JUDGES, THE BOOK OF. This book of the Old Testa ment constitutes a sequel to the book of Joshua, covering the period of history between the death of this conqueror and the birth of Samuel. It is so called because it contains the history of the Israelites before the establishment of the monarchy, when the government was in the hands of certain leaders who appear to have formed a continuous succession, although the office was not hereditary. The only other biblical source ascribed to this period is Ruth, whose present position as an appendix to Judges is not original. (See BIBLE: Old Testament; RUTH, BOOK OF.) It is now generally agreed that the present adjustment 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. It consists of three main portions: (I) an introduction, presenting one view of the occu pation of Palestine by the Israelites (i. 5) ; (2) the history of the several judges (ii. 6—xvi.) ; and (3) an appendix containing two narratives of the period.
I. The first section relates events which are said to have taken place after the death of Joshua, but in reality it covers the same ground with the book of Joshua, giving a brief account of the oc cupation of Canaan, which in some particulars repeats the state ments of the previous book, while in others it is quite independent. (See JOSHUA.) It is impossible to regard the warlike expeditions described in this section 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 land (at He bron, Debir, Bethel) in the very cities which Joshua is related to have subdued (Josh. x. 39). Here then we have an account of the 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 words "and it came to pass after the death of Joshua" in Judges i. I are from the hand of the last editor, who desired to make the whole book of Judges, including ch. i., read continuously with that which now precedes it in the canon of the earlier prophets.
2. The second and main section (ii. 6—xvi.) stands on quite another footing. According to Josh. xxiv. 31 the people "served Yahweh" during the lifetime of the great conqueror and his con temporaries. In Judges ii. 7 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 (ii. 6—iii. 6). The worship of other gods is represented, not as something which went on side by side with Yahweh-worship (c.f. x. 6), but as a revolt against Yahweh, periodically repeated and regularly chastised by foreign invasion. The history, there fore, falls into recurring cycles, each of which begins with re ligious corruption, followed by chastisement, which continues un til Yahweh, 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 (especially vi. I-1 o, x. 6-18), determines the form of the whole narrative. It is in general agreement with the spirit as also with the language of Deuteronomy, and on this account this section may be con veniently called "the Deuteronomic Book of Judges." The sources of the narrative are older than the theological exposition of its lessons, and herein lies the value and interest of Judges. The im portance of such documents for the historian lies not so much in the events they record as in the unconscious witness they bear to the state of society in which the narrator poet lived.