[Note: The following is the prepared text for a sermon given to The Dalles congregation of the United Church of God on Sabbath, April 27, 2024.]

When we last spoke on the power of the judge, I closed my message by saying that we would talk today about the power of the judge as it is revealed in the book of Judges. While we will spend the vast majority of our time today in the book of Judges, it is worthwhile to begin by commenting that we do not think of the time of the Judges as being a time of particularly powerful government, or a time when the leadership of Israel was particularly successful. Even if we are not particularly fond of strong central governments, our perception of the time of the Judges tends to be that the period was an absolute failure, even though the rulership of Israel was probably better during the time of the judges than it was during the period of the kings. While we can list off at least a handful of judges whose moral character we would consider to be decent–names like Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, and Barak spring pretty readily to mind here–the nation of Israel during the divided kingdom period after Solomon did not have a single godly ruler during its entire history of more than two hundred years as an independent nation. Not one. Judah fared somewhat better, but still more than half of Judah’s rulers were mediocre or worse as a spiritual level, with only the rare king reaching even close to the heights of faithfulness of a Hezekiah or a Josiah. This is something that ought to be explored as well, and is not sufficiently well understood.

Where does the idea of the failure of the period of the Judges come from? To a large extent, it comes from the book of the Judges itself. To anyone who reads the book of Judges, and I hope most of us here have, the text itself makes it clear that Israel lacked strength–it was always getting bullied by the Gentile peoples around it until God raised up a deliverer to rescue them for a few decades–and it lacked unity as well. While there are quite a few accounts of heroism, it is also clear that central government during the time of the Judges was at a low level–deliberately so, but still. There are in particular two aspects of Judges besides these general patterns that tend to give the time of the Judges a bad name when it comes to good governance. Let us examine each of these in turn.

The first of these is actually the memorable text that the book of Judges ends with. Let us therefore turn to the last part of the book of Judges, to Judges 21:24-25. Here, after the tribe of Benjamin has nearly been wiped out, they are allowed to take wives for themselves among the young women who danced at the Holy Days in Shiloh, and after this account, Judges 21:24-25 has this to say to close the book of Judges: “So the children of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family; they went out from there, every man to his inheritance. In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” When we read this verse–which occurs more than once in the book of Judges, repeating a theme over and over again, it seems to many readers that had there been a king in Israel during the time of the judges that people would not have done what was right in their own eyes. Yet, if we know the sad religious history of the period of Israel that followed first under the United Monarchy under Saul, David, and Solomon, and then the longer period of the Divided Monarchy after that, we know that Israel sinned just as bad, if not worse, under the rule of kings then they did under the judges.

What, then, is meant by this comment about there being no king in Israel? It is true that there was no one on earth at that time who had the title of King of Israel–except for the short-lived and easily forgotten Abimelech, son of Gideon, about whom we will have a little bit to discuss later–but it is not true that there was no king over Israel during the time of the judges. Indeed, God was the king of Israel during that time, only the people did not recognize the authority of God in their lives nor did they follow His scriptures, or obey His laws, or walk in His ways. The essential problem with Israel during the time of the judges was not the political weakness of Israel, though this was something they lamented and were quick to notice, but rather the moral anarchy of Israel, in that people sought to do what was right in their own eyes instead of doing what was right in God’s eyes. No matter what government that a people is under, that temptation is present. We can look to our own society and our own world to see that the tendency to disobey God and follow after our own ways and what we think to be right is present in all of the present societies of our world, no matter what form or structure of government they have.

Towards the beginning of the book of Judges, this moral anarchy is described in a memorable cycle, so let us turn back towards the beginning of Judges in Judges 2:7-19. The cycle ddescribed here is typically called the disobedience-punishment-repentance-deliverance cycle, and it is one we see over and over again repeated throughout the book of Judges. Judges 2:7-19 gives this cycle as follows: “So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel. Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was one hundred and ten years old.  And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Heres, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals; and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.  They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.  And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.  Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.  Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do so.  And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them.  And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.”

What we see in this passage is a clear description of the plot of the book of Judges. When we look at the repetition and the total lack of moral progress that was made by ancient Israel during the time of the Judges, it is easy to feel as if Israel was not doing anything worthwhile. As soon as times were going well and a godly leader had died, Israel rebelled against God, engaging in heathen worship practices and rebelling against God’s laws and ways. This inevitably brought divine judgment upon them, and so we see Israel suffering and in misery as a result of the proper judgment of their sins. Yet this judgment, eventually, led Israel to repent of their sins and this repentance in turn led to God to bring about someone to deliver Israel from their difficulties. Yet while this cycle certainly is a major aspect of the book of Judges, it isn’t the only aspect of Judges that we need to be aware of. For one, our feeling that the time of Judges is a failure should not blind us to the benefits of the time of the Judges as well. Israel’s problems during the time of the Judges were a fault of the people–unlike in our own era (and most times of human history), the people of Israel did not suffer because they had wicked and corrupt elites whose sins led to judgment. They were themselves to blame for their sins, their judgment was because of their behavior and not those of corrupt and decadent elites, and when God raised up leaders, he did not raise up dynasties that viewed themselves as deserving power by birth rather than by service. God raised up judges from obscurity, and could easily do it again, without having to depend on the most powerful or royal families following God’s way. And when Israel repented, the repentance did not depend on leaders coming to obedience, but with ordinary people who were far more humble in nature.

