A generation that did not know the LORD: the cycle of the judges

The book of Judges is the second of the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) and tells the story of Israel between the death of Joshua and the rise of the monarchy. Its author is not named. The Talmud (Bava Batra 14b) ascribes it to Samuel, and some scholars see a longer process of collecting and editing. The refrain 'In those days there was no king in Israel' (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) suggests it was written after the monarchy began, and the note in 1:21 that the Jebusites still lived in Jerusalem 'to this day' suggests that at least parts were set down before David captured the city (2 Samuel 5). The period it covers runs roughly from the thirteenth century to the eleventh century BC, though the dating depends on the date of the exodus, an early date of about 1446 BC or a later one of about 1260.

The 'judges' (shophetim) were not mainly courtroom officials. They were leaders raised up by God to rescue Israel from oppressors, and several also settled disputes. There are twelve in the book, from Othniel to Samson, six whose stories are told at length and six mentioned briefly. They were local or regional figures, and the tribes did not act as a single nation.

Judges 2 sits between two introductions. Chapter 1 reports the tribes' partial failure to drive out the Canaanites. Chapter 2 gives the theological explanation, first through the angel of the LORD (verses 1 to 5) and then through the narrator (2:6 to 3:6). Verses 6 to 9 repeat nearly word for word the notice of Joshua's dismissal of the people and his death in Joshua 24:28-31. The repetition is deliberate. It ties the two books together, and it makes the rise of a new generation (verse 10) the turning point of the story.

Judges 2 is narrative, but its second half (verses 11 to 19) is closer to a summary than a story. The narrator steps back and gives the pattern that the following chapters will illustrate, and so the chapter works as an interpretive key. The six main stories in chapters 3 to 16 are to be read with this pattern in mind. Scholars sometimes list the stages as sin, oppression, crying out, and deliverance, with a period of rest.

Three rules help here.

• First, the book is telling the story of Israel's moral decline, but it describes events plainly without always commenting on every act. The narrator is clear about what the LORD thinks of idolatry, and less explicit about the conduct of individual judges. A reader must watch for the repeated phrase 'did evil in the sight of the LORD' and the refrain about no king.
• Second, in Hebrew narrative the speech of God or his messenger gives the authoritative interpretation of events. The angel's speech in verses 1 to 3 should be read this way.
• Third, the narrator's explanation of events is theological and not only political. Israel's enemies are real, but the Bible says they are instruments in God's hands, as covenant curses had warned (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28).

The chapter also contains what look like two explanations for the same fact. In verse 3 the angel says that the LORD will not drive out the nations as a consequence of the people's disobedience. In verses 21 to 23 the LORD says he leaves them in order to test Israel. Judges 3:1-4 adds that they were left to teach war to generations that had not known it. These are best read as complementary: the nations remain because Israel disobeyed, and the LORD uses their presence to show whether Israel will walk in his way.

Verses 1–5

The angel of the LORD comes up from Gilgal, where Israel had first camped after crossing the Jordan (Joshua 4:19), to Bochim, a place whose name means 'weepers'. He speaks in the first person as the LORD: 'I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I had promised to your fathers.' He recalls the promise, 'I will never break My covenant with you', and the condition, that Israel make no covenant with the people of the land and tear down their altars. Then comes the accusation: 'Yet you have not obeyed My voice. What is this you have done?' The question is close to the one God put to Eve (Genesis 3:13). The sentence follows: the nations will remain as 'thorns in your sides', and their gods will be 'a snare'. The people weep and offer sacrifices. Their grief is real, but the text does not say that they repented or changed.

Verses 6–10

The scene shifts back to Joshua's farewell. The people took their inheritances, and they served the LORD throughout Joshua's days and those of the elders who had seen what the LORD had done. Joshua is buried at Timnath-heres in the hill country of Ephraim. Then comes a stark sentence: 'another generation rose up who did not know the LORD or the works that He had done for Israel.' In Hebrew, to know someone is to be in relationship with them. This is not that the children had never heard of the LORD. They had no real knowledge of him, and no first-hand memory of his works. Deuteronomy 6:20-25 had told parents how to prevent this: they were to explain to their children what the exodus meant. Something failed.

