Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.—Hebrews 11:33,34

David Rice

The Book of Judges covers more than three centuries in the experience of Israel. The book opens with a reference to the death of Joshua, but the record of his passing is included in the closing verses of Joshua. He died at the age of 110 years, the same age as Joseph about two centuries earlier. Both Joshua and Joseph represented Christ, and the burial of each is referred to in Joshua 24:29-33. Joshua was buried in part of his inheritance, Timnath-serah in the mount of Ephraim, and Joseph was buried in Shechem which was earlier purchased by Jacob for one hundred pieces of silver (or “lambs” of silver, Joshua 24:32, margin). Also mentioned is the passing of Eleazar, son of Aaron, leaving his son Phineas to inherit the office of high priest.

Overview

The narratives in Judges are mostly sequential, other than the last two episodes. After recounting the exploits of the various judges, excepting Eli and Samuel who are held over until the book of Samuel, the narrator included what became chapters 17, 18, 19 and 20 which record episodes from relatively early in the period of Judges. Chapters 17 and 18 explain how many of the tribe of Dan forsook their appointed allotment southward in Israel, and took over a portion northward in Israel where the city of Laish had been. In the process they adopted an idolatrous form of worship in “Dan until the day of the captivity of the land” (Judges 18:30). In this way they fulfilled the ominous warning of Jacob’s dying words: “Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward” (Genesis 49:17) Probably through this bad example, “Dan [would] judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel” (verse 16). That is, Dan would prove a test to the remainder of Israel, by which the other tribes would be judged.

Chapters 19 and 20 presumably occurred after the Dan episode. These chapters recount an egregious sin in the tribe of Benjamin, which the men of Benjamin refused to correct when demanded of the other tribes to deliver up the offenders. For this cause a civil war ensued which devastated Benjamin. The tribe was in peril of being extinguished. At last a remnant was spared, suitable for preserving the life of the tribe, and many years later from this tribe came Saul, the first king of Israel. During this civil war Phineas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, was high priest (Judges 20:28), by which we know the episode was relatively early in the period.

In a general overview, the Book of Judges, preceding the kingdom period, represents the Gospel age, which precedes the Millennial kingdom of God’s plan. The various backslidings of Israel, the resulting oppressions, and subsequent deliverances, represent periods of backsliding, oppression, and deliverance of spiritual Israel during the Gospel age. The Dan episode represents that part of spiritual Israel which fails to overcome, and fails to secure the prize of life. In harmony with this symbolism, the tribe of Dan is absent from the listing of the “tribes” of spiritual Israel in Revelation chapter seven. Benjamin, who as a person sometimes represented the Great Company class, represents this class here also. The members of the Great Company are in peril of losing their lives, but are eventually spared as a mercy class, though through trying ordeals and tribulation (1 Corinthians 3:15; Revelation 7:14).

Thus Judges represents all three classes of those who follow Christ in the Gospel age: those who gain the victory, those who fail to gain life, and those who are mercifully cleansed through trial. These classes are presented in this order in Judges, and also in Revelation chapter seven. With this the narrative of Judges closes. However, a third narrative follows which is segregated into its own book, namely the Book of Ruth. That book explains the descent of King David from Ruth the Moabitess and Boaz the son of Rahab and Salmon. The child of Ruth and Boaz was Obed, the father of Jesse, who fathered David. The closing verses of Ruth identify ten generations following Judah, culminating in King David, which may synchronize with Deuteronomy 23:2 which also specifies a requirement of about ten generations.

The Main Part of Judges

The first sixteen chapters of Judges cover the Judges from Othniel to Samson inclusive. Joshua 24:31 had said that “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.” Chapter one of Judges then explains the victories of Israel in that interim during which the elders of Israel outlived Joshua.

They inquired of God, and he said the tribe of Judah would lead the battle against the remaining Canaanites. The tribe of Judah persuaded the tribe of Simeon to make common cause against both their enemies, and they were victorious. Judges 1:22-26 reports that Joseph (Ephraim) was also victorious, and this was a fitting legacy to Joshua who was of that tribe. But the other tribes were not as faithful and not as victorious. Judges 1:21,27-36 specifically mentions problems for Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraimites of the coast, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali and Dan.

Chapter two opens with a message from God through an angel stating that because of Israel’s spirit of accommodation to the Canaanites God would “not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you” (Judges 2:3). So it is with us. God gives us victories over the spiritual enemies we have within and without—self, the world, and the devil. But if we do not follow these victories with determined desire and perseverance to subdue the inclinations to sin, we are in peril. If we learn to accommodate sin within and the world without, they will be stumbling stones to us in the future.

