The Book of Judges (in Hebrew, Sefer Shoftim) chronicles a turbulent and highly significant new stage in the development of G-d’s plan for the world. The Torah begins by telling us how G-d brought the universe into being, and so generously made possible life for all. Its ongoing story tells how His plan was to have His creations become aware of Him and choose to love Him, internalizing His wisdom and His message until the knowledge of Him, covering the world, makes a world of peace and blessing.
In the Five Books with which the Written Torah begins, we learn of the patriarchs and matriarchs, who chose to live a life that followed G-d. In their lives, G-d was not only present as the unknown creator, outside and beyond—He was a living presence who instructed them and blessed them. Moses’ leadership forged the descendants of the patriarchs and matriarchs into a people under G-d. At G-d’s command, he led the people out from Egypt to Sinai, where the people entered into the covenant of the Torah and become G-d’s subjects and a new nation. The Torah was its constitution and law code; the oral teachings, its common law; Moses its chief magistrate. By the time of the last book, Moses had so thoroughly internalized G-d’s meaning and message, that almost the entire book is said in his voice. Moses speaks and it has the authority of G-d Himself.
Just as by command Moses had taken up leadership, so too by command was Joshua installed as his successor. Before all the people, Moses placed his hands on Joshua’s head (Numbers 27:18–23), and the Book of Joshua (1:16–18) tells us how his leadership was accepted by the people just as Moses’ had been.
The Book of Judges begins with the death of Joshua. That passing marked a profound change, for unlike Moses, Joshua had not been told by G-d of a successor. With his death, there was no transference of the leadership onto a single person. Very significantly, in response to the people’s clamoring for someone to lead them now in a battle against those Canaanites whom Joshua had not subdued, G‑d responded by designating leadership to an entire tribe: “Judah should go up” (Judges 1:2).
It seems a reasonable development. Our history is meant to be the story of our internalization of His message and identification with His plan and with His being. It seems perfectly apt then that after some training under our great teacher, Moses, and his successor, that now it would be time to accept an egalitarian responsibility—as one people, we all accept G-d as our king, and need no other authority.
Thus, as we enter the period of the Judges, there was no king figure. The people were being given the chance to show just how well they had internalized their relationship with G-d. And at the beginning, it goes well. Judah leads several other tribes in successful campaigns against the Canaanite enemy.
Egalitarian responsibility is a thrilling thought, and it inspired the founders of modern democracy to say that we are given the right to govern ourselves by the Divine—in Jefferson’s words, we are endowed with unalienable political rights by Nature and Nature’s G-d.
But great ideas rarely are translated smoothly and easily from the realm of thought to the realm of practical human affairs. Jefferson himself balanced his home budget by breeding and selling slaves; eventually a bloody civil war would be fought until blacks had their inalienable rights recognized in the United States. About three thousand years earlier, Israel, too, many times did not accept the responsibility that its freedom required. With an unblinking eye, the Book of Judges chronicles it all—the successes and the failures, the hope, its betrayal, and its rebirth, time and time again.
For though there are some significant successes in the fight against the Canaanites under the leadership of the tribe of Judah, there are also failures. Soon, the Book of Judges reports, the people acted irresponsibly, and used their freedom to neglect their part of the covenant. An angel upbraids them in G-d’s name for embracing Canaanite worship, and then the text tells us:
The Children of Israel would forsake the G-d of their ancestors, who had taken them out of the land of Egypt, and follow the gods of others. . . . Then the wrath of G-d would flare against Israel and He would deliver them into the hands of their plunderers. . . .
And G-d raised up judges and they saved them from the hands of those who had spoiled them. . . .
And when G-d raised them up judges, then G-d was with the judge and saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for G-d retracted [from His anger], because of the cry [of the Children of Israel] because of those who oppressed them and crushed them.
And it was when the judge died, that they would return and deal more corruptly than their forefathers, going after the gods of others to serve them and to bow down to them; they did not diminish their practices nor their stubborn way.
And the anger of G-d would be kindled [again] against Israel. (Judges 2:12–20)
This becomes a refrain repeated over and over throughout this book.
Thus we are introduced to a deep tension that runs through this entire book, the tension between freedom and responsibility. Freedom is central to the Torah’s message. But if freedom is used irresponsibly, disaster follows.
On Joshua’s passing, it was time to see if the divine sovereignty had been internalized. Could Israel now be a people who knew that they had been inalienably endowed by their Creator with all their rights and could confirm that by their willing acceptance of their own responsibilities before Him?
The answer of the Book of Judges to this question was that the job of internalization had not yet been fully accomplished. The story of the Golden Calf is repeated in varying forms again and again: the people fail the covenant, disaster ensues, the people are saved as they return their hearts to G-d and a new leader emerges.
The people would begin to worship alien gods, and then an enemy would get the upper hand. Sometimes it was Canaan, sometimes it was Moab, sometimes it was Midian or Ammon; then “the Children of Israel would cry out to G-d” (Judges 3:9) and He would send a powerful leader who would save the people. Among these leaders, known as shoftim or judges in this text, were well-known names and not-so-well-known names, with tales known to most Sunday school students and some stories remembered by few adults.
Who has not heard of the mighty Samson? A fierce warrior for G-d, who was mastered by his own craving after Delilah, he redeemed all his faults by a supreme act of self-sacrifice, taking out his Philistine captors at the cost of his own life. The Song of Deborah is read in the synagogue as a haftarah every year, as is the story of the brave but headstrong Jephthah; the exploits of Gideon and his fearless leadership are striking. On the other hand, the stories of other judges are less well-known—Otniel, the first judge, who successfully fights the Canaanites; Ehud, who kills Eglon, King of Moab; and Tola and Jair. But whether well-known or not, each fit into the pattern the book lays out at its start: the people would stray from G-d and get into trouble; in their trouble they would turn again to G-d and G-d would save them through a great leader.
The book ends with two stories illustrating the chaotic nature of the times. The story of Micah and his idol being adopted by the tribe of Dan presages all the troubles of the Northern Kingdom that would be in latter days; and the disturbing story of the concubine at Gibeah both show in different ways how far the people were yet from self-governance. In this latter incident, the tribe of Benjamin was nearly lost to Israel; at last, a solution was reached that left the people whole, but shaken. The stage was set for the emergence of the kings of Israel, who would bring order to the national life, unprecedented glory, and an undying hope that would shine brightly even in the darkness of bitter and prolonged exile.
