A judgement on Judges

If I had to choose a favorite book from the Old Testament, it would have to be Judges… but probably for all the wrong reasons. No other book seems to be so lurid and sordid in content, especially for its relative brevity. It’s a book of violence and gore. It’s full of scandal and indecency. This is pulp fiction at its best. Time and time again we read of men and women who are used to further Redemptive History while committing foolish, disgraceful, or even heinous acts. Scholars are agreed that this represents the darkest era of Israel’s history.

But to dismiss the people we read of in Judges as pure barbarians, incapable of any refined culture or saving graces, would be the height of folly. Even the literary composition of the book sheds some light on their capabilities. The book contains poems, fables, riddles, intrigue, irony, etc. The stories told here rival that of any others from various cultures. And let’s us not forget that the writer to the Hebrews names Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah among the likes of Abraham and Moses, men of faith and virtue.

But how do we make sense of the book? What is the book of Judges all about and why is such a book contained in the OT canon?

First, we should look at it in context. Judges, both canonically and chronologically, comes right on the heels of the book of Joshua. The book of Joshua is a book that describes the largely successful conquest of the land of Canaan. It describes what OT scholars term harem warfare. From the Hebrew word which means, “to devote to destruction,” it describes how the Israelites were to deal the inhabitants within the land of Canaan, namely, total annihilation. In other words, there were to be no survivors. Since the land was a typological representation of heaven, there was to be nothing in the land that would defile it. Canaan was to be a heavenly sanctuary like the Garden of Eden; nothing impure could be tolerated. As the new possessors of Canaan, the Israelites were to be agents of God’s wrath, the very same wrath that He has stored up for the wicked on the Last Day.

As I mentioned above, Joseph was pretty successful at this. No less than 15 times in his book we read that the Israelites “devoted [their enemies] to destruction.” As for the Israelites in Judges… not so much. It mentions them devoting their enemies to destruction in 1:17, but not again till the very end of the book and there its not one of the indigenous peoples, but the tribe of Benjamin, their fellow Israelites!

So Judges details the downward spiral of the children of Israel and their fall into disobedience to God’s law, perversion of worship and utter depravity. The last two stories included in the book show that the Israelites were no better than the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this is all presented in a circular fashion. The typical cycle one encounters in Judges is as follows: the people do what is evil – God sends their enemies to oppress them – the people of Israel cry out to God – God raises up a judge to deliver them – they have a time of peace. But the frustrating part is that this cycle keeps repeating itself and it keeps getting worse and worse. This is seen clearly in 2:19 where we read that Israel grew “more corrupt” each and every time they rebelled after God delivered them.

This failure on Israel’s part becomes even more striking when one considers the nature of the Mosaic covenant that it was under. While individual Israelites were always saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (just like us), on a national level, as a corporate entity, regarding their tenure in the land of Canaan, they were under a covenant of works. The terms were pretty simple: if you obey my laws and worship only YHWH, then you will be blessed in the land, but if you disobey and go after other gods, then you will be cursed in the land (e.g. oppressors, wild animals, and ultimately, expulsion). Judges, therefore, represents a very shaky start for the Israelites upon their dwelling in the land, which was supposed to be flowing with milk and honey.