woman: The Metaphor of the Woman Warrior in Judges 4.” Semeia 61:99–132.

Judges 5:1–31 (the Song of Deborah)

Alter, Robert. 1985. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: Basic Books. Pp. 43–50.

Ballentine, S. 1993. Prayer in the Hebrew Bible. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress. Pp. 220–24.

Blenkinsopp, J. 1961. “Ballad Style and Psalm Style in the Song of Deborah: A Discussion.” Bib 42:61–76.

Coogan, M. D. 1978. “A Structural and Literary Analysis of the Song of Deborah.” CBQ 40:143–66.

Craigie, P. C. 1969. “The Song of Deborah and the Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta.” JBL 88:253–65.

———. 1978. “Deborah and Anat: A Study in Poetic Imagery.” ZAW 90:374–81.

Fokkelman, Jan P. 1995. “The Song of Deborah and Barak: Its Prosodic Levels and Structure.” In Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom. Ed. D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 595–628.

Freedman, D. N. 1980. Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 147–60.

Gerleman, G. 1966. “The Song of Deborah in the Light of Stylistics.” VT 36:32–53.

Globe, A. 1974. “The Literary Structure and Unity of the Song of Deborah.” JBL 93:493–512.

Gray, John. 1988. “Israel in the Song of Deborah.” In Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie. JSOT Supplement 67. Ed. L. Eslinger and G. Taylor. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 421–55.

Hauser, A. J. 1980. “Parataxis in Hebrew Poetry.” JBL 99:23–41.

———. 1987. “Two Songs of Victory: A Comparison of Exodus 15 and Judges 5.” In Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry. JSOT Supplement 40. Ed. E. R. Follis. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 265–84.

Keller, Stephen. 1979. Parallelism in Hebrew Poetry. HSM 20. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press. Pp. 156–63.

Miller, P. D., Jr. 1973. The Divine Warrior in Early Israel. HSM 5. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Pp. 87–102.

de Moor, J. C. 1993. “The Twelve Tribes in the Song of Deborah.” VT 43:483–94.

O’Connor, M. 1980. Hebrew Verse Structure. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 487–93.

Schloen, J. D. 1993. “Caravans, Kenites and casus belli: Enmity and Alliance in the Song of Deborah.” CBQ 55:18–38.

Shaw, J. 1989. “Constructions of Women in Readings of the Song of Deborah.” In Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible. JSOT Supplement 81; Bible and Literature Series 22. Ed. M. Bal. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 113–32.

Stager, L. E. 1988. “Archaeology, Ecology, and Sacred History: Background Themes to the Song of Deborah.” In Congress Volume: Jerusalem, 1986. VTSup 40. Ed. J. A. Emerton. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Pp. 221–34.

———. 1989. “The Song of Deborah: Why Some Tribes Answered the Call and Others Did Not.” BAR 15, no. 1:51–64.

Stuart, D. K. 1976. Studies in Early Hebrew Meter. HSM 13. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press. Pp. 121–36.

Walsh, J. P. M. 1987. The Mighty from Their Thrones. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Pp. 70–75.

Judges 6:1–8:35 (Gideon)

Auld, A. G. 1989. “Gideon: Hacking at the Heart of the Old Testament.” VT 39:393–406.

Buber, Martin. 1967. “The Gideon Passage.” In The Kingship of God. 3rd ed. New York: Harper and Row. Pp. 59–65.

Clark, G. R. 1993. The Word Hesed in the Hebrew Bible. JSOT Supplement 157. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 221–22.

Culley, R. C. 1992. Themes and Variations: A Study of Action in Biblical Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp.104–6.

Emerton, J. A. 1976. “Gideon and Jerubbaal.” JTS 27:289–312.

Fontaine, Carole R. 1982. Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament. Bible and Literature Series 5. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 76–95.

Garsiel, M. 1993. “Homiletic Name-Derivations as a Literary Device in the Gideon Narrative: Judges VI–VIII.” VT 43:302–17.

