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The Tel Dan Stele

Books of Scripture

Judges

The age before kings

21 chapters

Judges, in Hebrew Shoftim, tells of Israel in the land before it had kings: Othniel, left-handed Ehud and Shamgar, Deborah and Jael, Gideon and his three hundred, Abimelech at Shechem, Jephthah and his daughter, Samson and Delilah, and then a downward spiral into idolatry and civil war, where "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." It also brings a Dead Sea Scroll without a prophet's speech, two Greek forms of the whole book, a name that may hide Moses, and the archaeology of the Philistines.

Lessons

  1. 1A Land Not Yet SecuredJudges 1 · After Joshua's death, Judah and Simeon fight in the south; Caleb takes Hebron and Achsah asks for springs. Then a long list of failures: Benjamin cannot take Jerusalem, Manasseh not Beth-shean or Megiddo, Dan is pushed into the hills. Judges begins where Joshua's sweeping summaries leave off.
  2. 2The Cycle and Its LimitsJudges 2 · The angel of the LORD comes to Bochim and rebukes Israel; the people weep. Joshua's death is told again, and a new generation forgets God. Then the pattern that frames the book: Israel serves the Baals, is oppressed, cries out, is rescued by a judge, and falls back again, each time worse.
  3. 3Othniel, Ehud and ShamgarJudges 3 · Nations are left to test Israel. Othniel defeats a king called Cushan-rishathaim. Left-handed Ehud hides a dagger on his right thigh, kills the fat king Eglon of Moab in his private room, and escapes while the servants wait outside. Shamgar son of Anath kills 600 Philistines with an oxgoad.
  4. 4Deborah, Barak and JaelJudges 4 · Deborah, prophetess and judge, sits under her palm tree and summons Barak to fight Jabin's general Sisera and his 900 iron chariots. Barak will go only if she goes. At the Kishon the chariots are routed, and Sisera flees on foot to the tent of Jael, who kills him with a tent peg.
  5. 5The Song of DeborahJudges 5 · Deborah and Barak sing the victory: God marches from Seir, the earth trembles, the tribes are summoned and some stay home, the stars fight, the Kishon sweeps the enemy away, Jael is blessed, and Sisera's mother waits at her window for a son who will not return. It may be one of the oldest poems in the Bible; scholars disagree.
  6. 6Gideon's Calling and the Missing Qumran SpeechJudges 6 · Midianite raiders on camels strip the land. Israel cries out, and a prophet rebukes them, in the standard Hebrew text; a Dead Sea Scroll lacks that speech. An angel finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress and calls him "mighty man of valour." He tears down his father's Baal altar and asks for the sign of the fleece.
  7. 7The Three HundredJudges 7 · God reduces Gideon's army from 32,000 to 300, "lest Israel vaunt themselves." Gideon overhears a Midianite's dream of a barley loaf flattening a tent. At night the 300 break jars, raise torches and blow horns, and the Midianite camp turns on itself.
  8. 8Gideon's Victory and CompromisesJudges 8 · Gideon calms Ephraim, punishes Succoth and Penuel for refusing his men bread, and kills the Midianite kings Zebah and Zalmunna. Israel offers him a dynasty; he refuses: "the LORD shall rule over you." Then he makes a gold ephod that becomes a snare, takes many wives, and fathers seventy sons and Abimelech.
  9. 9Abimelech, Shechem and Jotham's FableJudges 9 · Abimelech, Gideon's son by a Shechemite concubine, takes silver from the temple of Baal-berith, murders seventy brothers on one stone, and is made king. The youngest, Jotham, escapes and tells a fable of trees choosing a bramble as king. Three years later Shechem revolts; Abimelech burns its tower with a thousand people inside, and is killed by a woman with a millstone.
  10. 10Tola, Jair and the Ammonite CrisisJudges 10 · Two brief judges, Tola and Jair, whose thirty sons rode thirty donkeys and held thirty towns in Gilead. Then Israel serves the gods of seven nations, Ammon and the Philistines oppress them, and God refuses to rescue them, until they put away their gods and He can bear their misery no longer.
  11. 11Jephthah and His DaughterJudges 11 · Jephthah, son of a prostitute, driven out by his brothers, is called back to lead Gilead against Ammon. He argues history with the Ammonite king, then vows to offer as a burnt offering whatever comes out of his house to meet him. His only child, a daughter, comes out dancing. The text says he did to her as he had vowed. Whether she was killed or dedicated is one of the Bible's hardest questions.
  12. 12Shibboleth and the Minor JudgesJudges 12 · Ephraim threatens to burn Jephthah's house for not calling them to the war. Gilead fights back and holds the Jordan fords; anyone who cannot pronounce "shibboleth" is killed. Then three more brief judges: Ibzan with thirty sons and thirty daughters, Elon, and Abdon with seventy riders on donkeys.
  13. 13Samson's Birth and ConsecrationJudges 13 · The angel of the LORD appears to the childless wife of Manoah, a Danite of Zorah, and tells her she will bear a son who will be a Nazirite from the womb and begin to deliver Israel from the Philistines. Manoah asks to meet the messenger, who refuses to give his name and ascends in the flame of the altar.
  14. 14Samson and the RiddleJudges 14 · Samson wants to marry a Philistine woman of Timnah. On the way he tears apart a lion with bare hands, and later finds bees and honey in its carcass. At the wedding feast he poses a riddle to thirty Philistine companions, who threaten his bride until she gets the answer. He kills thirty men of Ashkelon to pay the wager.