There is one other thing I think we ought to note as well, as it will become increasingly clear during our discussion of the book of Judges today. This cycle of disobedience-punishment-repentance-deliverance focuses on one type of judge–the deliverer type of judge that is perhaps the most famous within the book of Judges. When we think of the contents of the book of Judges, it is the deliverers that are most obvious to us. We think of the left-handed Ehud taking advantage of some sloppy palace security regulations to slay the wicked and morbidly obese Eglon the Moabite. We think of Jael smashing the tent peg into the head of the wicked Sisera. We think of Gideon delivering Israel with 300 unarmed Israelites while the Mideonites kill themselves in confusion, and we think of Samson and his heroic macho endeavors, culminating with his destruction of the temple of Dagon to kill himself with three thousand leaders of the Philistines. Yet this is only one type of judge within the book of Judges. Other judges, though not very many of them, were of the kind that we think of as judges as people who arbitrate disputes through wisdom and their knowledge of the law and history. Still other judges were pretty ordinary civil rulers, the sort of leaders whose job it was to help lead Israel properly and set a proper example, which for various reasons did not happen. Rather than focus on the stories of deliverance in the book of Judges, I want to focus on the Judges as civil authorities, and see how they fared on those grounds, a perspective we do not often think of.

Before we do this, though, let us frame the failure of the Judges by looking at two stories that help us to understand that failure in a larger context. Let us first go to a story that is highly relevant to the period of time we are in right now in the middle of the Days of Unleavened Bread. In Exodus 14:10-18 we read about the reaction if Israel to the threat of the Egyptians, and it is a worthy introduction to the experience of Israel as a whole during the time of the Judges. Exodus 14:10-18 reads: “And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord.  Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt?  Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.” And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.  The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.  But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.  And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen.  Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained honor for Myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.””

What do we see from the behavior of Israel? They lacked faith in God from the very beginning, and would never truly show the sort of faith in God that would lead to salvation. Despite being under the leadership of Moses, one of the most qualified and devoted people of God that we find in scripture, Israel showed a lack of faith here and many other times throughout the Wilderness experience. It would probably take at least a sermon to go into detail over all of the failures of Israel during these times, all of the times they complained over the path that God led them on through the Holy Land, all of the times they rebelled against God’s ways by idolatry or sexual immorality, all of the times they whined about how it would have been better to die in Egypt rather than undergo the rigors of the wilderness experience. One might think that with a more settled life that Israel might be more settled in their faith but that was not the case. Israel showed the same faithlessness during the time of Judges that they did during the wilderness experience.

It should be noted that this was something that could have easily been predicted, and indeed, it was. One of the times it was predicted was by Joshua at the end of his time as leader over Israel. Although this is a familiar passage, it is a worthwhile reminder of the place of Isarel’s faith at the time the period of the Judges began. We find this in Joshua 24:14-28. Joshua 24:14-28 reads: “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!  And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed.  And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.” But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.  If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.” And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!” So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses!” “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.” And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!” So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.”  So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance.”

In many ways, this particular passage explains the whole history of the book of Judges. When he dismissed the people of Israel to their inheritance after the incomplete conquest of the promised land, Joshua challenged them to choose that day whom they would worship and serve. Joshua accurately knew that Israel would not be able to serve God because of God’s moral and ethical demands and also knew that Israel would end up serving someone because no one exists without some sort of worship. Even those who claim not to worship any God have some sort of authorities whom they respect and whose worldview they have adopted. Israel, unwisely, told Joshua that they would serve God and Joshua reminded them that if they did not obey God that they would be judged for their disobedience. Israel could not engage in any sort of sustained worship of God or obedience to His ways, and so Israel repeatedly faced God’s judgment for their disobedience. They brought it on themselves, by promising to follow God faithfully, a promise they could not keep.

So far we have seen that the period of Judges is one that we do not tend to think of as being a period of authority and power, nor do we think of the Judges as being political leaders of particular power, not when compared with the kings who came after them and the mighty and ungodly Gentile empires which ruled after that. Yet while the period of Judges was by no means known for its strong central authority, Judges had considerable power. We will now turn our attention to the book of Judges itself and examine the three kinds of judges that we find in the Book of Judges and what kind of power each of them showed in a period that we think of as being anarchical and disorganized. Not all aspects of authority are equally obvious, and the power of the judges is certainly less obvious than many other kinds of power.

The first type of judges we will examine when it comes to their power are the judges of deliverance. In many cases, these are the most famous judges of all. Just about all of the most famous stories of the book of Judges are about these judges, who are famous for their military prowess. Likewise, the power that these judges demonstrated is the most obvious form of power, and so let us discuss various judges of deliverance and discuss the power that is shown by these judges as is revealed in scripture. Perhaps the most obvious place to begin when it comes to these forms of power is in Judges 3:1-6. Judges 3:1-6 reads: “Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan (this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it), namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.  And they were left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.  And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.”

God deliberately set Israel up in a situation where they would need to learn the ways of war by being surrounded by dangerous and warlike nations what wished to dominate them. God wanted to test Israel by forming their military capability, similar to the way that the hostility of other nations has honed the military abilities of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel over the past few decades. Similarly, God was putting Israel in a test as to whether they would follow God’s ways or would fall into disobedience and copying the ways of the heathen peoples around them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Israel failed both tests, leading them to fall into idolatry and moral corruption as well as military weakness, leading them to be dominated by a series of heathen overlords from whom they would require deliverance.

Throughout the rest of Judges 3, we have 3 deliverers who were raised up to deal with different situations. Each of these situations has their own context, and either more or less information about the judge and their background. We begin with an account that includes only a little bit of information about one of the most notable judges in terms of pedigree, but one of the most sketchy when it comes to the description of how he delivered Israel. We find the account of Othniel in Judges 3:7-11. Judges 3:7-11 reads: “So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs.  Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan-Rishathaim eight years.  When the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel, who delivered them: Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.  The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord delivered Cushan-Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed over Cushan-Rishathaim. So the land had rest for forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died.”

