Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/797

J U D J U D 763 courts. " It is a principle of English law that no action will lie against a judge of one of the superior courts for a judicial act, though it be alleged to have been done maliciously and corruptly." Other judicial officers are also protected, though not to the same extent, against actions. 2. The highest class of judges are irremovable except by what is in effect a special Act of Parliament, viz., a resolution passed by both Houses and assented to by the sovereign. The inferior judges and magistrates are removable for misconduct by the Lord Chancellor. 3. The judiciary in England is not a separate profession. The judges are chosen from the class of advocates, and almost entirely according to their eminence at the bar. 4. Judges are in England appointed for the most part by the crown. In a few cases municipal corporations may appoint their own judicial officer, and the coroner is elected by the freeholders of the county. In the United States judges of the supreme courts, as well as ambassadors and other public functionaries, are nominated and appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate, and hold their offices during good behaviour. 1 In the separate States the practice varies, but the tendency is in favour of electing the judges and limiting their tenure of office. In the revised constitution of New York of 1846, the principle was established that all public officers, inclusive of the judges, should be chosen by popular election. " The constitutional provision for making judges elective for short periods by universal suffrage is contagious, and every new constitutional reform or establishment tends that way " (Kent s Commentaries, i. 295, where a summary of the practice will be found). JUDGES, THE BOOK OF, as we now read it, constitutes a sequel to the book of Joshua, covering the period of history between the death of the son of Nun and the birth of Samuel. But it is well known that the present adjust ment of the older historical books of the Old Testament to form a continuous record of events from the creation to the Babylonian 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. We observe in the first place that the book has two commencements, each of wLich connects it directly with the book of Joshua (chap, i. 1 ; ii. 6). But in i. 1 the connexion is merely apparent. The events related in chap. i. are there said to have taken place after the death of Joshua, but in reality the chapter, covers the same ground with the book of Joshua, giving a brief account of the conquest of Canaan, which in some particulars repeats the statements of the previous book, while in others it is quite independent. It is impossible to regard the warlike expeditions described in this chapter 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 centre of the land (at Hebron, Debir, Bethel), in the very cities which Joshua in the book that bears his name is related to have subdued (Josh. x. 39). And this is confirmed by the circumstance that in Judges ii. 1 the "angel of Jehovah," who, according to Exod. xiv. 24, xxiii. 20, xxxii. 34, xxxiii. 2, 7 sq., 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 (Josh, xviii. ]). Here then we have an account of the first 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 passage, Josh. xv. 13-19, which corresponds to Judg. i. 10-15, 20, is either derived from our chapter or from an earlier source common to both. It follows from these considerations that the words " Now after the days of Joshua " in Judg. i. 1 are from the hand of the editor, who desired to make the whole book of Judges, including chap, i., read con tinuously with that which now precedes it in the canon of the earlier prophets. There are other signs of more than one pen having been engaged on Judges i. Compare, for example, ver. 8 with ver. 21, and see for the details, which are too complicated to be discussed here, Graf, Der Stamm Simeon, 1866 ; Wellhausen-Bleek, Einlcitung, p. 182 ; Wellhauseu, Geschichte,. 366; Meyer, "DieEroberung Falastina s" in Stade s Zcitschrift, 1881, Hft. i. The chapter was written after Israel had become strong enough to make the Canaanite cities tribu tary (ver. 28), that is, in the time of the kingship. Meyer, follow ing hints by Wellhausen, brings arguments to show that the original author is the Jahwist of the Pentateuch, of whose work there is but little trace among the sources of Joshua, though it cannot have closed without speaking of the conquest. The second and main section of our book (chap. ii. 6-xvi.) stands on quite another footing. The opening verses ii. 6-9 repeat the closing words of Joshua s history (Josh, xxiv. 28-31), and so link what follows to the book of Joshua as strictly as the first words of Ezra connect that book with the last verses of Chronicles. According to Josh. xxiv. the people " served Jehovah " during the life time of the great conqueror and his contemporaries. In Judg. ii. 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. The worship of other gods is represented, not as something which went on side by side with Jehovah worship (compare x. 6), but as a revolt against Jehovah, periodi cally repeated and regularly chastised by foreign invasion. The history, therefore, falls into recurring cycles, each of which begins with religious corruption, followed by chastise ment, which continues till Jehovah 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 (most fully in chap, x.), determines the form of the whole narrative, which is grouped round six principal judges, Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. The intervals between the great judges are filled up by the history of Gideon s son Abimelech and of six minor heroes Shamgar (following Ehud), Tola and Jair (following Abimelech), Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (between Jephthah arid Samson). The minor judges are not represented as having any immediate religious importance. The cycles of revolt, chastisement, and deliverance are six, not twelve. 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, and the history is dated by the years of each judgeship and those of the intervening periods of oppression. Here, however, a difficulty arises. The fourth year of Solomon is, according to 1 Kings vi. 1, the 480th from the exodus. These 480 years are 12 generations of 40 years each. The larger numbers which make up this total are also mainly reckoned by forties. Moses, Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, and the Philistine oppression, in which, according to Judg. xv. 20, Samson s judgeship was but an incident, make up together 7 x 40 years. Again, David has 40 years, and Samuel (who arose to close the Philistine interregnum twenty years after the death of Eli, and continued in office till he was quite old) cannot have ruled much less than a normal generation. Finally Joshun,