Prophets
שׁוֹפְטִים
Judges
A repeating cycle of collapse and rescue, getting darker each time round.
Hebrew nameShoftim, meaning judgesChapters21Position2 of 8 in Prophets
What is in it
The pattern is stated early and then run again and again: the people go wrong, they are oppressed, they cry out, someone rises to deliver them, and there is peace until that person dies. Each turn of the cycle is worse than the last.
The final chapters have no deliverer at all, and the book's closing line, that every man did what was right in his own eyes, is a verdict rather than a description.
If you read one chapter
Judges 4 to 5
Deborah, in prose and then in one of the oldest poems in the Bible.
Passages worth knowing
- Judges 2:11 to 19The cycle, set out in advance.
- Judges 4 to 5Deborah and Yael, told twice.
- Judges 6 to 8Gideon, who asks for proof twice.
- Judges 11Jephthah's vow, which the book does not excuse.
- Judges 21:25Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Questions to sit with
- 01
The book gets darker as it goes. What is that structure arguing?
- 02
Several deliverers are morally compromised. Why keep them in?