Habel, N. 1965. “The Form and Significance of the Call Narratives.” ZAW 77:297–323.

Macartney, Clarence. 1948. The Greatest Questions of the Bible and of Life. Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury. Pp. 68–77.

Malamat, A. 1953. “The War of Gideon and Midian: A Military Approach.” PEQ 85:61–65.

Sakenfeld, K. 1978. The Meaning of Hesed in the Hebrew Bible. HSMS 17. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press. Pp. 54–58.

Standaert, B. 1996. “Adonai Shalom (Judges 6–9): The Persuasive Means of a Narrative and the Strategies of Inculturation of Yahwism in Context.” In Rhetoric, Scripture and Theology. JSNT Supplement 131. Ed. S. E. Porter and T. H. Olbricht. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Pp. 195–202.

Tanner, J. P. 1992. “The Gideon Narrative as the Focal Point of Judges.” BSac 149:141–61.

Zakovitch, Y. 1985. “Assimilation in Biblical Narratives.” In Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism. Ed. J. H. Tigay. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 192–95.

Judges 9:1–57 (Abimelech)

Boogart, T. A. 1985. “Stone for Stone: Retribution in the Story of Abimelech and Shechem.” JSOT 32:45–56.

Campbell, E. F., Jr. 1983. “Judges 9 and Biblical Archaeology.” In The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday. Ed. C. L. Myers and M. O’Connor. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 263–71.

Crown, A. D. 1961–1962. “A Reinterpretation of Judges IX in the Light of Its Humour.” Abr Nahrain 3:90–98.

Fokkelman, J. P. 1992. “Structural Remarks on Judges 9 and 19.” In Shaʿarei Talmon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon. Ed. M. Fishbane and E. Tov. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 33–45.

Halpern, Baruch. 1978. “The Rise of Abimelek ben-Jerubbaal.” HAR 2:67–100.

Janzen, J. G. 1987. “A Certain Woman in the Rhetoric of Judges 9.” JSOT 38:33–37.

Lindars, B. 1973. “Jotham’s Fable—A New Form-Critical Analysis.” JTS 24:355–66.

Maly, E. 1960. “The Jotham Fable—Anti-Monarchical?” CBQ 22:299–305.

Ogden, G. S. 1995. “Jotham’s Fable: Its Structure and Function in Judges 9.” BT 46:301–8.

Vater Solomon, Ann M. 1985. “Fable.” In Saga, Legend, Tale, Novella, Fable: Narrative Forms in Old Testament Literature. JSOT Supplement 35. Ed. G. W. Coats. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 114–25.

Judges 10:1–5; 12:8–15 (the Minor Judges)

Hauser, A. J. 1975. “ ‘The Minor Judges’—A Re-evaluation.” JBL 94:190–200.

Mullen, T. E., Jr. 1982. “The ‘Minor Judges’: Some Literary and Historical Considerations.” CBQ 44:185–201.

Stone, Lawson G. 1988. “From Tribal Confederation to Monarchic State: The Editorial Perspective of the Book of Judges.” Ph.D. diss. Yale University. Pp. 383–85.

Judges 10:6–12:7 (Jephthah)

Bal, M. 1989. “Between Altar and Wandering Rock: Toward A Feminist Theology.” In Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible. JSOT Supplement 81; Bible and Literature Series 22. Ed. M. Bal. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 211–32.

———. 1990. “Dealing with Women: Daughters in the Book of Judges.” In The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory. Ed. R. Schwartz. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp. 16–39.

Claasens, L. J. M. 1996. “Notes on Characterisation in the Jephtah Narrative.” JNSL 22:107–15.

———. 1997. “Theme and Function in the Jephthah Narrative.” JNSL 23:203–19.

Courtledge, T. W. 1992. Vows in the Hebrew Bible and in the Ancient Near East. JSOT Supplement 147. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 175–85.

