The Book of Joshua marks a new beginning, to the story of Israel in Canaan. Yet the story continues straight on without a break. Deuteronomy had looked forward to the Israelites occupying Canaan

24.14 ‘You Can’t Serve Yahweh’. ‘Yes We Can!’

14 ‘So now, live in awe of Yahweh and serve him with integrity and with truthfulness. Remove the gods that your ancestors served across the river and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh. 15 If it’s bad in your eyes to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you’ll serve, whether the gods that your ancestors served who were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites whose country you’re living in. I and my household, we will serve Yahweh’.

16 The people answered, ‘Far be it for us to abandon Yahweh to serve other gods, 17 because Yahweh our God – he’s the one who got us and our ancestors up from the country of Egypt, from a household of serfs, and who did before our eyes these great signs, and kept us the entire way that we went and among all the peoples through whom we passed; 18 and Yahweh drove out all the peoples (the Amorites) living in the country from before us. We’ll serve Yahweh as well, because he’s our God’.

19 Joshua said to the people, ‘You can’t serve Yahweh, because he’s a sacred God. He’s a passionate God. He won’t carry your rebellions and wrongdoings. 20 When you abandon Yahweh and serve foreign gods, he’ll turn back and bring bad fortune to you and finish you off, after he’s been good to you’.

21 The people said to Joshua, ‘No, because Yahweh is the one we’ll serve’. 22 Joshua said to the people, ‘You’re witnesses against yourselves that you yourselves have chosen for yourselves Yahweh, to serve him’. They said, ‘We’re witnesses’. 23 ‘So now remove the foreign gods that are among you and direct your mind to Yahweh the God of Israel’. 24 The people said to Joshua, ‘Yahweh our God we will serve. To his voice we will listen’.

24.25 Confirming the Covenant Anew

25 Joshua solemnized a pact for the people that day and laid down for them a decree and a ruling, at Shekem. 26 Joshua wrote these things in God’s instruction document. He got a big stone and set it up there under the oak that was in Yahweh’s sanctuary. 27 Joshua said to all the people, ‘Here, this stone – it will be a witness against us, because it – it heard all Yahweh’s words that he spoke with us. It will be a witness against you, so you don’t act deceitfully toward your God’. 28 And Joshua sent the people off each to their domain.

29 After that, Joshua ben Nun, Yahweh’s servant, died, a man of 110 years. 30 They buried him within the border that was his domain in Timnat-serah in the highland of Ephrayim, north of Mount Ga’ash.

31 Israel served Yahweh all the time of Joshua and all the time of the elders who lived on after Joshua and who acknowledged all Yahweh’s action that he undertook for Israel. 32 The bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, they buried in Shekem on the plot in the fields that Jacob had acquired from the sons of Hamor, Shekem’s father, for a hundred qesitas. It had become a domain of the Josephites.

33 El’azar ben Aaron died and they buried him on the hill of Pinhas his son, which had been given him in the highland of Ephrayim.

Judges

A quick read of Joshua can give one the impression that the story that now follows will relate how everyone lives happily ever after, but the close of Joshua made clear that the Israelites have by no means entered into full possession of the land of Canaan. Moreover, Joshua’s challenges to the Israelites at the end of Joshua also raise the question of how faithful Israel will be in fulfilling its own promises.

Judges begins (1:1—2:5) by focusing on the areas of the country over which Israel does not yet have control, and it thus conveys a gloomier impression than the book of Joshua as a whole. Further, the areas that remain under Canaanite control are the most populous areas and the ones most worth possessing. Like Joshua, Judges here moves between ‘they didn’t gain control’ and ‘they couldn’t gain control’ of these areas.

A second introduction to the book (2:6—3:4) then outlines a pattern that runs through much of the book. It introduces a series of stories that relate how Israelites turn away from adherence to Yahweh to serve other deities. Yahweh then himself turns away and leaves them to the mercy of their neighbours. In due course this experience of discipline makes them turn back to Yahweh, and he produces a deliverer who can rescue them from their adversaries.

It is these deliverers who provide the book with its title, ‘Judges’, though that English word is thus misleading. I use the expression ‘exercise authority’ to match the rendering elsewhere in this translation. But these leaders are people who don’t have an official position like a governor or a king but who by dint of God’s spirit coming on them are able to do what needs doing for Israel. Their personalities and gifts are also involved, though they tend to be the kind of people who wouldn’t be in positions of official leadership if there were official leaders. God chooses and uses somebody’s little brother, somebody who is handicapped, a son of Anat (a name that suggests he is a Canaanite), and then the greatest of the leaders who is—a woman.