Othniel was the first judge raised up during the book of Judges, and we see that God raised up Othniel after Israel had rebelled against God’s ways and done evil in his sight. We know very little about the king of Mesopotamia whom Israel served for eight years, and the name, Cushan of the Double Wickedness, is likely not the name he would have called himself nor would have been known in history. Given the time period we are looking at, it is possible that he was either a short-lived Mesopotamian ruler that we know nothing about or a Babylonian, Mitttani, or Assyrian ruler who sought to dominate the area but whose power was short-lived and did not lead to long-term power. It is interesting to note here that the power that Othniel showed against his foes was explicitly due to the power of the Spirit of God empowering him.

If this was all we knew about Othniel, this would be a very sketchy account, but as it happens there is one other account of Othniel that indicates the reason why he was likely chosen by God as a leader, and that is because he had already shown his leadership capabilities earlier, and was thus the sort of person whom God was able to raise up, as he had already shown himself faithful to God and an able military leader. Keep a marker in Judges 3, because we will return there shortly, but to see the rest of the story of Othniel, it is useful for us to turn to Judges 1:8-15. Judges 1:8-15 tells of the further conquests of Judah at the beginning of the time of the Judges. Judges 1:8-15 reads: “Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it; they struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire.  And afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the mountains, in the South, and in the lowland.  Then Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. (Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kirjath Arba.) And they killed Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai. From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. (The name of Debir was formerly Kirjath Sepher.) Then Caleb said, “Whoever attacks Kirjath Sepher and takes it, to him I will give my daughter Achsah as wife.”  And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; so he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife.  Now it happened, when she came to him, that she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you wish?”  So she said to him, “Give me a blessing; since you have given me land in the South, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.”

Here we see that Othniel first came to the notice of those around him for being the one responsible for taking the city of Debir from its inhabitants and claiming it for the people of Judah. One might even say that he did it for love, or at least for marriage, in that the reward for taking the city of Debir was marrying the daughter of Caleb, himself a noted hero of faith who first came to prominence as one of the two loyal spies during the Wilderness experience, as well as being one of only two people over the age of twenty at the time of the Exodus who survived into the promised land–the other one being Joshua. So it was that Othniel was already known as a brave military hero in Judah and one who was connected by blood and marriage through his cousin and wife to one of the most notable dynastic families of the time, the Calebites of Judah. God, in raising Othniel up to be a judge over Israel, was taking someone who had proven his leadership and skill on a low level who was also devoted to God’s ways and then giving him a larger stage to work with as a leader not only of the tribe of Judah but over Israel as a whole.

Let us now turn back to Judges 3:12-30. Judges 3:12-30 tells the story of Ehud, a more unlikely judge than Othniel and one who is described in a great deal more detail than many of the judges. Judges 3:12-30 reads: “And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord strengthened Eglon king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.  Then he gathered to himself the people of Ammon and Amalek, went and defeated Israel, and took possession of the City of Palms.  So the children of Israel served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years. But when the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them: Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. By him the children of Israel sent tribute to Eglon king of Moab.  Now Ehud made himself a dagger (it was double-edged and a cubit in length) and fastened it under his clothes on his right thigh.  So he brought the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. (Now Eglon was a very fat man.)  And when he had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who had carried the tribute.  But he himself turned back from the stone images that were at Gilgal, and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” He said, “Keep silence!” And all who attended him went out from him. So Ehud came to him (now he was sitting upstairs in his cool private chamber). Then Ehud said, “I have a message from God for you.” So he arose from his seat.  Then Ehud reached with his left hand, took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.  Even the hilt went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the dagger out of his belly; and his entrails came out.  Then Ehud went out through the porch and shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. When he had gone out, Eglon’s servants came to look, and to their surprise, the doors of the upper room were locked. So they said, “He is probably attending to his needs in the cool chamber.”  So they waited till they were embarrassed, and still he had not opened the doors of the upper room. Therefore they took the key and opened them. And there was their master, fallen dead on the floor. But Ehud had escaped while they delayed, and passed beyond the stone images and escaped to Seirah.  And it happened, when he arrived, that he blew the trumpet in the mountains of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mountains; and he led them.  Then he said to them, “Follow me, for the Lord has delivered your enemies the Moabites into your hand.” So they went down after him, seized the fords of the Jordan leading to Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross over.  And at that time they killed about ten thousand men of Moab, all stout men of valor; not a man escaped.  So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.”

Here again we see the full cycle of the book of Judges expressed in the story of this one judge. When Israel rebelled against God the second time, God chose not to deliver them into the hands of a faraway enemy, but against a coalition of three neighboring nations whom Israel had a long and troubled relationship, with the Moabites in charge, supported by the people of Ammon and Amalek, both of whom were frequent enemies of Israel. Here too, we see that Ehud was singled out as a leader before he freed Israel from slavery. Interestingly enough, Ehud’s path to leadership over Israel was one that would later be copied by the Muscovite Tsars, who found an opportunity for leadership in taking the tribute of their nation to its conquerors. Perhaps it was the combination of personal ambition as well as patriotism that often leads to such decisions for people to want to represent their people even in foreign courts, but at the same time the behavior of those courts and their protocol could be exploited.

We see Ehud exploiting the protocols of the Moabite court most effectively when he delivers Israel from the hand of Eglon, the Moabite king. Being left-handed, he was able to take advantage of the (fairly typical) assumptions that right-handed people have about where weapons are to be put to avoid their ineffectual sword and knife-control procedures, an early example of the TSA-style patdowns we get when we travel in contemporary airports. He then used the language of diplomacy to express his desire to send a message personally to the king, and also understood that the timidity of courtiers in investigating matters in the palace would give him time to escape–one has to wonder in this context how long that Eglon was accustomed to going to the bathroom if it gave Ehud hours to escape and call up an ambush force. At any rate, Ehud was remarkably successful in delivering Israel from Moabite rule and simultaneously we have a lot of entertaining details about how it is that Ehud was able to leverage his left-handedness, his knowledge of the protocol of the Moabite rulers that he had gained as a tribute-bearer to them, and his considerable courage to deliver Israel from oppression.