Culley, R. C. 1992. Themes and Variations: A Study of Action in Biblical Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 106–8.

Day, P. L. 1989. “From the Child Is Born the Woman: The Story of Jephthah’s Daughter.” In Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. Ed. P. L. Day. Minneapolis: Fortress. Pp. 58–74.

Ellington, J. 1992. “More on Shibboleth (Judges 12:6).” BT 43:244–45.

Exum, J. C. 1988. “The Tragic Vision and Biblical Narrative: The Case of Jephthah.” In Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus. Ed. J. C. Exum. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 59–83.

Fuchs, E. 1989. “Marginalization, Ambiguity, Silencing: The Story of Jephthah’s Daughter.” JFSR 5:35–45.

Gunn, D. M., and Danna N. Fewell. 1993. Narrative in the Hebrew Bible. The Oxford Bible Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 112–19.

Humphreys, W. L. 1989. “The Story of Jephthah and the Tragic Vision: A Response to J. Cheryl Exum.” In Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus. Ed. J. C. Exum. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 85–96.

Kaiser, Walter, Jr. 1988. Hard Sayings in the Old Testament. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity. Pp. 101–5.

Marcus, David. 1986. Jephthah and His Vow. Lubbock: Texas Tech Press.

———. 1989. “The Bargaining between Jephthah and the Elders (Judges 11:4–11).” JANES 19:95–100.

———. 1990. “The Legal Dispute between Jephthah and the Elders,” HAR 12:105–14.

———. 1992. “Ridiculing the Ephraimites: The Shibboleth Incident (Judges 12:6).” Maarav 8:95–105.

Mendelsohn, I. 1954. “The Disinheritance of Jephthah in the Light of Paragraph 27 of the Lipit-Ishtar Code.” IEJ 4:116–19.

Milgrom, Jacob. 1990. Numbers. JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Pp. 488–90.

Parker, S. B. 1980. “The Vow in Ugaritic and Israelite Narrative Literature.” UF 11:693–700.

Reis, P. T. 1997. “Spoiled Child: A Fresh Look at Jephthah’s Daughter.” Prooftexts 17:279–98.

Swiggers, P. 1981. “The Word šibbolet in Jud. xii.6.” JSS 26:205–7.

Trible, P. 1981. “A Meditation in Mourning: The Sacrifice of the Daughter of Jephthah.” USQR 31:59–73.

———. 1984. “The Daughter of Jephthah: An Inhuman Sacrifice.” In Texts of Terror: Literary and Feminist Readings of Biblical Narrative. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Pp. 93–116.

———. 1987. “A Daughter’s Death: Feminism, Literary Criticism, and the Bible.” In Backgrounds for the Bible. Ed. M. P. O’Connor and D. N. Freedman. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 1–14.

Judges 13:1–16:31 (Samson)

Alter, R. 1990. “Samson without Folklore.” In Text and Tradition: The Hebrew Bible and Folklore. SBL Semeia Studies. Ed. S. Niditch. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 47–56.

Bal, M. 1987. Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pp. 37–67.

Blenkinsopp, J. 1963. “Structure and Style in Judges 13–16.” JBL 82:65–76.

Brooks, S. S. 1996. “Saul and the Samson Narrative.” JSOT 71:19–25.

Brown, Raymond. 1977. The Birth of the Messiah. New York: Doubleday & Co.

Camp, C. V., and C. Fontaine. 1990. “The Words of the Wise and their Riddles.” In Text and Tradition: The Hebrew Bible and Folklore. Ed. S. Niditch. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 127–51.

Crenshaw, James. 1974. “The Samson Saga: Filial Devotion or Erotic Attachment?” ZAW 86:470–504.

———. 1978. Samson: A Secret Betrayed, A Vow Ignored. Atlanta: John Knox.

Culley, R. C. 1992. Themes and Variations: A Study of Action in Biblical Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 108–9.