This was also true collectively. Early in the age the zealous word of Christians was blessed by God in a great increase in the number of Christians. Persecutions rose from Pagan Rome, but ultimately God granted a great triumph of Christianity over paganism. Then a spirit of accommodation to the allurements of the world crept into the church, and the results of apostasy were bitter.

When we once meet temptation, and resist successfully, let us be eager for further victories. If instead we seek comfort, and accommodate the spirit of the world, we solicit danger. The blessed spirit of devotion begins to fade, robbing us of joy and peace. A dimming of spiritual senses brings a thin veil over our hearts. Our fervency slacks, and the enemies are always present to entice us. Thus our complacency allows “thorns” and “snares” to beset us, as God permitted to Israel of old (Judges 2:3).

The place of this angelic encounter was named “Bochim,” weeping, after the weeping induced in Israel by this message (Judges 2:1, 5). So let us weep, outwardly or inwardly, if we recognize a lack of earnestness in our Christian warfare. Then let us repent, and rise to the spiritual battle again, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Judges 2:8 repeats the record of Joshua’s death from the closing verses of Joshua. Perhaps this means this episode at Bochim preceded the passing of Joshua. But it is more probable that it is repeated merely to connect to the thought following: “Also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). Following this is a summary of what followed in later years—apostasy, oppression, deliverance, in a repetitive cycle.

Judges chapter three mentions some of the lands and peoples which were not dispossessed by Israel. Then, with verse 8, begins the account of the first oppression of Israel. This was not a captivity, as would happen in later centuries by the Assyrians and Babylonians. This, and subsequent chastisements in Judges, were periods of oppression when they were dominated by a foreign power, or a rival Canaanite power. This evidently meant taxation of their produce and various restrictions on their freedoms, sufficient to make the burden increasingly unbearable, and direct them back to their benefactor, Jehovah.

Afflictions do the same to us. They turn our minds back to our great benefactor, our heavenly Father, and his agent for our blessing, our dear Lord Jesus. The bitter herbs of the Passover represent bitter trials in life which whet our appetite for the Lamb. They make us appreciate more deeply the freedom we have in Christ, freedom from sin, from the blight of a tinged conscience, into the joys of devoted living with a sense of satisfaction and peace in serving God with a pure heart.

Oppression and Deliverance

There were several cycles of oppression, deliverance, and ensuing peace. The first oppression was by Chushan-Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, who oppressed Israel eight years (Judges 3:8). Strong’s Concordance gives the meaning of this name as “Cushan of double wickedness.” Clearly the “Rishathaim” part was a pejorative, and his actual name was Chushan, or Cushan. If this man was indeed a notable king of Mesopotamia, it might be possible to connect him with some personage of history. The value of thus linking the scriptural narrative to the history of contemporary nations, is to augment the sense of real history in this passage, which many in our day are inclined to dispute.

There was, in ancient times, a kingdom which ruled the territory between Assyria in the east on the banks of the Tigris River, and the Hittite empire in Asia minor. That was the kingdom of Mittani. For a time it was the strongest empire of the ancient near east. It conquered and subsumed Assyria, dominated the Hitties, reached west to the Mediterranean Sea, and having crossed the Euphrates in the north, reached southward to touch the northern border of Israel. If Cushan was a king of Mittani, then this passage in Judges tells us that for eight years that empire also extended its reach southward into the land of Israel.

The names of the kings of Mittani during their days of power are Parsha(ta)tar, Shaushtatar, Aartatama, Shuttarna, Artasshumara, Tushratta, Shattiwazza, Shatturara, and Wasashatta. Among these, the most likely candidate for matching the name is Shaushtatar. At first glance the names appear dissimilar. But the transliteration of ancient names is flexible in several ways. For example, an ancient Sumerian king Shulgi is sometimes reported as Culgi, so the opening Sh may be rendered C. The letters r and n are sometimes exchanged for one another, so that Nebuchadnezzar is also reported in the Bible as Nebuchadrezzar, and Achan as Achar. The closing “tatar” in the name Parsha(ta)tar evidently is on occasion reduced to the briefer “tar.” Applying these modifications, and the usual flexibility of vowels in Semitic languages, Shaushtatar becomes Cushtan. It is easy to see in this the similarity to Cushan, specially if one pronounces the “t” in Cushtan as one would in the word Tzar. Shaustatar, or Cushtan, was king of Mittani at the height of its expansion. On this basis also, he is likely to have been the one who carried the reach of the Mittani empire southward into Israel for a time.

Othniel, a nephew of Caleb, stepped forward with courage and faith, defeated the forces of Chushan-Rishathaim, and peace ensued for forty years (Judges 3:9-11). After the passing of Othniel the Israelites again slipped into sin and God allowed Eglon, king of Moab, to invade Israel (Judges 3:12). Unlike Cushan, however, Eglon apparently moved the seat of his rulership to within the borders of Israel itself. He “gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees” (Judges 3:13).

