JUDGES, BOOK OF (Heb. Shoftim), a canonical book of the Old Testament, recording the achievements of those heroes who, at different periods in the early history of the Hebrews, before the consolidation of the government under a monarchy, from Joshua. to Samuel, arose to deliver their countrymen from the oppressions of neighboring nations, but only three of whom, Deborah, Eli, and Samuel, were judges in our sense of the word. The contents of the book have given rise to much criticism. It cannot be said to be a history, properly speaking. The events recorded in it do not follow each other chronologically, nor is there any other order to be perceived in their arrangement. It is rather a collection of detached historical traditions from the time of the Hebrew republic—probably redacted in the commencement of the reign of David—from ancient poems and popular sagas. It exhibits (whether with a royafistic tendency, as has been supposed by some, or in order to point the moral that however deeply sunk a people— emphatically the people—might be in slavery or idolatry, or both, God would always send them a deliverer from either at the right time) the lawless and ungodly state of Israel during the greater part of this period, and the evil consequences their intimate connection with the idolatrous nations around them brought upon them. The book
naturally falls into two portions—the first.up to chapter xvi., containing the heroic deeds of the single "judges"; the second, from ehapter.xvii., the tvi•o accounts of the idol of and of the crime of Benjamin. The space of time over which the book extends has of old been hotly contested: that it comprises no less than 300 years (cf. xi. 20) is, however, almost the only point on which we can feel certain, since there is no doubt that many of the events recorded in the book did not follow upon one another, but fell in the same period, a circumstance which chronologers generally have failed to- take into account. The book itself differs considerably from the other historical books of the Bible by its simplicity and originality. That most of the heroic adventures related con tain—sometimes, perhaps, under a highly poetical guise—true historical facts, has been doubted by but a very small number of critics. Ancient traditions make Samuel the author, or rather redactor, of the book, and there is certainly little to be said against. and much for, this supposition. Coinpare Ewald, Wette, Rosenmilller, Studer, Keil, etc. See JEWS.