Book of Judges

Book of Judges (Hebrew: Sefer Shoftim ספר שופטים) is a book of the Bible originally written in Hebrew. It appears in the Hebrew Bible and in the Christian Old Testament. Its title refers to its contents; it contains the history of Biblical judges (not to be confused with modern judges), and of their times, who helped rule and guide the ancient Israelites.

As Judges stands today, the last judge it mentions is Samson. The story of two additional judges, Eli and Samuel, are told in the first of the Books of Samuel. As for the stories at the end of the Book, which are set in the same time period as the judges, but discuss people other than the judges, there is much affinity between these and the Book of Ruth, and many people believe Ruth originally belonged amongst them.

The Judges

The following (in order) are identified as Judges in the Book of Judges - great judges are those deemed worthy of large narratives in the Book:

Othniel Ehud (great judge) Shamgar Deborah (great judge) Gideon (great judge) Tola Jair Jephthah (great judge) Ibzan Elon Abdon Samson (great judge) Biblical critics believe that Abimelech was also originally considered a judge, becoming changed to a "king" owing to his being regarded as evil, at which point Shamgar was added to the list so that there were still 12 in the Book. Textual criticism also views the minor judges as being added to the list simply to make the total number equal 12, a number of religious significance to the Israelites.

The First Book of Samuel also mentions:

Eli (great judge) Samuel (great judge) According to textual criticism the initial portion of the first book of Samuel, containing these two names, was probably originally the final part of the Book of Judges. Hence the original form of the book, according to textual criticism, listed 8 judges, 7 good and 1 bad, 7 being a religiously significant number.

Structure and content

Academics treat the text of Judges as having three distinct sections:

• The Introduction (1:1-3:10 and 3:12) giving a summary of the book of Joshua
• The Main Text (3:11-16:31), discussing the five Great Judges, Abimelech, and providing glosses for a few minor Judges
• The Appendices (17:1-21:25), giving two stories set in the time of the Judges, but not discussing the Judges themselves.

The introduction

The introduction summarises much of the material discussed in Joshua, in some cases giving additional details:

• The choosing of Judah to lead the attack (Judges 1:1-3)
• The capture of Adonibezek, and destruction of Jerusalem, (Judges 1:4-8) differing materially from the account of Adonibezek in Joshua (Joshua 10)
• The story of Othniel (Judges 1:11-15) almost identical to its mention in Joshua (Joshua 15:15-19)
• A list of the successes and failures of Judah and Simeon's campaigns (1:17-20)
• The descendants of Moses' father-in-law (either Hobab or Raguel/Reuel/Jesse - this is unclear) move to the Negev (Judges 1:16)
• Caleb driving away the sons of Anak from Hebron (Judges 1:10 and 1:20) as mentioned in Joshua (Joshua 15:14)
• The destruction of Luz and sparing of an individual who aided the Israelite spies (1:22-26)
• A list of the failures of the campaigns by the northern tribes (1:21-36)
• A threat by an angel at Bochim (2:1-5)
• The death of Joshua (Judges 2:6-9) similar to the account in Joshua (Joshua 24:28-31)
• An introduction to the role of Biblical judges (2:10-3:6)
  • The falling of the Israelites into heathen practices (2:10-14)
  • A very brief overview of the main part of the Book of Judges (2:15-19)
  • An explanation of why God allowed some Canaanites to remain (2:20-3:4)
  • A recap of the Israelites falling into heathen practices, as the start of the main part of the book (3:5-6)
• The story of Othniel (Judges 3:7-10) again, presented differently to the earlier mention (Judges 1:11-15)

The main text

The main text mostly consists of six stories each concerning a major judge and their struggles against an oppresive foreign overlord:

• Ehud (3:11-29) vs. Eglon of Moab
• Deborah the prophetess and Barak the army leader (4-5) vs. Jabin of Hazor (in Canaan) and Siserah, his captain
• Gideon (6-8) vs. Midian, Amalek, and the children of the East
• Abimelech (9) (who is traditionally counted as a king not a judge, and is considered evil) vs. all the Israelites who opposed him
• Jephthah (11-12:7) vs. the Ammonites
• Samson (13-16) vs. the Philistines

There are also brief glosses of the rule of lesser judges, often only giving their name and the number of their sons.