Exum, J. C. 1980. “Promise and Fulfillment: Narrative Art in Judges 13.” JBL 99:39–59.

———. 1981. “Aspects of Symmetry and Balance in the Samson Saga.” JSOT 19:2–29.

———. 1983. “The Theological Dimension of the Samson Saga.” VT 33:30–45.

———. 1996. “Why, Why, Why, Delilah?” In Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women. JSOT Supplement 215. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Pp. 175–231.

———, and J. W. Whedbee. 1990. “Isaac, Samson and Saul: Reflections on the Comic and Tragic Visions.” In On Humour and the Comic in the Bible. JSOT Supplement 92; Bible and Literature Series 23. Ed. Y. T. Radday and A. Brenner. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 117–59.

Freeman, James A. 1982. “Samson’s Dry Bones: A Structural Reading of Judges 13–16.” In Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives II. Ed. K. R. R. Gros Louis and J. S. Ackerman. Nashville: Abingdon. Pp. 145–60.

Fuchs, E. 1985. “The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible.” In Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship. Ed. A. Y. Collins. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press. Pp. 117–36.

Greenberg, M. 1983. Biblical Prose Prayer as a Window to the Popular Religion of Ancient Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Greene, M. 1991. “Enigma Variations: Aspects of the Samson Story (Judges 13–16).” Vox Evangelica 21:53–79.

Greenstein, E. L. 1981. “The Riddle of Samson.” Prooftexts 1:237–60.

Gunn, D. M. 1992. “Samson of Sorrows: An Isaianic Gloss on Judges 13–16.” In Reading between Texts: Intertexuality and the Hebrew Bible. Ed. D. N. Fewell. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox. Pp. 225–53.

Humphreys, W. L. 1985. The Tragic Vision and the Hebrew Tradition. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Pp. 68–73.

Kim, J. 1993. The Structure of the Samson Cycle. Kampen: Kok Pharos.

Margalit, O. 1985. “Samson’s Foxes.” VT 35:224–29.

———. 1986a. “Samson’s Riddles and Samson’s Magic Locks.” VT 36:225–34.

———. 1986b. “More Samson Legends.” VT 36:397–405.

———. 1987. “The Legend of Samson/Heracles.” VT 37:63–70.

Mendenhall, G. 1973. The Tenth Generation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Milgrom, Jacob. 1990. Numbers. JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Pp. 43–50, 355–58.

Nel, P. 1985. “The Riddle of Samson (Judg 14, 14.18).” Bib 66:534–45.

Niditch, S. 1990. “Samson as Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak.” CBQ 52:608–24.

O’Connor, M. 1986. “The Women of the Book of Judges.” HAR 10:277–93.

Porter, J. R. 1962. “Samson’s Riddle: Judges xiv. 18.” JTS 13:106–9.

Reinhartz, A. 1992. “Samson’s Mother: An Unnamed Protagonist.” JSOT 55:25–37.

Sasson, J. M. 1988. “Who Cut Samson’s Hair? (And Other Trifling Issues Raised by Judges 16).” Prooftexts 8:333–39.

Savran, G. W. 1988. Telling and Retelling: Quotation in Biblical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Segert, S. 1984. “Paronomasia in the Samson Narrative in Judges xiii-xvi.” VT 34:454–61.

van der Toorn, K. 1986. “Judges xvi 21 in the Light of the Akkadian Sources.” VT 36:248–53.

Vickery, J. B. 1981. “In Strange Ways: The Story of Samson.” In Images of Man and God: Old Testament Short Stories in Literary Focus. Ed. B. O. Long. Sheffield: Almond. Pp. 58–73.

Webb, Barry. 1995. “A Serious Reading of the Samson Story (Judges 13–16).” RTR 54:110–20.

Wharton, J. A. 1973. “Secret of Yahweh: Story and Affirmation in Judges 13–16.” Int 27:48–66.