Nor are these leaders commonly people of great faith or insight or a high standard of morality. Indeed, there is a troubling arc to the sequence of their stories. As the book unfolds, the leaders become more and more ambiguous figures.They can get the job done, but they lack the moral qualities that one would like to see accompanying their exercise of leadership.

In this respect they mirror the people themselves, and the later chapters in Judges turn it into the most distasteful and disturbing book in the Bible. It becomes a relentless portrayal of human stupidity, failure, and moral and social blindness. Women pay a heavy price in the conflicts and the abuses it reports, though women also exercise remarkable initiatives in different stories in the book.

Its own repeated comment in the closing chapters is that people were doing what was all right in their own eyes, and it adds the further comment that of course there was no king in Israel. The implication is that a king would be able to do something about the situation. The book thus provides some background to the introduction of kings in the next book, 1 Samuel.

If you add up the periods covered by the times of crisis and subsequent quiet in the book, you end up with a history occupying several hundred years, There isn’t actually room for that long a period between Joshua (about 1200 B.C.) and Saul (about 1050 B.C.). A closer look at the stories, however, reveals that they all concern events and deliverances that are more or less local. They don’t involve all the clans. So the periods of years to which the book refers can be overlapping—a time of crisis in one area can be a time of quiet in another. It’s then theologically significant that the book portrays all the crises and deliverances as involving ‘Israel’. When one suffers, all suffer. Trouble for one part of the body is trouble for the body as a whole.

1.1: Real Life is More Complicated

1 After Joshua’s death, the Israelites asked of Yahweh, ‘Who is to go up for us against the Canaanites first, to do battle with them?’ 2 Yahweh said, ‘Judah is to go up. Here, I am giving the country into his hand’. 3 Judah said to Shim’on [Simeon], his brother, ‘Go up with me into my lot so we can do battleagainst the Canaanites, and I’ll go with you into your lot as well’. So Shim’on went with him. 4 Judah went up, and Yahweh gave the Canaanite and the Perizzite into their hand. They struck them down at Bezeq, 10,000 people.

5 They found Adoni Bezeq at Bezeq and battled against him, and struck down the Canaanite and the Perizzite. 6 Adoni Bezeq fled, but they pursued after him. They caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 Adoni-bezeq said, ‘Seventy kings, with thumbs and big toes cut off, used to be gleaning under my table. As I have done, so God has made good to me’. They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

8 The Judahites battled against Jerusalem, captured it, and struck it down with the mouth of the sword, and the town they sent up in fire. 9 Afterward, the Judahites went down to battle against the Canaanites living in the highland, the Negeb, and the foothills.

10 Judah went against the Canaanites who were living in Hebron (Hebron’s name was Arba’s Township before). They struck down Sheshay, Ahiman, and Talmay. 11 From there, it went against the people living in Debir (Debir’s name was Sepher Township before).

12 Caleb said, ‘The man who strikes down Sepher Township and captures it: I’ll give him Aksah my daughter as wife’. 13 Otni’el ben Qenaz, Caleb’s brother who was younger than him, captured it, and he gave him Aksah his daughter as wife. 14 When she came, she incited him to ask for some fields from her father. She got down from her donkey and Caleb said to her, ‘What is it?’ 15 She said to him, ‘Give me a blessing, because you’ve given me a region in the south. Give me water holes’. So Caleb gave her the upper waterholes and the lower waterholes.

1.16 Who Could and Who Couldn’t

16 The descendants of the Qenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up from Palms Town with the Judahites into the Judah Wilderness that’s south of Arad, and he went and lived with the people. 17 Judah went with its brother Shim’on and they struck down the Canaanites living in Tsepat. They ‘devoted’ it [haram] , and named the town Hormah. 18 Judah captured Gaza and its border, Ashqelon and its border, and Eqron and its border. 19 Yahweh was with Judah, and it took possession of the highland, because it couldn’t dispossess the people living in the vale because they had iron chariotry. 20 They gave Hebron to Caleb as Moses spoke, and he dispossessed the three Anaqites from there. 21 But the Yebusites living in Jerusalem the Benjaminites didn’t dispossess. The Yebusites have lived with the Benjaminites in Jerusalem until this day.

22 Joseph’s household, they too, went up to Bet-el; Yahweh was with them. 23 Joseph’s household investigated Bet-el (the town’s name was Luz before) 24 and the men keeping watch saw a man coming out of the town and said to him, ‘Show us the way into the town, will you, and we will act in commitment with you’. 25 He showed them the way into the town and they struck down the town with the mouth of the sword, but the man and his entire kin-group they sent off. 26 The man went to the Hittites’ region and built a town, and named it Luz. That’s its name until this day.