• Shamgar (3:31)
• Tola (10:1-2)
• Jair (10:3-5)
• Izban (12:8-10)
• Elon (12:11-12)
• Abdon (12:13-15)

The appendices

There are two appendices, with no apparent narrative connection to each other, or the remainder of the text:

• Dan and the Idols of Micah (17-18)
• Gibeah and the Levite Concubine (19-21)

Authorship

While the authorship of Judges has traditionally been ascribed to Samuel, the great majority of modern scholars have come to a much more complex conclusion, regarding the work as having hardly any literary unity at all. Many suspect the brief Book of Ruth to have originally been part of the Appendices of Judges, owing to its style, linguistic features and the time period in which its contents are set, it somehow becoming disconnected and misplaced at a later date.

According to textual criticism, the majority of Judges was originally part of a continuous work known as the Deuteronomic History stretching from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings, which was later broken up, in accordance with the documentary hypothesis, when the Torah was constructed by its redactor from the early parts of the Deuteronomic History and other writings such as JE and the Priestly source. It is for this reason that many textual critics also treat 1 Samuel 1:1-7:2, which discuss Eli and Samuel, as having originally been part of the Judges section of the Deuteronomic History narrative.

The introduction

Some passages (1:12-15, 2:6-9 and 3:7-11) of the introduction are almost identical to ones in the Book of Joshua. On the other hand, part of the text which surrounds them (1:1-11, 1:16-2:5) instead presents a summarised overview of the events in Joshua, recording differing traditions, such as that concerning Adonibezek (c.f. Joshua 10), or those concerning the continuing presence of Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day (1:21) or not (1:8). For those who support Hexateuch-like theories, where the sources that the documentary hypothesis ascribes to the Torah extend through the Book of Joshua, these passages are often seen as deriving from such sources parallel to the corresponding ones of Joshua.

The majority of critical scholars believe that that first part of the introduction (1:1-2:5) was a late addition to the text, added after the Deuteronomist version of Judges was constructed. Hence 2:6-3:7 is viewed as the original introduction by the Deuteronomist to the Judges period, spinning the later stories to imply that the history of the period involved the Israelites repeatedly turning to worship of other gods, suffering for it, and being alleviated of their suffering by five great leaders, and Abimelech; whereas the original source texts were independent and without the Deuteronomist's alterations, some could be regarded as parallel local events rather than sequential national ones.

The main text

The text is believed under textual criticism to contain further compositional structure. The Deuteronomist here is believed to have combined together six earlier separate texts, one for each of the five Great Judges and one for Abimelech - Ehud (3:11, and 3:13-29), Deborah (4:1b-5:31), Gideon (6-8), Abimelech (9:1-57), Jephthah (11:1-12:7), and Samson (13:2-16), adding passages to join them together (4:1a, 8:29-31, 10:17-18, and 13:1), sometimes interrupting the narrative to do so.

The text is believed to have been further altered by the (possibly later) addition of passages concerning Minor Judges (10:1-5 and 12:8-15) in order to make the total number of Judges a more religiously significant number, harmonizing them chronologically so that the total number of years of their reign (71) is close to the number of years of oppression under the Great Judges (70). The presence of 3:31, placing Shamgar in the list of Judges, is believed to be a later recension, created in order to remove Abimelech from being counted amongst the Judges without disturbing the total number, in order that someone so apparently wicked not taint the role, the name coming from 5:6.

Three of these six earlier texts each contain partly duplicate accounts:

• Judges 4 is believed to be based on two separate stories, one based on the ancient Song of Deborah (Judges 5) concerning Sisera, the other a story concerning Jabin, which had merged together when Barak of Issachar (identified at 5:15 as the one who defeats Sisera) was confused with Barak of Naphtali (identified at 4:6 as the one who defeats Jabin), and consequently Sisera is reinterpreted in Judges 4 as Jabin's general rather than as the chief of a confederation (as in Judges 5)
• Although difficult, to a degree, to separate, there are considered to be two distinct interwoven narratives about Gideon; the first narrative (which includes at least 6:2-6, 6:11-24, 6:33-35, 7:1, and 7:9-25) describing a surprise assault on the Midianites on Mount Gilboa with the fugitive Kings Oreb and Zeeb being killed, and the second narrative (which includes at least 6:7-10, 6:25-32, and 6:36-40, and 8:4-27) discussing Gideon capturing the fugitive Kings Zebah and Zalmunna.
• The narrative of Judges 9, concerning Abimelech, is thought not to have originally contained the parable of Jotham (9:7b-20), it being inserted into the story at a later date. However, the parable itself is believed to be earlier than the rest of the narrative, which is thought to be at least partly based upon it.

