The book of Judges shows us that the Bible is not a “Book of Virtues”; it is not full of inspirational stories. Why? Because the Bible (unlike the books on which other religions are based) is not about following moral examples. It is about a God of mercy and long-suffering, who continually works in and through us despite our constant resistance to his purposes.

—Timothy Keller

Source: Judges For You: For Reading, for Feeding, for Leading, by Timothy Keller, copyright 2013 by The Good Book Company, used by kind permission.

Judges covers the period after the death of the people’s great leader Joshua to just before the ascension of Saul to the throne of Israel. During this time, judges rule the people. These were individuals whom God raised up as deliverers on different occasions in different parts of the land to rescue his oppressed people. We read, “In those days Israel had no king” (Judges 17:6 NIV). It covers about the first 350 years in the land of promise. The judges were not just one governor after another. The times of their rule could have overlapped.  

There is a decided monotony in the description of each successive stage of sin in Israel, but there is an equally remarkable variety in the instruments and methods of deliverance God used. There is something different in the story of each judge, and the book gives us a record of great exploits.  

There were 14 judges: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, Samson, Eli, and Samuel. (The stories of Eli and Samuel appear in 1 Samuel.) Abimelech, a petty ruler, was not called by God to judge.

—Henrietta Mears

Source: This content is from What the Bible Is All About, written by Henrietta Mears. Copyright © 1953, 2011 by Gospel Light. Copyright assigned to Tyndale House Publishers, 2015. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

For most of the judges, the duration of their service and the tribe in Israel from which they originate is described in the text. However, the accounts of the judges likely do not appear in chronological order, nor are they necessarily arranged geographically. It seems, rather, that the accounts are arranged to portray Israel’s progressive spiral downward into idolatry as they increasingly become like the Canaanites they had been called to exterminate from the land.

—Miles V. Van Pelt

Source: Content taken from Judges: A 12-Week Study © 2015 by Miles V. Van Pelt. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

The author of Judges makes it clear that Israel’s suffering and subjugation is the direct result of their own sin and idolatry (Judges 2:11–15). It is also clear that the Lord gives his people over to such suffering because of their sin (Judges 2:14). Thus we should be struck by the statement that “the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them” (Judges 2:18). The Lord does not abandon his people to sin. Rather, it is he who delivers us from our sin. We do not clean up our lives in order to become favored by God. It is just the opposite. Because God has favored us in Christ, we are empowered unto holy living as we worship the God of our salvation.

—Miles V. Van Pelt

Source: Content taken from Judges: A 12-Week Study © 2015 by Miles V. Van Pelt. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

For many readers Judges 1 raises once more the so-called moral problem of the conquest. How horrid that Israel butcher innocent Canaanites, wreak havoc and misery, grab their land—and all, allegedly, at Yahweh’s command! If only the Canaanites could know how much emotional support they receive from modern western readers. And the conquest was frightful. But people who bemoan the fate of the poor Canaanites don’t view the conquest from the Bible’s own perspective. They forget one vital fact: the Canaanites were not innocent. Moses was emphatic about that; he humbled the Israelites by insisting that Yahweh was not giving them Canaan because they were such godly folks but because the Canaanites were so grossly wicked (Deuteronomy 9:4-6). If you want all the gory details, see Leviticus 18:6-30 and Deuteronomy 18:9-14. These texts show that the conquest was an act of justice, Yahweh’s justice. Israel was the instrument of his just judgment upon a corrupt and perverted people. The Bible, of course, does not claim the conquest will be palatable; but it does insist it was just.

—Dale Ralph Davis

Source: Davis, Dale Ralph. Judges: Such a Great Salvation. Scotland, UK: Christian Focus, 2015.

Instead of driving out the Canaanites, Israel becomes just like the Canaanites. The most obvious point that the book of Judges makes is that Israel is no different than Canaan. It happens slowly. Over the course of 400-something years. Israel changes from a nation that fears Yahweh, where God fights on their side, to a nation that looks just like Canaan and God’s sword is drawn against them. So the Angel of the Lord no longer fights with them, he fights against them. There’s heavy irony going on here, where the people they were supposed to root out, they become, and the power by which they were going to drive them out, drives them out. That’s the big meta-picture of what is happening in the book of Judges.  

That should also inform our normal reading of all these heroes within the book of Judges. There are some heroic things that happen in the book of Judges. There are moments of faith in the book of Judges. Gideon and Samson—they have their moments. But they really only serve to highlight the fact that Israel is falling further and further into their own demise and into the practices of the land. Even the leaders themselves devolve into being no different than the people in the land of Canaan. So I want to temper our expectations for heroes in the story, because there’s not really a ton of them in the classic sense.

—Spoken Gospel

Source: David Bowden and Seth Stewart in the Spoken Gospel podcast, “Judges Introduction,” published at spokengospel.com.