27 Menashsheh didn’t take possession of Bet-she’an and its daughter-towns, Ta’nak and its daughter-towns, the people living in Dor and its daughter-towns, the people living in Yible’am and its daughter-towns, or the people living in Megiddo and its daughter-towns. The Canaanites were resolved to live in this region. 28 When Israel became strong it made the Canaanites into a work force, but it didn’t dispossess them at all.

1.30 Wailing

29 Ephrayim didn’t dispossess the Canaanites who were living in Gezer; the Canaanites lived among them in Gezer. 30 Zebulun didn’t dispossess the people living in Qitron or the people living in Nahalol; the Canaanites lived among them and became a work force. 31 Asher didn’t dispossess the people living in Akko or the people living in Tsidon, Ahlab, Akzib, Helbah, Aphiq, or Rehob. 32 The Asherites lived among the Canaanites living in the region, because they didn’t dispossess them. 33 Naphtali didn’t dispossess the people living in Bet-shemesh or the people living in Beth-anat. They lived among the Canaanites living in the region and the people living in Bet-shemesh and Bet Anat became a work force for them.

34 The Amorites forced the Danites into the highland because they didn’t let them come down into the vale. 35 The Amorites resolved to stay in Mount Heres in Ayyalon and in Sha’albim. But the hand of Joseph’s household became heavy and they became a work force. 36 The Amorites’ border went from Scorpions Ascent, from Sela, on upwards.

2 Yahweh’s envoy went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, ‘I enablem you to go up from Egypt and I brought you to the country that I swore to your ancestors. I said, “I will not contravene my pact with you, ever. 2 You yourselves will not solemnize a pact to the people living in this country. You’re to tear down their altars”. But you didn’t listen to my voice. What is this you’ve done? 3 So I’ve also said, “I won’t drive them out from before you. They’ll be at your sides and their gods will be a snare to you”’. 4 When Yahweh’s envoy spoke these words to all the Israelites, the people lifted up their voice and wailed, 5 and named that place Bokim [Wailers], but they sacrificed there to Yahweh.

2.6: The Power of Forgetting

6 Joshua had sent the company off, and the Israelites had gone each person to his domain to take possession of the country. 7 The people served Yahweh all Joshua’s time and all the time of the elders who lived on after Joshua, who had seen all Yahweh’s great work that he did for Israel.

8 Joshua ben Nun, Yahweh’s servant, died, a man of 110 years, 9 and they buried him within the border that was his domain at Timnat-heres in the highland of Ephrayim, north of Mount Ga’ash. 10 That entire generation also joined its ancestors, and another generation arose after them who didn’t acknowledge Yahweh, or the work he had done for Israel either. 11 The Israelites did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes. They served the Masters 12 and abandoned Yahweh, their ancestors’ God, who had got them out of the country of Egypt. They followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were round them, and bowed low to them, and provoked Yahweh.

13 So they abandoned Yahweh and served the Master and the Ashtars, 14 and Yahweh’s anger raged against Israel and he gave them into the hand of people who plundered them. He surrendered them into the hand of their enemies all round. They could no longer stand before their enemies. 15 Wherever they went out, Yahweh’s hand was against them to make things go badly, as Yahweh had spoken and as Yahweh had sworn to them. It put great pressure on them.

16 Yahweh made people to exercise authority arise and they delivered them from the hand of their plunderers, 17 but they also didn’t listen to the people who exercised authority for them, because they whored after other gods and bowed low to them. They departed quickly from the way that their ancestors had walked by listening to Yahweh’s orders. They didn’t do so.

2.18 When Yahweh Feels Sorry for Them

18 When Yahweh made people to exercise authority arise for them, Yahweh would be with the one exercising authority and he would deliver them from the hand of their enemies all the time of the one exercising authority, because Yahweh felt sorry on account of their groan in the face of the people afflicting and crushing them. 19 But when the one exercising authority died, they would go back to acting more devastatingly than their ancestors in following other gods to serve them and bow low to them. They didn’t drop any of their practices and their tough-minded way.

20 So Yahweh’s anger raged against Israel. He said, ‘Since this nation have contravened the pact with which I ordered their ancestors and haven’t listened to my voice, 21 I for my part will not continue to dispossess anyone from before them, from the nations that Joshua left when he died’, 22 in order to test Israel by them, whether they’re keeping Yahweh’s way by walking in them, as their ancestors kept it, or not. 23 So Yahweh had let these nations settle down without dispossessing them quickly, and had not given them into Joshua’s hand.