On the other hand, we have very scanty information about the next delivering judge we see in Judges 3, that of Shamgar. What we know about him initially is composed of a single verse, Judges 3:31. Judges 3:31 reads: “After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed six hundred men of the Philistines with an ox goad; and he also delivered Israel.” From this very slender account we know at least a little bit about Shamgar. For one, his father’s name, Anath, is a Canaanite name, so Shamgar might not have even been an Israelite, but rather someone whose sudden willingness to help defend his Israelite neighbors against a Philistine attack or raid through an ox-goad, where he was probably engaged in some sort of plowing work, made him a deliverer of Israel. So far as we know, his heroism was of the moment and as a result the account of him is very limited to the extreme.

That said, it is not as if this is the only thing we hear about him, although it must be admitted that the other reference to him is not very informative either. We find a reference to Shamgar in the Song of Deborah, in Judges 5:6-8, and while it does not say a lot about Shamgar itself, it does reveal something of the situation of life in Israel during the darker periods of that era. Judges 5:6-8 reads: ““In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted, and the travelers walked along the byways. Village life ceased, it ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; then there was war in the gates; not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel.” If we figure that Shamgar rose up against the Philistines when he was doing some sort of plowing, we can see how insecure village life was in Israel at the time if a man could not even plow his land in peace. Likewise, we see here how it is that in times of war and crisis brought on by Israel’s disobedience to God that Israel’s military effectiveness declines as their disobedience to God increases, which ought not to be too surprising when we look at our own times.

We next see an example of a more or less pure military deliverer if we turn back to Judges 4:8-16 and look at the example of Barak. What is notable about Barak, though, is that he tends to be greatly overshadowed by Deborah, who is a different kind of judge altogether, and the only female judge in the Bible. We will have more to say about her later, but let us look at Judges 4:8-16 and see how Barak is presented as a military deliverer, and let us note some details that perhaps often escape our scrutiny. Judges 4:8-16 reads: “And Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!” So she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.  And Barak called Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh; he went up with ten thousand men under his command, and Deborah went up with him. Now Heber the Kenite, of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites and pitched his tent near the terebinth tree at Zaanaim, which is beside Kedesh. And they reported to Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor.  So Sisera gathered together all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth Hagoyim to the River Kishon. Then Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the Lord has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not the Lord gone out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.  And the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot.  But Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth Hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.”

It is worth noting that Barak is often viewed negatively for refusing to go alone without Deborah to call the troops, especially since Deborah comments that because she went with him, the glory of the defeat of Sisera will go to a woman and not to him. Indeed, despite the fact that Barak is viewed as the military deliverer of this story, it is clear that Deborah herself is viewed as the judge. It is also worth noting that Barak’s movement served as bait to draw out Sisera’s entire chariot force in terrain that proved, in the event, wildly inappropriate for such combat, leading to an infantry army to be able to defeat a superior force with God’s help. Let us also note that Barak was leading 10,000 men. This is, by the standards of the time, probably a sizable force but not one that is too large. We will note before too long that however small this force is, that God thought by the time of Gideon that ten thousand men was too many to serve the purposes of teaching Israel that God was bringing them the victories and not their own military strength.

When it comes to pure military deliverers, the classic example of these in the book of Judges is Samson. It is not hard to imagine why when we look at Samson’s career as a judge. While the remainder of the judges we discuss will be notable for something other than military strength, military strength is just about all that he brought to the table, and even his efforts at deception or trickery ended up being mainly opportunities for him to solve problems with his physical strength. We know of no important judicial decisions that were made by Samson, and it is little surprise. Yet while it is easy to mock Samson for his lower than average wisdom when it comes to dealing with life, God clearly used him despite his flaws to help deliver Israel from the Philistines, and that is worth celebrating even if Samson’s exploits as a judge seem a bit one-dimensional to us. In the interests of completion, let us view Samson’s record of physical prowess. In particular, for our purposes, let us look at those cases where Samson could have chosen another way other than violence but instead chose violence, and how he went about doing so.

We find two such situation in Judges 15:1-20, so let us read the entire chapter and see how it is that Samson operated and how it is that he judged Israel. Judges 15:1-20 reads, in its entirety: “After a while, in the time of wheat harvest, it happened that Samson visited his wife with a young goat. And he said, “Let me go in to my wife, into her room.” But her father would not permit him to go in. Her father said, “I really thought that you thoroughly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister better than she? Please, take her instead.” And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless regarding the Philistines if I harm them!”  Then Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.  When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves. Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they answered, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. Samson said to them, “Since you would do a thing like this, I will surely take revenge on you, and after that I will cease.”  So he attacked them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; then he went down and dwelt in the cleft of the rock of Etam. Now the Philistines went up, encamped in Judah, and deployed themselves against Lehi.  And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” So they answered, “We have come up to arrest Samson, to do to him as he has done to us.” Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines rule over us? What is this you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you, that we may deliver you into the hand of the Philistines.” Then Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me yourselves.” So they spoke to him, saying, “No, but we will tie you securely and deliver you into their hand; but we will surely not kill you.” And they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands.  He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.  Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men!” And so it was, when he had finished speaking, that he threw the jawbone from his hand, and called that place Ramath Lehi. Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the Lord and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant; and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?”  So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi, and water came out, and he drank; and his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore he called its name En Hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.  And he judged Israel twenty years in the days of the Philistines.”