When you turn from God to idols, you end up with nothing, you end up empty, and you end up in captivity. But I really believe there’s a greater loss. Verse 31 of chapter 18 is such a damning statement. It says, “They continued to use the idol Micah had made, all the time the house of God was in Shiloh” (Judges 18:31 NIV). I mean, they had access to the presence of God… You see, when we turn from God to idols, we miss out on the presence of God and that’s the most precious thing that we have in our lives.

—Steve Mathewson

Source: Steve Mathewson, quoted from his message, “Faith for Faithless Times,” published on YouTube by Trinity International University.

The events recorded in Judges cover a span just under three hundred years (1360–1084 BC), leading up to a new era in Israel’s history, an era in which they will be ruled by kings rather than judges. So much happened during the time of the judges—way too much to record in a single Bible book—so the author of Judges selected particular episodes that best fit his theme. And if you know your Old Testament history, you’re likely to note that he didn’t record these episodes in chronological order. So, for example, the sordid stories in the final chapters likely occurred quite early in the period of the judges rather than near the end. Overall, the author arranged the material not to lay out a careful history lesson but to best show the declining spiritual condition of God’s people during this three-hundred-year period. 

—Lydia Brownback  

Source: Content taken from Judges: The Path from Chaos to Kingship © 2021 by Lydia Brownback. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

At the beginning of chapter 2, Israel was reminded of God’s promise never to break his covenant—his relational pledge—to love, protect, and provide for them even when they sin. The Lord’s unshakable commitment to care for his people is a reality we’ll see all through our study. Although God gives Israel into the hands of enemies, he turns around and provides them with a way out. His purpose with his people—even in judgment—is always designed for their long-term good. Even so, a pattern is set in this section, a downward spiral, that will play out for the rest of the book. 

We can trace this pattern beginning in Judges 2:13, when Israel turns away from God to worship idols. In time, God’s anger is stirred so he removes his hedge of protection from them (Judges 2:14), and they can no longer stand up against their enemies (Judges 2:15). With your Bible open to this passage, see if you can trace the pattern of this downward spiral.  

Judges 2:13—Israel turns to false gods.  

Judges 2:14—Israel is plundered.  

Judges 2:15—Israel is in distress.  

Judges 2:16—The Lord raises up deliverers (judges).  

Judges 2:18—The Lord works through the judges to deliver Israel from oppression.  

Judges 2:19—At ease once again, Israel turns away from the Lord.  

Judges 2:20—God brings oppression and distress on Israel. 

Can you see that Israel ended up right where they started? The full circle we see here is repeated over and over again in Judges, so much so that it’s commonly called “the Judges cycle.” 

—Lydia Brownback 

Source: Content taken from Judges: The Path from Chaos to Kingship © 2021 by Lydia Brownback. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Because of the startling nature of these narratives, it might seem like the book of Judges lacks a content filter, but this is not true. In John 5:39, we are taught that Jesus is the filter through which we must read the book of Judges. Christ states, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they [the Old Testament Scriptures] that bear witness about me” (ESV). The narratives contained in the book of Judges were written to “bear witness” or “testify” to the person and work of Jesus and the great salvation he has achieved for his people. 

The most shocking feature in the book of Judges, therefore, is not the horror of the people’s sin depicted in these narratives but the glory of salvation from that sin, accomplished by the God of patience, mercy, compassion, steadfast love, and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6). The terror of sin is outshone only by the glory of God’s salvation worked through these judges, who then point us to Jesus Christ. 

And so, we are moved to study this often-neglected book of the Bible because it teaches us about God’s great salvation in Christ for his people from our incessant inclination to forget him, his promises, and all of the good blessings encountered in covenant life.

—Miles V. Van Pelt

Source: Content taken from Judges: A 12-Week Study © 2015 by Miles V. Van Pelt. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Judges is a very confronting book, especially for contemporary Christian readers. It is full of violence and has some horrifying stories of women, in particular, being abused. Worst of all, it is about the people of God behaving abominably again and again and again and suffering the consequences. There is chaos in Judges, caused by the almost unbelievable perversity of human beings, but there’s also the powerful presence of God who intervenes again and again to pull them back from the brink of oblivion. But the chaos keeps returning, and by the end things seem to be going from bad to worse. There’s a muted hope for a king who will be able to bring some order out of the chaos (Judges 21:25). But that’s all—a kind of wistful longing that one day it might all be over, and Israel will be able to look back to the days of the judges as a nightmare from which they have finally awakened.  

And then we come to Ruth, with its message of redemption. It too, begins with pain—especially for Naomi and her family—but then it quickly turns into a story of love and inclusion, restoration and blessing. It’s like moving from darkness to light and from chaos to calm. Judges ends with the faint hope of a king, Ruth with the birth of a baby in Bethlehem who turns out to be the ancestor of King David. And that, of course, opens out toward the New Testament and the glorious gospel of God’s redeeming grace in Christ. Judges by itself is depressing, but Judges and Ruth together are full of hope. 

—Barry G. Webb

Source: Content taken from Judges and Ruth: God in Chaos © 2015 by Barry G. Webb. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.