  15. 15The Jawbone and RetaliationJudges 15 · Finding his wife given to another, Samson ties torches to 300 foxes or jackals and burns the Philistines' fields. They burn his wife and her father; he slaughters them. Judah hands him over bound; at Lehi he breaks the ropes and kills a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone. God opens a spring for him when he is dying of thirst.
  16. 16Delilah, Gaza and the Final CollapseJudges 16 · Samson carries off the gates of Gaza. He loves Delilah, whom the Philistine lords pay to learn the secret of his strength. Three times he lies; the fourth time he tells her of his uncut hair. Shaved, captured, blinded and set to grind in prison, he is brought out to entertain a feast to Dagon. He prays, pushes the two pillars, and dies with the Philistines.
  17. 17Micah's Private ShrineJudges 17 · Micah of Ephraim steals 1,100 pieces of silver from his mother, confesses, and she dedicates some of it to the LORD by having an idol made. He sets up a household shrine with an ephod and teraphim, appoints his son as priest, then hires a wandering Levite from Bethlehem. "Now know I that the LORD will do me good."
  18. 18The Tribe of Dan and Moses/ManassehJudges 18 · The tribe of Dan, still without land, sends scouts north. They find Laish, "quiet and secure." On the way they steal Micah's image and his Levite priest, burn Laish, rebuild it as Dan, and set up the image. The priest's name is given: Jonathan son of Gershom son of Manasseh, in the Hebrew written with a small raised letter that may hide the name Moses.
  19. 19The Woman of GibeahJudges 19 · A Levite travels to Bethlehem to bring back his concubine. On the way home they avoid Jebus and stay in Gibeah of Benjamin, where an old man takes them in. Men of the city surround the house; the Levite pushes the woman out, and she is raped all night. In the morning she lies at the door. He cuts her body into twelve pieces and sends them through Israel. Content warning: sexual violence.
  20. 20Civil War Against BenjaminJudges 20 · All Israel gathers at Mizpah. The Levite tells his version. Benjamin refuses to hand over the men of Gibeah, and Israel attacks. Twice they ask God and are defeated with heavy losses; the third time, at Bethel with Phinehas, an ambush takes Gibeah. Benjamin is nearly wiped out; 600 men escape to the rock of Rimmon.
  21. 21The Abduction at ShilohJudges 21 · Israel has sworn not to give their daughters to Benjamin, and now grieves that a tribe is lost. They destroy Jabesh-gilead, which did not come to Mizpah, and take 400 young women for Benjamin's survivors. For the 200 still without wives, they tell them to hide in the vineyards at Shiloh's festival and seize women who come out to dance.
  22. 22Historical Investigation: How Did Israel Emerge in Canaan?Judges 1–21 · Judges describes tribes without a king, living beside Canaanite cities, fighting local wars. Archaeology shows hundreds of small new villages in the hill country in the 12th–11th centuries BC. This investigation looks at how that matches Judges, and continues the fuller evidence lesson in Joshua.
  23. 23Historical Investigation: Philistines, Canaanites and the Changing Iron AgeJudges 3; 10; 13–16 · Who were the Philistines? Egyptian records describe Sea Peoples invading around 1177 BC. Philistine cities show new pottery, food and architecture of Aegean type. Ancient DNA from Ashkelon shows a European-related ancestry in the earliest Iron Age, soon diluted. A royal inscription from Ekron names its 7th-century king. Here is the evidence, and its limits.
  24. 24Historical Investigation: Women, Violence and Ethical InterpretationJudges 1–21 · Judges begins with a woman who asks for and receives springs of water, and ends with women abducted at a festival. In between are a judge and prophet, a woman who kills a general, a woman who kills a tyrant, a wise mother, a betrayer, a sacrificed daughter and a murdered concubine. How women fare in Judges tracks how Israel fares.
  25. 25Journey of a Passage: Ancient Judges TextsJudges 1–21 · A guide to the passages in Judges where ancient copies and translations differ, or where the difference is between two compositions rather than two copies. Each has its own passage page with the witnesses laid out side by side.

How Judges came to us

Who wrote it, how it was copied, and how it reached the Bible you hold. These lessons follow the book through history.

  1. ★How Judges Came to UsWho wrote Judges, and when? Where does it sit in Jewish and Christian Bibles? What do the Dead Sea Scrolls preserve, and why does the Greek Bible have two forms of the book? The history of Judges from its setting to your Bible.
  2. 3Prophets, Priests, and ScribesAs Israel became a kingdom, royal scribes kept records, prophets' words were written down, and a lost book of the law was found in the Temple.
  3. 4Destruction and ExileBabylon destroyed the Temple and carried Judah into exile, but the Scriptures went with them and became the center of their faith.
  4. 6The SeptuagintJews in Egypt translated their Scriptures into Greek, creating the Bible of the early church and of the New Testament writers.
  5. 7The Dead Sea ScrollsA shepherd's discovery in 1947 gave us Bible manuscripts a thousand years older than any known before, and showed how faithfully the text was kept.
  6. 8Hebrew, Greek, and SamaritanThree ancient lines of copying, Hebrew, Greek, and Samaritan, let us compare the text and see where it was preserved and where it changed.

Journey of a Passage