How did Samson judge the Israelites, exactly? Most of the exploits we have of him in the Bible involve his intense physical strength, which the bible explicitly says was the result of the Holy Spirit. Yet while the strength of Samson is impressive, as his the violence of his revenge against the Philistines who married his bride off to his best man, which led to the Philistines taking vengeance on the woman and her father (who, it seems, not the best man or the other members of her family). Interestingly enough, Samson’s vengeance on the Philistines for killing his estranged wife led the people of Judah to have to serve as middlemen to ensure Samson’s imprisonment for their own safety, which ended up in more violence. These were opportunities for Samson to exercise wisdom and to demonstrate that violence wasn’t the only way that he knew how to deal with problems, but unlike with other judges we know of no government that was practiced by him, no skillful diplomacy, nothing other than violence and short poetry that itself referenced the violence he committed. If ever there was a pure deliverer as judge over Israel, Samson was certainly it.

To be sure, there are other judges in the Bible who delivered Israel through military victories, notably Gideon and Jephthah, but it is striking that both of these judges had a great deal more to offer besides their military power. Indeed, with Gideon in particular, his reputation as a military leader is colored with ironic or negative references that are worth considering, and with Jephthah, his most notable military act was against his own people of the tribe of Ephraim. Let us therefore examine both of these judges as they relate to military prowess now.

Starting with Gideon, we see a complicated scenario of how it was that Gideon’s small force was to take on a Midianite horde that far outnumbered them in Judges 7:1-7. Judges 7:1-7 shows how God was determined that Gideon not receive glory as a military genius but rather to show that He had delivered the Midianites into Israel’s hand. Judges 7:1-7 reads: “Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Harod, so that the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Moreh in the valley. And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel claim glory for itself against Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’  Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained. But the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then it will be, that of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ the same shall go with you; and of whomever I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ the same shall not go.”  So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Everyone who laps from the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set apart by himself; likewise everyone who gets down on his knees to drink.”  And the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people got down on their knees to drink water. ⁷ Then the Lord said to Gideon, “By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place.”

If you remember, God delivered Sisera and the army of Hazor, a large and powerful city in Northern Israel, into the hand of Barak and his ten thousand men, but by the time of Gideon, God was determined not to let Israel think that it had been saved by its own strength and decided that 300 men who lapped water like a dog and did not have the sense to drink water in a normal way would be the means that the Midianites would be defeated, largely by killing themselves, since the Israelites themselves were “armed” with only torches and trumpets. Nor is Gideon crowned with military glory when he engages on a mission of vengeance deep into the desert, as it is recorded in Judges 8:4-21. Judges 8:4-21 reads: “When Gideon came to the Jordan, he and the three hundred men who were with him crossed over, exhausted but still in pursuit.  Then he said to the men of Succoth, “Please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for they are exhausted, and I am pursuing Zebah and Zalmunna, kings of Midian.” And the leaders of Succoth said, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?” So Gideon said, “For this cause, when the Lord has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers!”  Then he went up from there to Penuel and spoke to them in the same way. And the men of Penuel answered him as the men of Succoth had answered.  So he also spoke to the men of Penuel, saying, “When I come back in peace, I will tear down this tower!” Now Zebah and Zalmunna were at Karkor, and their armies with them, about fifteen thousand, all who were left of all the army of the people of the East; for one hundred and twenty thousand men who drew the sword had fallen.  Then Gideon went up by the road of those who dwell in tents on the east of Nobah and Jogbehah; and he attacked the army while the camp felt secure.  When Zebah and Zalmunna fled, he pursued them; and he took the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, and routed the whole army. Then Gideon the son of Joash returned from battle, from the Ascent of Heres.  And he caught a young man of the men of Succoth and interrogated him; and he wrote down for him the leaders of Succoth and its elders, seventy-seven men.  Then he came to the men of Succoth and said, “Here are Zebah and Zalmunna, about whom you ridiculed me, saying, ‘Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in your hand, that we should give bread to your weary men?’ ”  And he took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth.  Then he tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city. And he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, “What kind of men were they whom you killed at Tabor?” So they answered, “As you are, so were they; each one resembled the son of a king.” Then he said, “They were my brothers, the sons of my mother. As the Lord lives, if you had let them live, I would not kill you.”  And he said to Jether his firstborn, “Rise, kill them!” But the youth would not draw his sword; for he was afraid, because he was still a youth. So Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Rise yourself, and kill us; for as a man is, so is his strength.” So Gideon arose and killed Zebah and Zalmunna, and took the crescent ornaments that were on their camels’ necks.”

After having chased the survivors of the Midianite army to Saudi Arabia, practically, Gideon shows himself consumed with violence towards those who hindered his efforts to achieve vengeance for the death of his brothers at the hand of the leaders of the Midianites. We do not have this incident recorded in scripture, but even when Gideon captures the judges and defeats the survivors of the Midianite army, his efforts are not crowned with glory because his eldest son is unable to kill the captive princes and Gideon has to do it himself, even after they flatter him by saying that he and his deceased brothers were like kings themselves (we will discuss that more later). Gideon certainly delivered Israel, but the military leadership he provided was not the sort that was meant to give him glory.

Much the same could be said about Jephthah. We will be considering his diplomatic savvy before too long as well as his failed attempts to establish a dynasty later on, but for now, let us close our discussion on the judges who delivered Israel militarily by looking at his military successes, such as they were. We find them in Judges 11:29-30 as far as it relates to the people of Ammon. Judges 11:29-33 reads: “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and passed through Mizpah of Gilead; and from Mizpah of Gilead he advanced toward the people of Ammon.  And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.” So Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hands.  And he defeated them from Aroer as far as Minnith—twenty cities—and to Abel Keramim, with a very great slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.”

