Nevi’im (JPSA) 07: Judges

The Book of Judges chronicles a turbulent era in ancient Israel when no king ruled and everyone did what seemed right in their own eyes. It is a relentless cycle of apostasy, oppression, repentance, and deliverance, as God raises up judges, military saviors like Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, and Samson, to deliver Israel from neighboring oppressors. These stories crackle with drama: the left-handed Ehud slaying the obese Moabite king Eglon, the prophetess Deborah rallying Barak against the Canaanite general Sisera, Gideon testing God with fleece before routing the Midianites with only three hundred men, and the tragic, powerful figure of Samson, whose supernatural strength fails him at the moment he reveals his secret to Delilah. The book concludes with two harrowing appendices that depict civil war and atrocities that challenge any easy moral reading. Judges is essential for understanding the Hebrew Bible's narrative arc: it explains why Israel demanded a king, and it wrestles with profound questions about faith, fidelity, and the costs of tribal chaos.