Weekly Sermons

Judges Overview

The Hebrew title is Shophetiam, which can be translated as deliverer, savior, ruler, or judge. A judge acted to decide a cause, free the oppressed, and administer justice.

To best understand the Book of Judges we need to compare it with the Book of Joshua that came before.

Joshua showed God giving Israel victory over the heathen peoples and control of the Promised Land, in fulfilment of the promise He had made to Abraham.

Judges shows how God’s people would often fail to worship and obey Him, begin practicing the same idolatry God had judged those peoples for, and how God would let them experience the built-in consequences of those sins, including oppression by the surrounding peoples.

When Israel would come to its senses, God would raise up imperfect deliverers (called judges), who would deliver the people and Israel would experience rest until they again turned away from God.

There are many of these cycles mentioned in the book of Judges, with the people going from rest to rebellion to judgment to repentance to deliverance to rest.

Read Judges 2:7-23

These imperfect Judge/Deliverers made Israel long for the perfect Messiah Deliverer to come! He actually shows up a couple times in the Book of Judges as the Angel of the Lord.

Outline of Judges:

Deterioration: Failure to complete the conquest                           1:1-3:4

Deliverances: Cycles of sin-repentance-salvation                            3:5-16:31

Key Deliverers: Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, Jephthah, Samson

Depravity: the depths backsliding can bring                                    17:1-21:25

Judges has some of the coolest stories in the Bible, also some of the saddest (and sickest).

Key verse:

In those days there was no king in Israel; because everyone did what was right in his own eyes.                   -Judges 21:25

Judges, Ruth, and I Samuel were probably written by Samuel. That’s what Jewish tradition says, and it makes good sense.

Judges 18:31 and 20:27 let us know the book was written after the ark was removed from Shiloh, which is described in I Samuel 4:3-11.

Four times the phrase occurs, “In those days there was no king of Israel,” suggesting it was written after Saul became the first king.

But Judges 1:21 has Jerusalem still controlled by the Jebusites, which means it was written before 1004 B.C., when David conquered Jerusalem, which is described in 2 Samuel 5:5-9.

Judges was probably written by Samuel and covered several hundred years of events from 1375 BC onward.   

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Key Deliverers: Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson

Othniel

Read Judges 3:8-11

The Judges will be from all over the tribes – not surprisingly, the first mentioned is from the tribe of Judah. It’s Caleb’s younger brother, Othniel!

After 8 years of oppression, there was 40 years of rest. God had been merciful to His people.

Eventually the people again turn to sinful ways.

Ehud

The next major judge is Ehud, the left-handed Judge from the tribe of Benjamin!

In 3:12-30, Ehud is able to take out King Eglon of the Moabites.   

After 18 years of oppression, they experience 80 years of rest.

Deborah

In chapters 4-5 we meet Barak, an ineffectual leader who turned to the lady warrior Deborah from the tribe of Ephraim for help when oppressed by King Jabin of the Canaanites and his general Sisera.

Read 4:8-24

I love that Jael’s family ties go back to Moses father-in-law, Hobab/Reuel/Jethro.

An incident like that is worth a song, and we get it in Chapter 5, a duet between Deborah and Barak.

I especially like the taunting lyrics of verses 28-30 – you know Israel had fun singing that one about it’s oppressive enemies!

After 20 years of oppression, 40 years of rest.

Gideon

Read 6:1

One of the key phrases in Judges: “the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hands of Midian for seven years.”

Read 6:11-27

Gideon from the tribe of Manasseh meets the Angel of the Lord, who is probably Jesus in one of His Old Testament appearances.

Gideon responds by destroying the villages Baal altar.

But he’s not a perfect deliverer.

He tears down the altar at night!

Instead of just obeying God’s Word he lays out a fleece (twice)! See 6:36-40

I love what God does through Him in chapter 7.

Read 7:1-3

32,000 men drop to 10,000. Then God drops the number to 300! See 7:6-8

God knew Gideon needed encouragement to obey, so he allowed him to hear a dream and its interpretation that would encourage him.

Read 7:15-22

The incident clearly shows that God is responsible for the victory over the thousands of the Midianites.

Israel’s job, like ours, was to step out in faith, and God would do the rest!

Unfortunately, before he is done, Gideon lead his people into idolatry.

The people didn’t adequately fear God, and had no king to restrain them, so they often sunk back into idolatrous ways. SELAH.

After 7 years of oppression, the land had 40 years of rest.