Here we see that while Jephthah had a glorious victory against the Ammonites, that glory was cut short by the foolish vow that he made. One wonders who he expected to be the first person to run out of the doors of his house to meet him after battle would be. We will discuss that particular matter later on, but it does reflect a lack of glory and to some respect a lack of wisdom. We see a similar lack of wisdom in Jephthah’s other military exploit, the slaughter of tens of thousands of Ephraimites, recorded in Judges 12:1-7. Judges 12:1-7 reads: “Then the men of Ephraim gathered together, crossed over toward Zaphon, and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the people of Ammon, and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you with fire!” And Jephthah said to them, “My people and I were in a great struggle with the people of Ammon; and when I called you, you did not deliver me out of their hands.  So when I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the people of Ammon; and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?”  Now Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. And the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they said, “You Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites.”  The Gileadites seized the fords of the Jordan before the Ephraimites arrived. And when any Ephraimite who escaped said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” then they would say to him, “Then say, ‘Shibboleth’!” And he would say, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan. There fell at that time forty-two thousand Ephraimites. And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried among the cities of Gilead.”

When we look at a conflict like that between the Ephraimites and Gileadites, it is clear that there is a lack of wisdom on both sides. Jephthah, as a judge, should have been able to find some sort of diplomatic way to avoid going to war against another tribe, and the leaders of the Ephraimites should have been far more temperate in their approach as well as their view of the Gileadites. We can see how instead of calming tensions, what every side did only made things worse until violence was the inevitable result.

We have spent our time in judges covering the judges who delivered Israel in military warfare, and we have seen that the Bible’s account of these judges is somewhat ambivalent in many cases. Some judges were pure military leaders, but others fit into one of two other categories. The best of the judges were judges in a similar sense to the best of our judges today, the sort of people who are able to solve problems diplomatically and help others to live in peace. This is a noble goal, but it tends to be a rare achievement, and it is perhaps little surprise that we only find a few judges who are able to show the wisdom necessary to achieve this sort of reputation.

The first of these judges, as a matter of fact, is the judge Deborah, the only one of our judges who was a woman, though she is easily among the best of the judges that we find in the scriptures. Deborah’s achievements as a judge are given in Judges 4:1-7. Judges 4:1-7 reads: “When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. ² So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who dwelt in Harosheth Hagoyim.  And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord; for Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and for twenty years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel. Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.  And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.  Then she sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?””

There are a few things to note about this passage that are worth pointing out. For one, Deborah was a prophetess as well as a judge. Though she was not the military leader, she did give Barak God’s strategy for the battle, which was for his soldiers to serve as bait to draw out the armies of Sisera which would be in the perfect place for God to deliver them into Israel’s hand for destruction. It is also worth noting that Deborah’s behavior as a judge was to sit underneath a palm tree and make judgments for Israel in the same way that Moses did before Mt. Sinai. This sort of behavior may not have been typical of the judges–at least it is not mentioned as often as people delivering Israel from foreign domination, but it is worthwhile to note that Deborah was a wise enough woman and must have been a tactful enough person that her wisdom was respected by others and she was seen as both a judge and a prophetess, both of which are pretty rare positions for women in this time period, it must be admitted.

Only two of the other judges are noted in the book of Judges to have behaved with the same sort of graciousness and skill in their dealings, and both of them are judges known more for their feats of arms than for their wisdom. First, let us turn to Judges 7:23-8:3 to see how Gideon dealt with the prickly pride of the Ephraimites, the same thing that led Jephthah to engage in a civil war. Judges 7:23-8:3 reads: “And the men of Israel gathered together from Naphtali, Asher, and all Manasseh, and pursued the Midianites. Then Gideon sent messengers throughout all the mountains of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites, and seize from them the watering places as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.” Then all the men of Ephraim gathered together and seized the watering places as far as Beth Barah and the Jordan.  And they captured two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued Midian and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of the Jordan. Now the men of Ephraim said to him, “Why have you done this to us by not calling us when you went to fight with the Midianites?” And they reprimanded him sharply. So he said to them, “What have I done now in comparison with you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?  God has delivered into your hands the princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. And what was I able to do in comparison with you?” Then their anger toward him subsided when he said that.”

What we see here in Gideon’s behavior that makes him remarkable and somewhat rare among the judges is not only his willingness to call other Israelites to help him and to recognize their own share of the glory but also his humility. By gently understating the value of his own area and giving honor to the Ephraimites for their achievements in winegrowing as well as their success in capturing two of the princes of the Midianites through their opportunistic takeover of the watering places where nomadic armies needed to water their camels in order to preserve their mobility, Gideon was able to defuse tensions with the fussy Ephraimites, which not everyone was capable of doing.

It should be noted in this context that the only other judge whose diplomatic skill we see happens to be Jephthah, whose skill failed him in dealing with those same prickly Ephraimites, who admittedly were a bit harder to mollify in his time. We see this skill in his dealings with the Ammonites, in being able to sum up the evidence for the holdings of the two and a half tribes of Israel east of the Jordan. We see this historical case in Judges 11:1-28. This takes up most of Judges 11, and gives us a good understanding of the skill at negotiations and historical analysis that Jephthah had when he wanted to use it. Judges 11:1-28 reads: “Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, but he was the son of a harlot; and Gilead begot Jephthah.  Gilead’s wife bore sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out, and said to him, “You shall have no inheritance in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.”  Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob; and worthless men banded together with Jephthah and went out raiding with him. It came to pass after a time that the people of Ammon made war against Israel. ⁵ And so it was, when the people of Ammon made war against Israel, that the elders of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.  Then they said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, that we may fight against the people of Ammon.” So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me, and expel me from my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?” And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the people of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you take me back home to fight against the people of Ammon, and the Lord delivers them to me, shall I be your head?” And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be a witness between us, if we do not do according to your words.”  Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord in Mizpah. Now Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon, saying, “What do you have against me, that you have come to fight against me in my land?” And the king of the people of Ammon answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel took away my land when they came up out of Egypt, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok, and to the Jordan. Now therefore, restore those lands peaceably.” So Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the people of Ammon, and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: ‘Israel did not take away the land of Moab, nor the land of the people of Ammon; for when Israel came up from Egypt, they walked through the wilderness as far as the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.  Then Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, “Please let me pass through your land.” But the king of Edom would not heed. And in like manner they sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained in Kadesh.  And they went along through the wilderness and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab, came to the east side of the land of Moab, and encamped on the other side of the Arnon. But they did not enter the border of Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab.  Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, “Please let us pass through your land into our place.”  But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his people together, encamped in Jahaz, and fought against Israel.  And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. Thus Israel gained possession of all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country.  They took possession of all the territory of the Amorites, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan. ‘And now the Lord God of Israel has dispossessed the Amorites from before His people Israel; should you then possess it?  Will you not possess whatever Chemosh your god gives you to possess? So whatever the Lord our God takes possession of before us, we will possess.  And now, are you any better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel? Did he ever fight against them?  While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and its villages, in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities along the banks of the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time?  Therefore I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May the Lord, the Judge, render judgment this day between the children of Israel and the people of Ammon.’ ”  However, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words which Jephthah sent him.”