Judges 17:1–18:31 (the Levite and the Danites)

Amit, Y. 1990. “Hidden Polemic in the Conquest of Dan: Judges xvii–xviii.” VT 40:4–20.

Davis, D. R. 1984. “Comic Literature—Tragic Theology: A Study of Judges 17–18.” WTJ 46:156–63.

Greenspahn, F. E. 1982. “An Egyptian Parallel to Judges 17:6 and 21:25.” JBL 101:129–30.

Malamat, A. 1970. “The Danite Migration and the Pan-Israelite Exodus-Conquest.” Bib 51:1–16.

Noth, Martin. 1962. “The Background of Judges 17–18.” In Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg. Ed. B. W. Anderson and W. Harrelson. New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp. 68–85.

Satterthwaite, P. 1993. “ ‘No King in Israel’: Narrative Criticism and Judges 17–21.” TynB 44:75–88.

Spina, F. 1977. “The Dan Story Historically Reconsidered.” JSOT 1:60–71.

Judges 19:1–21:25 (the Levite and the Concubine)

Amit, Y. 1994. “Literature in the Service of Politics: Studies in Judges 19–21.” In Politics and Theopolitics in the Bible and Postbiblical Literature. JSOT Supplement 171. Ed. H. G. Reventlow, Y. Hoffman, and B. Uffenheimer. Sheffield: JSOT Press. Pp. 28–40.

Bach, A. 1998. “Rereading the Body Politic: Women and Violence in Judges 21.” BibInt 6:1–19.

Culley, R. C. 1976. Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press. Pp. 54–59.

Currie, S. D. 1971. “Biblical Studies for a Seminar on Sexuality and the Human Community, I: Judges 19–21.” Austin Seminary Bulletin 87:13–20.

Fokkelman, J. P. 1992. “Structural Remarks on Judges 9 and 19.” In Shaʿarei Talmon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran and the Ancient Near East Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon. Ed. M. Fishbane and E. Tov. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Pp. 33–45.

Hudson, D. M. 1994. “Living in the Land of Epithets: Anonymity in Judges 19–21.” JSOT 62:49–66.

Keefe, A. 1993. “Rapes of Women/Wars of Men,” Semeia 61:79–97.

Lasine, S. 1984. “Guest and Host in Judges 19: Lot’s Hospitality in an Inverted World.” JSOT 29:37–59.

Matthews, V. 1992. “Hospitality and Hostility in Genesis 19 and Judges 19.” BTB 22, no. 1:3–11.

Niditch, S. 1982. “The ‘Sodomite’ Theme in Judges 19–20: Family, Community, and Social Disintegration.” CBQ 44:365–78.

Penchansky, D. 1992. “Staying the Night: Intertexuality in Genesis and Judges.” In Reading between Texts: Intertexuality and the Hebrew Bible. Ed. D. N. Fewell. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox. Pp. 77–88.

Revell, E. J. 1985. “The Battle with Benjamin (Judges xx 29–48) and Hebrew Narrative Techniques.” VT 35:417–33.

Satterthwaite, P. E. 1992. “Narrative Artistry in the Composition of Judges xx:29ff.” VT 42:80–89.

Stone, K. 1993. “Sexual Practice and the Structure of Prestige: The Case of the Disputed Concubines.” In SBLSP 1993. Ed. E. H. Lovering Jr. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Pp. 554–73.

———. 1995. “Gender and Homosexuality in Judges 19: Subject-Honor, Object-Shame?” JSOT 67:87–107.

———. 1996. Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History. JSOT Supplement 234. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Pp. 69–84.

Trible, P. 1984. “An Unnamed Woman: The Extravagance of Violence.” In Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Pp. 65–91.

Wright, R. A. 1989. “Establishing Hospitality in the Old Testament: Testing the Tool of Linguistic Pragmatics.” Ph.D. diss. Yale University. Pp. 135–36, 145–47, 182–97.

Victor P. Hamilton, Handbook on the Historical Books (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 97–185.