Intro to the Book of Judges

The book of Judges is one of the richest books of the Bible.  However, aside from the story of Samson, many of the books more prominent characters are largely unknown if not outright neglected.  Yet, as it is apart of the canon of Scripture because of God's will and design, and therefore, it warrants as equally an energetic examination as the epistles of Paul.

At the onset, the book of Judges comes after the book of Joshua, both canonically and chronologically.  This is the relavant starting place because the book of Joshua sets the stage for the events of Judges, which set the context for the coming of Samuel, Saul, and David.  Therefore, a basic understanding of the events of Joshua are in order so as to prepare us for thinking about the world of Judges.

Following Moses' death (Deut. 34:5-7), the Israelites, under the leadership of Joshua, began to disposess the Canaanites and inhabit the land.  God gave the Israelites very specific instructions in that regard, instructions that can seem harsh if we read our 21st century context into them.  God commanded the Israelites, uneqivocally, to utterly destroy the peoples that lived in the Promised Land.  They were not to let anyone live.  They weren't to make any treaty with the people and they were certainly not to marry with them.

However, despite the Lord's explicit instructions for the Israelites to sieze the Promised Land, they failed in almost every regard.  They did intermarry, they did let some live, they did make treaties, et al.  And as a result of such blatant disobedience on the part of God, who always knows what He is talking about and always has reasons for His instructions to people, the previous inhabitants of Canaan continually led the Israelites into ever-increasing debauchery and paganism. 

Thus, they did not receive the fulness of the Promised Land and certainly not the Promised Rest that was to accompany the Land.  The net effect was that the Israelites had whole generations that were far more pagan than they were Hebrew in their faith, meaning that they did not believe in the true and living God who had brought them out of Egypt by the power of His mighty outstreched hand, but they fell into Canaanite paganism and turned away from the God who is.

This is the historical context that we find ourselves in as we open the book of Judges and read, following the death of Joshua and his generation, "And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work He had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baals.  And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them.  And they provoked the Lord to anger (Judges 2:10-12)."

This is the context when we look at the book of Judges and should serve as the starting point for our continued examination into the major characters of the book.  The major things to take from this are: when God commands to do something, do it utterly without swerving.  But praise be to God who is to be glorified at every turn!