Let us note that Jephthah’s first savvy act of judgment was being able to leverage the desperation of his people into giving him–a person they had exiled as the son of a prostitute–into a position of rulership over his people, even if he was only able to hold that position for some six years or so. Where Jephthah’s skill next manifests itself is in his discussion with the leaders of Amnon about land rights. When the people of Amnon demanded “their” land back, Jephthah was knowledgeable enough about the history of how Israel came to be in the Transjordan region that he was able to detail the history of the end of the wilderness experience and how it is that Israel acquired the land by right of conquest from King Og of Sihon, while also pointing out that Amnon would have whatever land it received from its god. This is an important truth for us to realize, that ultimately the boundaries of nations and the fate of peoples depends on what God allows to take place, or that which He makes happen himself. This is something human beings are all too quick to forget, sometimes, but Jephthah’s sound knowledge helps to inform us of this fact.

Having now dealt with the first two types of judge, it now remains for us to talk about a third type of judge, and that is the sort of judge that is most known not for their deliverance of Israel from foreign enemies nor for their wisdom in dealing with disputes, but rather with their ambition and skill in holding power and their desire, frequently, to pass along that power to their own heirs. Let us read the accounts of these judges and discuss why it is that they are more obscure than they deserve to be. First, let us look at Judges 10:1-5. Judges 10:1-5 reads: “After Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in the mountains of Ephraim.  He judged Israel twenty-three years; and he died and was buried in Shamir. After him arose Jair, a Gileadite; and he judged Israel twenty-two years.  Now he had thirty sons who rode on thirty donkeys; they also had thirty towns, which are called “Havoth Jair” to this day, which are in the land of Gilead.  And Jair died and was buried in Camon.”

Let us make some comments about these judges in light of what we have already read. Tola and Jair were said to be minor judges of Israel, and of Tola it was said that God had raised him up to save Israel after the tumultuous period of Abimelech. What did he do, though? He judged Israel for twenty-three years, and they appear to have been peaceful years at least. With Jair we have more negative comments to make. Jair lived in Gilead, the same reason that Jephthah came from. Indeed, Jair was probably judging over the area when Jephthah was exiled from his home region and was gathering worthless men to himself to go on raids. Likewise, Jair, or his sons, who rode on donkeys and imagined themselves to be like kings, ruled over the area when the people of Gilead slid into corrupt worship practices that led them to be dominated by Ammon. Of what practical result was the power and prestige that Jair sought to build up for his family when it came to keeping Israel worshipping God as He commanded?

This question ought to be asked of the next set of judges that we read about after Jephthah and before Samson, who we find in Judges 12:8-15. Judges 12:8-15 reads: “After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel.  He had thirty sons. And he gave away thirty daughters in marriage, and brought in thirty daughters from elsewhere for his sons. He judged Israel seven years.  Then Ibzan died and was buried at Bethlehem. After him, Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel. He judged Israel ten years.  And Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Aijalon in the country of Zebulun. After him, Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel.  He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy young donkeys. He judged Israel eight years.  Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the mountains of the Amalekites.”

After the time of Jephthah we have three judges mentioned, and though all of them had fairly short times as judge–seven, ten, and eight years, two of the judges managed to do quite well for themselves when it came to power and influence. Ibzan of Bethlehem somehow had sixty children–from how many wives and concubines–and sought to use his daughters as well as his own local power to build up a strong base of support for his family. It didn’t appear to do him any good given the brevity of his rule, though. At least Elon of the tribe of Zebulon, who ruled as judge after him, has nothing said of him like this. Unfortunately, the nepotism of Abdon the son of Hillel was even greater, as within eight years of taking power he sought to feather his nest by having forty sons and thirty grandsons act like kinglets over the area of Israel, without seeming to do anything of lasting value, not least because it is said that he was buried in the mountains of the Amalekites, even if it was within the land of Ephraim.

If we are to look at the failure of the time of the judges, it is precisely in this third type of judge that we need to examine more closely. The best of the judges were those leaders who developed competence and character that God could draw upon to deliver Israel from trouble and to provide Israel with sound counsel and wise decision-making and conflict resolution. To be sure, the judges were not perfect in these tasks, but the judges that we have were at least conscientious about their tasks despite their imperfections. It was when judges sought to make their children (or grandchildren) into judges where the trouble begins. Yet there is a strange irony in this as well, that even at the moment of the greatest failures of the judges, that God in scripture affirms the worthiness of the rule of Israel by judges at its lowest moments. Let us close our message today with two passages that deal with the praise of the government of judges even during its failure, what that means as far as God’s view of human authority, and then discuss briefly where we will go next.