The city of palms is Jericho, on the west side of the Jordan. The following narrative, through the remainder of chapter three, shows that Eglon and his Moabite forces were there, west of Jordan, when Ehud launched a campaign of deliverance for Israel. To avoid the escape of the many thousands of Moabite troops, they “took the fords of Jordan toward Moab, and suffered not a man to pass over. And they slew of Moab at that time about ten thousand men … and there escaped not a man” (verses 28, 29).

That Eglon possessed Jericho during his eighteen year oppression suggests he rebuilt the city. Dwelling among a subdued enemy as he did, the motivation to build the walls of the city was evident. Joshua had decreed that the city was not to be rebuilt after he destroyed it during the invasion of Canaan, many years before. This gentile ruler evidently had no regard for the warning, but in the end lost his life as a consequence. In the aftermath of Ehud’s victory the land had rest even longer than before, namely eighty years.

During this time evidently the Philistines were troublesome to Israel, and “Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel” (Judges 3:31).

Judges chapter four, however, records that Israel fell into sin again after the passing of Ehud, and God permitted Jabin, king of Canaan who reigned from the city of Hazor, to oppress Israel for twenty years. Hazor was one of three cities which Joshua had burned—Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. In Joshua’s day it was described as “the head of all those kingdoms,” and its king even then used the same name, Jabin, as in this oppression perhaps a century and a half later (Joshua 11:1,10). It had taken a long time for the Canaanites to return to the desolate city, increase their population, and become a dominant force again. But because the Israelites had not followed up their early victory with others, these were among the thorns in their side left to chastise them for their backsliding. The twenty-year oppression ended when Deborah and Barak, mighty through faith, called on Jehovah, and he wrought a wonderful deliverance against great military strength. Thereafter the land again had rest, this time for forty years (Judges 5:31).

Chapter six recounts the oppression of Midian for seven years and the deliverance by Gideon. Another forty years of relative peace followed (Judges 8:28). After Gideon’s passing, his ruthless son Abimelech conspired to have his many brothers slain, save for Jotham who escaped. Abimelech reigned as king for three years before civil war erupted, in which many of his subjects, and he himself, lost their lives. In the course of this rebellion the city of Shechem was destroyed. Some researchers believe they have identified this destroyed city, and its great tower which was burned, in which perished a thousand refugees (Judges 9:45-49, Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August, 2003).

This takes us to chapter ten of Judges, which mentions Tola, son of Puah of Issachar, who judged Israel twenty-three years, and was succeeded by Jair of Gilead who judged twenty-two years. But Israel continued to sin “and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria … Zidon … Moab … Ammon, and … the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served him not” (Judges 10:6). So on this occasion God allowed something heretofore never mentioned in the three centuries since their entrance into Canaan—namely, two simultaneous oppressions. “The anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines [in the southwest] and into the hands of the children of Ammon [in the east]” (Judges 10:7).

The Ammonite oppression endured eighteen years and was relieved by Jephthah, who subsequently judged for six years. He was followed by Ibzan of Bethlehem for seven years, Elon of Zebulon for ten years, and Abdon of Ephraim for eight years. (See Judges 12:7-14.)

The Philistine oppression was evidently more protracted. As we understand the narrative, this is the oppression addressed in chapter thirteen and forward, which endured for forty years (Judges 12:1). During this time Samson was born, and an angel predicted that he would begin to deliver Israel from this bondage. After he matured, and began “judging” Israel in the sense of avenging them against the Philistines for twenty years, he died heroically in the fall of the temple of Dagon (Judges 16:25-30). This collapse, and the death of so many of the Philistine nobility, evidently opened the way for the full deliverance which followed shortly under Samuel (recounted in 1 Samuel chapter seven).

Conclusion

Thus ends the record of Judges. The main lesson is clear and evident—fidelity to God brought blessings, and infidelity brought heartaches. It is so with us today. Fidelity to God, setting aside the enticements of this world and its attractive baubles, leads to a rich and Godly experience. The blessings we are promised during this age of faith are not temporal, but vastly more wonderful, grand, and surpassing than any which could be imagined in ancient times. We have the promise of “glory and honour and immortality, eternal life” through “patient continuance in well doing” (Romans 2:7). Meanwhile we have peace of mind, knowing we are seeking to please our heavenly Father. Even in the present we can achieve “an hundredfold” of joy and blessing (Matthew 19:29). We breathe a sweeter air and enjoy a loftier spirit than the world is capable of appreciating. We seat our affections in the heavens, where we are called to live for the ages of eternity.