3 These are the nations that Yahweh let settle down, to test Israel by them, all who had not known any of the battles in Canaan, 2 only in order for Israel’s generations to know them, by teaching them about battle—only the people who had not known them before: 3 the five Philistine lords and all the Canaanites, the Tsidonites, and the Hivvites living in the highland of the Lebanon from Ba’al Hermon Mountain as far as Lebo Hamat. 4 They were for testing Israel by them, to know whether they would listen to Yahweh’s order which he had given their ancestors through Moses.

Map for Judges goes about here

3.5 Caleb’s Little Brother Again

5 So the Israelites lived among the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivvite, and the Yebusite, 6 and got their daughters for themselves as wives and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods. 7 The Israelites did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes. They put Yahweh their God out of mind and served the Masters and the Asherahs. 8 Yahweh’s anger raged against Israel and he surrendered them into the hand of Kushan Rish’atayim, the king of Aram-of-the-Two-Rivers. The Israelites served Kushan Rish’atayim for eight years.

9 The Israelites cried out to Yahweh and Yahweh made a deliverer arise for the Israelites and he delivered them: Otni’el ben Qenaz, Caleb’s brother who was younger than him. 10 Yahweh’s spirit came on him and he exercised authority for Israel. He went out to battle and Yahweh gave Kushan Rish’atayim, the king of Aram, into his hand. His hand was powerful over Kushan Rish’atayim, 11 and the region was calm for forty years.

Otni’el ben Qenaz died, 12 and the Israelites again did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes. Yahweh made Eglon king of Mo’ab strong over Israel because they did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes, 13 and he got the Ammonites and Amaleq to join him. He went and struck Israel down, and took possession of Palms Town. 14 The Israelites served Eglon king of Mo’ab for eighteen years.

3.15 Another Unlikely Saviour

15 The Israelites cried out to Yahweh and Yahweh made a deliverer arise for them, Ehud ben Gera, a Benjaminite, a man restricted in his right hand. The Israelites sent an offering by his hand to Eglon king of Mo’ab. 16 Ehud made himself a sword with two edges, half a metre in length. He wrapped it on under his uniform on his right side, 17 and presented the offering to Eglon king of Mo’ab. Now Eglon was a very stout man.

18 When he had finished presenting the offering, he sent off the company who had been carrying the gift 19 but he himself went back from the sculptures that are near Gilgal and said, ‘I have a secret message for you, your majesty’. He said, ‘Silence’, and all the people who stood by him went out from his presence. 20 When Ehud came to him, he was sitting in the cool upper quarters that he had, alone. Ehud said, ‘I have a word from God for you’. He got up from his seat, 21 and Ehud put out his left hand, took the sword from on his right side, and plunged it into his insides. 22 Even the handle went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, because he didn’t pull the sword out of his insides. The dirt came out.

23 Ehud went out through the porch, shut the doors of the upper quarters on him, and locked them 24 as he went out.

His servants came and looked: there, the doors of the upper quarters were locked. They said, ‘Yes, he’s relieving himself in the cool lounge’, 25 and waited until they were shamed. But there—he wasn’t opening the doors of the upper quarters. So they got the key and opened them, and there—their lord was fallen on the ground, dead.

26 Ehud had escaped while they delayed, and had passed the sculptures. He escaped to Se’irah 27 and when he came, blew on the horn in the highland of Ephrayim. The Israelites went down with him from the highland; he was before them. 28 He said to them ‘Pursue after me, because Yahweh has given your enemies, Mo’ab, into your hand’. They went down after him and captured Mo’ab’s Jordan [Yarden] crossings, and didn’t let anyone cross. 29 They struck down Mo’ab at that time, some 10,000 men, every individual hefty and everyone a forceful man. Not one escaped. 30 So Mo’ab bowed down that day under Israel’s hand, and the region was calm for eighty years.

3.31 Shamgar, Deborah, Lapiddot, and Baraq

31 After him there was Shamgar ben Anat. He struck down 600 Philistines with an ox goad. He, too, was one who delivered Israel.

4 The Israelites again did what was bad in Yahweh’s eyes when Ehud had died, 2 and Yahweh surrendered them into the hand of Yabin king of Canaan who reigned in Hatsor. His army officer was Sisera; he was living in Haroshet Haggoyim. 3 The Israelites cried out to Yahweh because he had 900 iron chariots, and he had afflicted Israel through his strength for twenty years.

