Chapter I

THE NATURE OF THE OFFICE. THE CHRONOLOGY.

=1. Soon after the death of Joshua= the conquest of the land was continued under the lead of the tribe of Judah. But the Israelites soon began to be affiliated with the inhabitants. Intermarriages, commercial and social intercourse brought about the change whereby the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth took the place of the ancient service of the God of their fathers, and the Israelites seemed to be given up to the idolatries of the surrounding nations.

=2. A long series of captivities= and servitudes now began which introduced a new class of public officers, called =Judges=, who united the office of general-in-chief and of referee in civil cases, thus partaking somewhat of the duties indicated by the name “judge” by which they are called in Scripture.

=3.= But =the duties= of the so-called judge varied with the times and the person. Gideon declined to rule, delegating all rule to Jehovah, and acted only as deliverer. His son Abimelech coveted the office of king, and was the only king during this period and the first king in any part of Israel. Eli judged Israel 40 years, 1 Sam. 4:18, and was a noted high-priest. Samuel judged all the days of his life, 1 Sam. 7:15, and was also the first of the long unbroken series of prophets, uniting with this accredited and newly created office that of sacrifice and intercession for the people, 1 Sam. 7:5. Samuel closed the line of Judges.

=4. The period of the Judges= presents us with a most singular form of government and totally unlike any other form which either had preceded or did succeed it. These rulers were generally divinely appointed, but at times seem to have been elected by the people, as in the case of Jephthah and Abimelech, Judg. 11:6; 9:3.

=5. The most remarkable fact= connected with the history of the times of the Judges, from about B. C. 1400‒1060, is found in the private and public =idolatry= of the Israelites. This idolatry should be considered in view of the covenant their fathers had solemnly made at Sinai, and more especially in view of the warnings by Moses, reiterated by Joshua, and despite the consecration of themselves at Shechem. Many who were living at this time had formed a part of the great convention of consecration and covenant held under Joshua. Notwithstanding all these promises of loyalty to God, there seems to have been no form of idolatry into which they did not fall. The cause of this strange defection is very forcibly presented in Judg. 3:5‒8.

Another remarkable feature of this age is seen in the renewals of idolatry after equally repeated deliverances from distressful servitudes followed by temporary reforms.

=6. One constant cause= of the persistent idolatry was doubtless to be found in the continued social relations of the Israelites with the tribes of the Canaanites. The wisdom of the forewarnings of Moses, Deut. 7:3‒5, and of Joshua, and of the command made very early in their history that the Canaanites should be driven out from the land, and that no association should be had with them, is now very apparent, Exod. 34:16. The non-observance of the command was followed by these intimate relations all over the land. At least seven tribes are named, Judg. 1, as living together with the Canaanites. Even Judah, Benjamin, and the Jebusites dwelt in Jerusalem together at this time, Josh. 15:63 and Judg. 1:21.

=7. The Canaanites= therefore =were admitted= into the nation of Israelites by a kind of naturalization, and they brought in with them their customs and idolatries, although they themselves were made tributary.

=8. The history of the times= of the Judges is derived mainly from the books of Judges, Ruth, and 1 Samuel. But considerable light is added from the records of surrounding nations, especially from those of the Egyptians. In a poem by the poet laureate of the times of Rameses II., B. C. 1350, it is asserted that the Hittites in a battle on the plain of Esdraelon had 2,500 chariots of war. This was before the Israelites left Egypt, and the monuments record that Rameses III. captured 994 Canaanitish chariots.

The goddess Ashtoreth was, according to Naville, the patroness of war-chariots, and although the chariots taken by Joshua were drawn by horses, Josh. 11:6, we find them on some of the monuments represented as drawn by oxen, and it is said that oxen have been trained to run fast.

It should be remembered that the use of scythes or swords attached to the wheels or sides of chariots does not appear to have been in vogue until after this period.[79]

=9. The Israelites= had no war chariots until the time of David, 2 Sam. 8:4, and it is highly improbable that at that time they were used for war purposes, but only as baggage or forage wagons, and the remaining number taken in battle were disjointed, crippled, or destroyed, as the Hebrew text is translated in the Septuagint, and not that the horses were “houghed,”[80] as in our English version.

=10.= Solomon, B. C. 992, gathered chariots from Egypt and horses, although he was a man of peace, and it does not appear for what purpose the chariots were used except for display; but the act was certainly in direct violation of the law, Deut. 17:14‒20, and marked the beginning of that king’s departure from the service of Jehovah.

=11. The chronology of the times= of the Judges is not clearly made out. It cannot be determined that the Judges all reigned consecutively or that any one Judge had authority over any larger district than that of a few tribes. The Scriptural order seems to be as follows:

───────────────────┬───────────┬─────────────┬────────────┬───────────
│ Duration │ │ Duration │ Began to
Conquerors. │ of │ The Judge. │ in office,│ rule B. C.
│ servitude.│ │ or “Rest.” │ (Ussher).
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Chushan-rishathaim │ 8 years. | │ │ 1402
│ │ Othniel │ 40 years. │ 1394
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Eglon │ 18 years. │ │ │ 1354
│ │ Ehud │ 80 years. │ 1336
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Philistines │ ? │ Shamgar │ ? │ ?
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Jabin, a Canaanite │ │ │ │
king at Hazor │ 20 years. │ │ │ 1316
│ │ Deborah and │ │
│ │ Barak │ 40 years. │ 1296
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Midianites and │ │ │ │
Amalekites, etc. │ 7 years. │ │ │ 1256
│ │ Gideon │ 40 years. │ 1249
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Civil war │ │ Abimelech │ 3 years. │ 1209
│ │ Tola │ 23 years. │ 1206
│ │ Jair │ 22 years. │ 1183
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Philistines and │ │ │ │
Ammon │ 18 years. │ │ │ 1161
│ │ Jephthah │ 6 years. │ 1143
│ │ Ibzan │ 7 years. │ 1137
│ │ Elon │ 10 years. │ 1130
│ │ Abdon │ 8 years. │ 1120
───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼────────────┼───────────
Philistines │ 40 years. │ │ │ 1112
│ │ Samson │ 20 years. │
│ │ Eli │ 40 years. │
│ │ Samuel │ All the │
│ │ │ days of │
│ │ │ his life, │
│ │ │1 Sam. 7:15.│ dies 1060
│ │ SAUL │ │ 1095
│ │ │ │ FIRST YEAR
│ │ │ │ OF REIGN.
───────────────────┴───────────┴─────────────┴────────────┴───────────

The period of the Judges closed at the time when Saul was appointed king, B. C. 1095. Joshua died B. C. 1426, as is supposed, but some[81] have thought that at least thirty years passed between the death of Joshua and the first servitude, and the general opinion is that at least four hundred years, or even four hundred and fifty, must be taken as the length of time from Joshua to Saul, the first king. By adding the time of the servitudes and those of the rules of the Judges, including the time from the death of Joshua, we have about the sum stated in Acts 13:20. But it is difficult to reconcile the chronology of this period with that of other periods because of the want of sufficient fulness of statement in the history of the Judges.[82]