exile is due to an editor, or rather to successive redactors, who pieced together and reduced to a certain unity older memoirs of very different dates; and closer examination shows that the continuity of many parts of the narrative is more apparent than real. This is very clearly the case in the book of Judges. It consists of three main portions: (1) an introduction, presenting one view of the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites (i. 1–ii. 5); (2) the history of the several judges (ii. 6–xvi.); and (3) an appendix containing two narratives of the period.
1. The first section relates events which are said to have taken place after the death of Joshua, but in reality it covers the same ground with the book of Joshua, giving a brief account of the occupation of Canaan, which in some particulars repeats the statements of the previous book, while in others it is quite independent (see Joshua). It is impossible to regard the warlike expeditions described in this section as supplementary campaigns undertaken after Joshua’s death; they are plainly represented as the first efforts of the Israelites to gain a firm footing in the land (at Hebron, Debir, Bethel), in the very cities which Joshua is related to have subdued (Josh. x. 39).[1] Here then we have an account of the settlement of Israel west of the Jordan which is parallel to the book of Joshua, but makes no mention of Joshua himself, and places the tribe of Judah in the front. The author of the chapter cannot have had Joshua or his history in his eye at all, and the words “and it came to pass after the death of Joshua” in Judg. i. 1 are from the hand of the last editor, who desired to make the whole book of Judges, including ch. i., read continuously with that which now precedes it in the canon of the earlier prophets.[2]
2. The second and main section (ii. 6–xvi.) stands on quite another footing. According to Josh. xxiv. 31 the people “served Yahweh” during the lifetime of the great conqueror and his contemporaries. In Judg. ii. 7 this statement is repeated, and the writer proceeds to explain that subsequent generations fell away from the faith, and served the gods of the nations among which they dwelt (ii. 6–iii. 6). The worship of other gods is represented, not as something which went on side by side with Yahweh-worship (cf. x. 6), but as a revolt against Yahweh, periodically repeated and regularly chastised by foreign invasion. The history, therefore, falls into recurring cycles, each of which begins with religious corruption, followed by chastisement, which continues until Yahweh, in answer to the groans of his oppressed people, raises up a “judge” to deliver Israel, and recall them to the true faith. On the death of the “judge,” if not sooner, the corruption spreads anew and the same vicissitudes follow. This religious explanation of the course of the history, formally expounded at the outset and repeated in more or less detail from chapter to chapter (especially vi. 1–10, x. 6–18), determines the form of the whole narrative. It is in general agreement with the spirit as also with the language of Deuteronomy, and on this account this section may be conveniently called “the Deuteronomic Book of Judges.” But the main religious ideas are not so late and are rather akin to those of Josh. xxiv; in particular the worship of the high places is not condemned, nor is it excused as in 1 Kings iii. 2. The sources of the narrative are obviously older than the theological exposition of its lessons, and herein lies the value and interest of Judges. The importance of such documents for the scientific historian lies not so much in the events they record as in the unconscious witness they bear to the state of society in which the narrator or poet lived. From this point of view the parts of the book are by no means all of equal value; critical analysis shows that often parallel or distinct narratives have been fused together, and that, whilst the older stories gave more prominence to ordinary human motives and combinations, the later are coloured by religious reflection and show the characteristic tendency of the Old Testament to re-tell the fortunes of Israel in a form that lays ever-increasing weight on the work of Yahweh for his people. That the pre-Deuteronomic sources are to be identified with the Judaean (J, or Yahwist) and Ephraimite (E, or Elohist) strands of the Hexateuch is, however, not certain.
To the unity of religious pragmatism in the main stock of the book of Judges corresponds a unity of chronological scheme. The “judges,” in spite of the fact that most of them had clearly no more than a local influence, are all represented as successive rulers in Israel, and the history is dated by the years of each judgeship and those of the intervening periods of oppression. But it is impossible to reconcile the numbers with the statement elsewhere that the fourth year of Solomon was the 480th from the exodus (1 Kings vi. 1). See Bible: Chronology.