The first low moment of the time of the Judges that led to an affirmation of the worth of the judges as a whole comes in Judges 9:1-21. Judges 9:1-21 reads: “Then Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem, to his mother’s brothers, and spoke with them and with all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying, “Please speak in the hearing of all the men of Shechem: ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal reign over you, or that one reign over you?’ Remember that I am your own flesh and bone.” And his mother’s brothers spoke all these words concerning him in the hearing of all the men of Shechem; and their heart was inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.”  So they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless men; and they followed him.  Then he went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, on one stone. But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal was left, because he hid himself.  And all the men of Shechem gathered together, all of Beth Millo, and they went and made Abimelech king beside the terebinth tree at the pillar that was in Shechem. Now when they told Jotham, he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted his voice and cried out. And he said to them: “Listen to me, you men of Shechem, that God may listen to you! “The trees once went forth to anoint a king over them. And they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us!’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Should I cease giving my oil, with which they honor God and men, and go to sway over trees?’ “Then the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come and reign over us!’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Should I cease my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to sway over trees?’ “Then the trees said to the vine, ‘You come and reign over us!’ But the vine said to them, ‘Should I cease my new wine, which cheers both God and men, and go to sway over trees?’ “Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come and reign over us!’ And the bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you anoint me as king over you, then come and take shelter in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon!’ “Now therefore, if you have acted in truth and sincerity in making Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done to him as he deserves— for my father fought for you, risked his life, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian; but you have risen up against my father’s house this day, and killed his seventy sons on one stone, and made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother—if then you have acted in truth and sincerity with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you.  But if not, let fire come from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and Beth Millo; and let fire come from the men of Shechem and from Beth Millo and devour Abimelech!”  And Jotham ran away and fled; and he went to Beer and dwelt there, for fear of Abimelech his brother.”

There are three parts to this particular story. The first part consists of the low point at which Abimelech seeks to replace the rule of judges with his own rule as king based on a misguided blend between seeking power as a son of Gideon and also being a citizen of Shechem, with a base in that powerful and important city. Yet ultimately these two power bases were in stark contrast with each other. He was not enough a son of Shechem to appeal to everyone there, nor did he do well by his half-brothers, instead seeking to wipe them out, which harmed his own legitimacy as a ruler, since it is only the weak and insecure that strike out in violence against others to counter their own insecurities. The third part of the story is a straightforward discussion of how it is that the bad faith of both Abimelech and the people of Shechem with each other would lead to mutual destruction, as it did. It is the second part of the story, the parable, that gives us the highest insight as to why God chose the system of judges that He did, and why it was better than dynasties of corrupt rulers such as mankind has suffered through most of its history. When power is offered to the olive plant, the fig tree, and the grape vine, all of these productive plants, which have much to offer others through their service, would rather continue doing what they do to help others and provide productive labor rather than engage in the comparatively worthless task of ruling over and seeking to dominate others. It is only the worthless bramble, who has no honorable and productive labor of its own, nothing to offer mankind through service, who relishes in the empty glory of exercising rule over others. This parable is a pointed condemnation of the self-seeking political ambition of humanity, by showing that those who seek power are truly the worst people, because anyone who has anything else to offer humanity will rather serve others through their labor than to rule over others.

We see much the same point at the other low point in Judges where a defense of the judges is made, and that is at the very end of the time of the judges, in 1 Samuel 8:1-22. This will be our final scripture today. 1 Samuel 8:1-22 reads: “Now it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel.  The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba.  But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord.  And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.  According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also.  Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them.” So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king.  And he said, “This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots.  He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.  He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.  And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants.  He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants.  And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work.  He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants.  And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the hearing of the Lord.  So the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed their voice, and make them a king.” And Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Every man go to his city.””

This particular passage is a familiar one to many of us, as it marks the transition point between the time of the Judges and the monarchy, but there is a lot going on in this passage that has not been well understood. For one, let us note that for God, at least, the corruption of Samuel’s sons is not a particularly big deal. To be sure, we almost expect the bribes and perversion of justice that took place from Samuel’s sons from the judges that exist in our own evil age. The solution to corrupt rulers has never been to scrap the forms of government that they rule under, but rather to find godly rulers to rule over us instead, and that would have been the appropriate solution. Yet Israel did not want to be ruled over by ad hoc leaders called to answer needs who ruled with a light touch on others, demanding nothing more than a few dozen donkeys for their worthless sons and grandsons to sit on and pretend to be rulers. The demands of a full-fledged monarchy would be far more extensive, and what Samuel discusses here is getting off easy compared to what has happened under most of the tyrannical governments that have dominated the peoples of this world–the conscription of men and women for the armies and service of the king, the seizure of land, heavy taxation, all of this is just another day for governments all around the world throughout mankind’s history, and requiring a tithe would be far cheaper than most of the taxation imposed by the unjust and thieving and oppressive regimes that have governed throughout history up to the present day. God wanted Israel to experience good government, and government with a very light hand that made few demands on them other than to follow God and be willing to come when called in the case of a national emergency, but Israel could not trust a King in God that they could not see. Rather than the strong arm of one-man rule being God’s own government model for humanity, it was a curse that God allowed for Israel only because they unwisely insisted on it, despite His warnings through Samuel not to go through with it.

Today we examined the power of judges and the limitations of that power, both in the limitations of the judges who served and in the way that the power of judges was far less of a harsh manner of ruling than the monarchy that followed. So far we have completed two sermons on the power of a judge, and one message more should help us to understand how it is that the power of a judge lingered in the Bible as a model for the behavior of believers after the time of the judges, and how it remains a sort of power that believers are expected to exercise. It is with that ideal that we will finish our discussion of the power of judges the next time I speak on this subject, God willing. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your Sabbath.