Verses 11–15

The failure is described in covenant terms. Israel 'did evil in the sight of the LORD' and served 'the Baals', the local forms of the Canaanite storm and fertility god, and Ashtoreths, the plural of the goddess Astarte. The Ugaritic tablets discovered at Ras Shamra in the twentieth century give a picture of this religion from the Late Bronze Age. For a farming people, Baal promised rain and fertility, and the temptation was to cover all the bases. The result is described in a series of verbs: the LORD's anger 'burned', he 'delivered them' to plunderers, 'sold them' to their enemies, and his 'hand' was against them wherever they went, 'just as He had sworn to them'. The oath refers back to the curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.

Verses 16–19

Then, in a single verse, the narrator introduces mercy: 'the LORD raised up judges, who saved them'. The verb 'raised up' is the LORD's act, not a human appointment. Verse 18 states the basis: the LORD 'was with that judge', and he was 'moved to pity by their groaning'. The word for pity (nacham) can also mean to relent or be sorry. God is moved, not by Israel's repentance, but by their suffering. Yet the deliverance lasted only 'while the judge was still alive', and the people never really listened to the judges. They 'prostituted themselves with other gods', a covenant image that treats idolatry as unfaithfulness in marriage. After each judge died they became 'even more corrupt than their fathers'. The cycle does not simply repeat; it spirals downward.

Verses 20–23

The LORD speaks again, this time in anger. Because the nation transgressed the covenant, he will no longer drive out the nations Joshua left. The purpose is a test: 'to test whether Israel will keep the way of the LORD by walking in it as their fathers did.' The test is whether Israel will walk in the way of the LORD. The chapter ends with the nations still in place, and the reader is left asking what will happen. The book that follows will answer: the cycle runs, the judges grow weaker, and by the end the tribes fight one another.

Judges 2 supplies a theology of history. Israel's national fortunes are bound to its faithfulness to the LORD. This is not a mechanical rule, but a covenant reality that the Law had announced, and the book shows it working out in detail. The doctrine of divine judgment is plain, but so is divine mercy. The LORD does not abandon Israel to its enemies for good. He raises up deliverers because he hears their groaning, and the word 'groaning' is the one used of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 2:23-24).

The chapter also teaches that faith has to be handed on. Joshua 4:6-7 and Deuteronomy 6:20-25 both set up memorials and catechism so that children would ask and be told. Judges 2:10 shows what happens when that chain breaks. Psalm 78 retells this period as a warning to later generations.

A third theme is that the human instruments of salvation are limited. The judges are real saviours (the verb is yasha, 'to save') but their rescues do not last, because each judge dies and the people return to their ways. The book therefore points past the judges to a better kind of king, and it ends by saying that everyone did what was right in his own eyes (21:25). The books of Samuel take up that question. Hebrews 11:32-34 includes Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah in its list of those commended for faith, so the New Testament honours them as people through whom God worked while not hiding their failings.

The judges are types of Christ in a limited and contrasting way. They are raised up by God, the LORD is with them, and they save his people (verses 16 and 18). Those are real marks of a deliverer. Acts 13:20 summarises the period by saying God gave Israel judges until Samuel the prophet, and then Paul's sermon moves on to David and, from David's descendants, to a Saviour, Jesus (Acts 13:23). The pattern is promise and partial fulfillment, leading to a greater one.

The key difference is stated in verse 19: when the judge died, the people went back. The rescue ended with the rescuer. Hebrews 7:23-25 makes a similar contrast with Israel's priests: there were many of them because death kept them from continuing, but Jesus holds his priesthood permanently because he lives forever, and so he is able to save completely those who draw near to God through him. That is a contrast in the New Testament itself, and it fits the judges' pattern. A saviour who does not die and does not leave his people is what the book of Judges leaves its reader waiting for.

The LORD who is 'moved to pity by their groaning' (verse 18) has an echo in the Gospels, where Jesus is moved with compassion for crowds who are harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). This is an echo only, but it shows the same God acting through the greater deliverer. The refrain of Judges, that there was no king, also anticipates the royal promises and, finally, the Messiah.