The general introduction (ii. 6–iii. 6) is a blend of Deuteronomic and other sources. The intimate relation between it and the separate narratives (Josh. xxiv. 1–27, a late [Ephraimite] record inserted by a second Deuteronomic hand, and xxiii., D) appears both from their contents and from the fact that Judg. ii. 6–10 is almost identical with the narrative appended to Joshua’s address (Joshua xxiv. 28–31). Judg. i.–ii. 5, however, is not touched by D, and hence was probably inserted in its present position at a later date. According to the highly intricate introduction the Hebrews were oppressed: (a) to familiarize them with warfare—it is assumed that they had intermarried with the Canaanites and worshipped their gods (iii. 2, 6); (b) to test their loyalty to Yahweh (ii. 22; iii. 1); or (c) to punish them for their marriage with the heathen and their apostasy (D in ii. 12; cf. Josh. xxiii., and ibid. v. 12).
To this succeeds a noteworthy example of the Deuteronomic treatment of tradition in the achievement of Othniel (q.v.) the only Judaean “judge.” The bareness of detail, not to speak of the improbability of the situation, renders its genuineness doubtful, and the passage is one of the indications of a secondary Deuteronomic redaction. The case, however, is exceptional; the stories of the other great “judges” were not rewritten or to any great extent revised by the Deuteronomic redactor, and his hand appears chiefly in the framework.[3] Thus, in the story of Ehud and the defeat of Moab only iii. 12–15, 29–30 are Deuteronomic. But the rest is not homogeneous, vv. 19 and 20 appear to be variants, and the mention of Israel (v. 27b) is characteristic of the tendency to treat local troubles as national oppressions, whereas other records represent little national unity at this period (i., v.). See further Ehud.
According to the Septuagint addition to Josh. xxiv. 33, Moab was the first of Israel’s oppressors. The brief notice of Shamgar, who delivered Israel from the Philistines (iii. 31), is one of the later insertions, and in some MSS. of the LXX. it stands after xvi. 31. The story of the defeat of Sisera appears in two distinct forms, an earlier, in poetical form (v.), and a later, in prose (iv.). D’s framework is to be recognized in iv. 1–4, 23 seq., v. 1 (probably), 31 (last clause); see further Deborah. The Midianite oppression (vi.–viii.) is contained in the usual frame (vi. 1–6; viii. 27 seq.), but is not homogeneous, since viii. 4, the pursuit of the kings, cannot be the sequel of viii. 3 (where they have been slain), and viii. 33–35 ignores ix. The structure of vi. 1–viii. 3 is particularly intricate: vi. 25–32 does not continue vi. 11–24 (there are two accounts of Gideon’s introduction and divergent representations of Yahweh-worship); vi. 34 forms the sequel of the latter, and vi. 36–40 (with “God”) is strange after the description of the miracle in vv. 21 seq. (with “Yahweh”). Further, there are difficulties in vi. 34, vii. 23 seq., viii. 1, when compared with vii. 2–8, and in vii. 16–22 two stratagems are combined. There are two sequels: vii. 23 seq. and viii. 4; with the former contrast vi. 35; with viii. 1–3 cf. xii. 1–6, and see below. Chapter viii. 22 seq. comes unexpectedly, and the refusal of the offer of the kingship reflects later ideas (cf. 1 Sam. viii. 7; x. 19; xii. 12, 17). The conclusion, however, shows that Jerubbaal had only a local reputation. Finally, the condemnation of the ephod as part of the worship of Yahweh (viii. 27) agrees with the thought in vi. 25–32 as against that in vi. 11–24. (See Ephod; Gideon.) Chapter ix. (see Abimelech) appears to have been wanting in the Deuteronomic book of Judges, but inserted later perhaps by means of the introduction, viii. 30–32 (post-exilic). It has two accounts of the attack upon Shechem (lx. 26–41 and 42–49).
After a brief notice of two “minor judges” (see below), follows the story of Jephthah. It concludes with the usual Deuteronomic
- ↑ This is confirmed by the circumstance that in Judg. ii. 1 the “angel of Yahweh,” who, according to Exod. xiv. 24, xxiii. 20, xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2, 7 seq., must be viewed as having his local manifestation at the headquarters of the host of Israel, is still found at Gilgal and not at Shiloh.
- ↑ The chapter was written after Israel had become strong enough to make the Canaanite cities tributary (v. 28), that is, after the establishment of the monarchy (see 1 Kings ix. 20–21).
- ↑ Hence, it is to be inferred that the reviser had older written records before him. Had these been in the oral stage he would scarcely incorporate traditions which did not agree with his views; at all events they would hardly have been written down by him in the form in which they have survived. The narratives of the monarchy which are preserved only in Chronicles, on the other hand, illustrate the manner in which tradition was reshaped and rewritten under the influence of a later religious standpoint.