4 Now Deborah, a woman who was a prophetess, the wife of Lapiddot, was exercising authority for Israel at that time. 5 She would sit under Deborah’s Palm between The Height and Bet-el in the highland of Ephrayim, and the Israelites would go up to her for a decision.

6 She sent and called for Lightning ben Abino’am, from Qedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, ‘Yahweh the God of Israel has ordered you, has he not: “Go, march to Mount Tabor, and take with you 10,000 men from the Naphtalites and from the Zebulunites. 7 I shall march Sisera, Yabin’s army officer, to you, to Wadi Qishon, with his chariotry and his horde, and I shall give them into your hand”’.

8 Baraq said to her, ‘If you go with me, I’ll go, but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go’. 9 She said, ‘I’ll definitely go with you, only it won’t be your glory on the journey that you’re going on, because it’s into the hand of a woman that Yahweh will surrender Sisera’. So Deborah set off and went with Baraq to Qedesh, 10 and Baraq called out Zebulun and Naphtali to Qedesh. 10,000 men went up after him, and Deborah went up with him. 11 Now Heber the Qenite had split from Qayin, from the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law, and spread his tent by the oak at Tsa’anannim, which was near Qedesh.

12 They told Sisera that Baraq ben Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13 and Sisera called out all his chariotry (900 iron chariots) and all the company that was with him from Haroshet-goyim to Wadi Qishon.

4.14 Ya’el

14 Deborah said to Baraq, ‘Set off, because this is the day that Yahweh has given Sisera into your hand. Yahweh gone out before you, hasn’t he’. So Baraq went down from Mount Tabor, with 10,000 men behind him, 15 and Yahweh threw Sisera, all his chariotry, and all the camp into confusion at the mouth of the sword before Baraq.

Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot, 16 while Lighting pursued after the chariotry and after the camp as far as Haroshet Haggoyim. Sisera’s entire camp fell to the mouth of the sword. Not even one was left.

17 Now Sisera had fled on foot to the tent of Ya’el, the wife of Heber the Qenite, because there was peace between Yabin king of Hatsor and the household of Heber the Qenite. 18 Ya’el came out to meet Sisera and said to him, ‘Turn aside, sir, turn aside to me. Don’t be afraid’. So he turned aside to her into the tent and she covered him with a rug. 19 He said to her, ‘Please give me a little water to drink, because I’m thirsty’. She opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink, and covered him. 20 He said to her, ‘Stand at the tent entrance. If someone comes and asks you, “Is there anyone here?” you’re to say, “There’s no one”.

21 But Ya’el, Heber’s wife, got a tent peg and picked up a hammer in her hand. She came to him stealthily and drove the peg through his temple so it went down into the ground; he was in a deep sleep, he was weary. So he died.

22 And there was Baraq, pursuing Sisera. Ya’el went out to meet him. She said to him, ‘Come, I’ll let you see the man that you’re looking for’. He came in to her, and there was Sisera, fallen dead, the peg in his temple.

23 That day God made Yabin king of Hatsor bow down before the Israelites. 24 The Israelites’ hand kept getting tougher on Yabin king of Canaan until they had cut down Yabin king of Canaan.

5.1 Yahweh’s Faithful Acts

5 Deborah (and Baraq ben Abino’am) sang that day:

2 At people exercising authority who were letting themselves go in Israel,

at a company offering itself freely: bless Yahweh!

3 Listen, kings,

give ear, sovereigns!

I myself, I shall sing for Yahweh,

I shall make music for Yahweh the God of Israel.

4 Yahweh, when you came out from Se’ir,

when you marched from Edomite country,

Earth trembled,

yes, heavens poured,

Yes, clouds poured water,

5 when mountains quaked,

Before Yahweh the one of Sinay,

before Yahweh the God of Israel.

6 In the time of Shamgar ben Anat,

in the time of Ya’el,

Journeys left off,

people going on paths went by roundabout ways.

7 Peasantry left off,

left off in Israel,

Until I, Deborah, arose,

arose as mother in Israel.

8 It chose new gods,

then there was battling in the gateways.

Shield and spear did not appear

among forty thousand in Israel.

9 My heart was with Israel’s commanders,

who offered themselves freely in the company.

Bless Yahweh,

10 riders on tawny donkeys!

You who sit on saddle blankets,

you who go on a journey, talk.

11 Above the voice of dealers among watering holes,

there they are to commemorate Yahweh’s faithful acts,

Faithful acts for his peasantry in Israel;

then Yahweh’s company went down to the gateways.