In addition, the Samson narrative (13-16) contains two distinct cycles; the first a series of tableaux concerning his romance of a Philistine woman and subsequent problems arising from it; the second is the tale of his relationship with Delilah, which begins with him standing between two gateposts at dawn, and ends with him standing between two temple pillars in the evening. Though these two cycles may have been collected separately from each other, textual criticism favours the view that the whole Samson narrative originates from one author. That the narrative of Samson is easily broken into 12 episodes is considered to be a deliberate literary conceit, owing to the significance of the number 12 to the Israelites.

In addition to such parallel narratives, the story of Jephthah (11:1-12:7) is often suspected to have been subject to later editing in three locations, though the reasons for the first two are not at all clear

• According to 11:1-2, it is Jephthah's own brothers which expelled him, whereas according to 11:7 it is the elders of Gilead
• The message to the Ammonites at 11:12-27 is written as if directed at Moabites.
• 11:35-40 has the appearance of abridging a more extensive original text, glossing over the existence in the text of human sacrifice to Yahweh, which is mentioned fairly obviously at 11:31

The appendices

The Appendices cover two stories from the time of the Judges, rather than Judges themselves, and so only have contextual relationship in passing with the remainder of the work. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the Appendices is that they cover events occurring at the start of the period of Judges not at its end, and so, chronologically, belong before the remainder of the book, not after it. Even more noticeable is that the narrative preceding the Appendices continues in 1 Samuel, as if the interruption due to the narrative of the Appendices were simply not present. Hence scholars view the Appendices as texts that were not originally present but later added due to the shared time frame, though the reason they were inserted at the end rather than the beginning is unclear.

The story of Micah and his Idols (17-18) is thought by some scholars (e.g. Ernst Bertheau, Karl Budde, Rudolf Kittel, and Carl Heinrich Cornill) to be composed from two distinct accounts, one recording Micah making an Ephod and Teraphim and hiring a Levite to be "father and priest", the other recording Micah making a graven image and a molten image and hiring a Levite as a priest who he treated as a son. Were this to be the case, it may indicate that at least part of the Appendices could be considered further continuations of the Jahwist, Elohist, or Priestly sources, hence explaining their origin. However, other critical scholars have proposed that such discrepancies may simply be due to later scribal interpolations. The story is significantly notable as it describes a cult and priesthood at Dan which is mentioned nowhere else in the entire Hebrew Bible, and hence is considered to be based on a particularly early source, prior to later recensions glossing over cult centres of Yahweh outside Jerusalem and Shiloh.

The other story of the appendices (19-21), concerning the Levite and his concubine, is thought to date from a similarly early era based on linguistic similarities to the first appendix. However, as everyone in the story is anonymous, except Phinehas, has lead many Biblical critics to regard the story as fictional. Nevertheless, Hosea (10:9) says that "...since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel...", evidencing at least the presence of traditions resembling parts of the story, though some scholars, beginning with Noldeke, believe the story is actually based on something from a slightly later time period - the ruining of the tribe of Benjamin by the war between David and the son of Saul.

See also

• Tanakh
• Bible
• Biblical canon
• Documentary hypothesis
• Deuteronomic Cycle

External links

• Original text:
  • שֹּׁפְטִים - Shoftim - Judges (Hebrew - English at Mechon-Mamre.org)
• Jewish translations:
  • Judges at Mechon-Mamre (Jewish Publication Society translation)
  • Shoftim - Judges (Judaica Press) translation with Rashi's commentary at Chabad.org
• Christian translations:
  • Online Bible at GospelHall.org
  • Judges at The Great Books (New Revised Standard Version)
  • Judges at Bible Gateway (Various versions)
  • Judges at Wikisource (Authorised King James Version)
• Articles:
  • Book of Judges article (Jewish Encyclopedia)
  • The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran (Chronology for Israel's Period of the Judges 1412 B.C.E. to 1039 B.C.E.)

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