The story of Gideon’s son Abimelech, born to a concubine, and rejected by his brothers, is told in chapters 8-10.

It really illustrates the principle that you reap what you sow. Abimelech kills all of his brothers, but is then mortally wounded by a woman throwing a millstone off of a tower onto his head. He has a young man thrust him through with a sword to finish himself off.

By the way, there have been major archaeology finds confirming the massive destruction that took place in the time of Abimelech. 

Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Jephthah

If you are getting a little tired of this cycle, so was God.

The next time one comes around, God pauses a little before delivering them.

This is kind of how it goes when people are presumptuous with God.

Read 10:6-16

This time they had 18 years of oppression, but will only have 6 years of peace afterwards.

God raises up Jephthah of Gilead.

He also came from the other side of the tracks – According to 11:1 he was the son of a harlot, who became a mighty man of valor.

Gilead didn’t like him, but desperately turned to him when they were oppressed by the Ammonites.

Jephthah is listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, and chapter 11 of Judges lets us know why – he preached truth to the Ammonites and trusted God for victory over God’s enemies.

Read 11:12-28

Do you see what Jephthah does – he reminds the Ammonites what happened to people like Sihon who attacked and oppressed God’s people – and he tells them they are putting themselves on God’s list!

Read 11:29-33

The Spirit of the Lord makes Jephthah victorious.

The vow made by Jephthah is puzzling.

I think I will write a best seller – the prayer of Jephthah!

If God gives you victory, sacrifice the first thing you see when you get home.

The context looks like he sacrificed his daughter as the pagans did – that would fit the weirdness of those days when everyone did right in his own eyes.

But perhaps instead she went to some type of “tabernacle” service for the Lord, like Samuel did later.

Samson

The next judge profiled is Samson, and in chapters 13-16 we see 10 different demonstrations of the strength God gave him.

We also see a man in serious sexual sin.

The story actually starts great, with Samson’s parents having an encounter with the Angel of the Lord in chapter 13 that leads them to dedicate Samson to the Lord utilizing the Nazarite vow the Law spoke of.

But in these 4 chapters we see Samson have ungodly unions with three different women. He first insists his parents arrange a marriage with a girl who worshipped other gods. After that relationship crumbles he doesn’t even seek his parents advice, first having a relationship with a prostitute, and then marrying Delilah, who clearly didn’t love him at all.

That leads to his losing the favor of God, and his strength, and his eyesight, and his freedom.

Sin carried him further than he wanted to go, kept him longer than he wanted to stay, and cost him more than he was willing to pay.

Samson does turn back to the Lord, and in God’s mercy did more to achieve rest for Israel at the end of his life than the rest combined.

Read 16:23-31

After 40 years of oppression by the Philistines the land has 20 years of peace.

Chapters 17-18 again show that everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

A man named Micah, who lived in the mountains of Ephraim and had stolen a big amount of money from his mom, is delighted when a Levite passes by and has him become his priest of idolatry.

Nevermind that all Levites themselves were not priests but assisted the sons of Aaron as priests – this guy was close enough!

That worked until part of the Tribe of Dan decided to move North, and stole both the priest and the idols from Micah.

Read Judges 18:23-26

Might makes right when everyone does what is right in their own eyes – when there is no fear of God, there won’t be much practicing of His Law.

And that brings us to chapters 19-21.

I struggle to think of a  more depraved and depressing section of scripture.

Another Levite is travelling home with his concubine, and goes past a pagan city where he fears mistreatment to lodge for the night among his fellow Jews in Gibeah of Benjamin.

What he doesn’t know is that Gibeah has become like Sodom and Gomorrah. The men of the city come to where he is staying and demand to have sex with him. He puts his concubine out the door, and she is abused until morning and found dead.

The Levite cuts her into 12 pieces and sends her pieces to the tribes of Israel. The nation is shocked and gathers together to war against Benjamin. Judah takes the lead (20:18), and only 600 men are left among Benjamin.

Then the nation grieves that one of their tribes has been cut off, and finds wives for those men.

The whole thing is just so sick and sad, but it really illustrates the depravity that men can sink to when they do what’s right in their own eyes.

That’s probably why Judges is in the Bible!

Judges is one big illustration of the depths people can sink to when they sin, and that God will judge sin and let us experience its built-in consequences. But its also one big illustration of the mercy of God. There aren’t many OT books you can turn to and see Jesus show up at least twice. What an encouragement even when we’ve blown it that Jesus will meet those who are turning back to Him!