Overview of Judges. The book of Judges records the history of Israel from just after the death of Joshua to just before the raising up of Samuel the prophet. It describes Jehovah’s repeated deliverances of Israel through judges He raised up after successive departures from the Lord, especially into idolatry. As a contrast to Joshua, where we have the conquest of the land, in Judges, we have the people’s failure under responsibility to live in that land, according to the commandments of the Lord. It is the same lesson we learn over and over again with regard to the first man. At the start of each successive dispensation, the first man is given something in responsibility, and he degenerates under that responsibility, to the point where the dispensation ends in utter ruin. Nevertheless, through the general downward course, there are micro-recoveries, caused by the raising up of various judges, of which there are twelve. These small recoveries are followed by a period of rest; “and the land had rest”. Then, it would say “the children of Israel did evil on the side of the Lord”, and the cycle is repeated. The book is broken into three sections. Up until ch.3 v.7, we have the preface to the book which describes the complete degeneration of Israel after the death of Joshua. Rather than keep the word they had promised in Joshua 24, they disobeyed the Lord and served idols. From ch.3 v.8 through ch.16 we have the cycles of deliverances followed by declensions through a history of twelve judges. After this, we have an appendix from ch.17-21, which describes events that chronologically took place prior to the first judge. We know this because the Levite that becomes the head of an idolatrous system of worship is the grandson of Moses. Those chapters are an appendix to the book, showing just how dark the day and how morally fallen the testimony was at that time. In a way, it is a sad book. In ch.2 the angel of the Lord moves from Gilgal (cutting off the flesh, characteristic of Joshua) to Bochim (weeping, characteristic of Judges). Though the first man fails in every responsibility given to him, the purposes of God are sure because there is a second man, the Lord from heaven, who will accomplish everything in perfection!

 

The Cycle of the Judges. As mentioned, the cycle of the Judges is that of the people doing evil, the Lord giving them into the hand of an enemy, and then raising up a deliverer to save them. Overall, it seems the state of the people after each deliverance was not full restored to that of the days of Joshua, and tended toward decline. The last oppressor was Philistia, and it lasted forty years, with no record of the people crying out for deliverance.

 

Oppressor	Years Oppressed	Deliverer
Mesopotamia	8	Othniel
Moab	18	Ehud
Philistines	Unknown	Shamgar
Canaan	20	Deborah & Barak
Midian	7	Gideon
Ammon	18	Jephthah
Philistines	40	Samson

 
Typical teaching in Judges. Joshua is a type of the Spirit of Christ in power. The elders who outlived Joshua speak of the Apostles who continued on after the Day of Pentecost. Judges outlines the steady path of declension that followed the death of Joshua. This is typical of the declension of the Church as outlined in Revelation 2-3. However, the overcomers – then in Israel’s day, as now in Laodicean times – shine brightly in a day of ruin.