Overview of the Book of Judges

The Book of Judges in Israel’s History

The overview of the week for this Sunday is the seventh book of the Old Testament, the book of Judges. We believe that Judges was written sometime in the 11th century BC, perhaps by Samuel, but we're not exactly sure of the author.

The time period was sort of like the Wild West in Israel's history. Judges has been described as the tragic sequel to the book of Joshua, where a cycle of disobedience, defeat, and then eventually deliverance would repeat itself.

The Repeating Cycle of Sin, Oppression, and Deliverance

So here's the whole story of Judges. This is what would happen. There would be peace, and you know when God's people have it too good, you know, they tend to be a little complacent. So there would be peace in Israel.

Israel would then do evil in the eyes of the Lord. The people would be given into the hand of their enemies. They'd cry out to God, and then the Lord would raise up a leader, or a judge, who is basically a regional governor slash military leader.

The Spirit of the Lord would come upon that man. There was one female judge to conquer the enemies. The enemies of Israel would be defeated. Peace would be restored, and then they would become complacent and go back into sin, and it would just keep happening again and again and again.

The Length of the Judges Period

So that was, that's kind of Judges in a nutshell. According to the Apostle Paul in Acts 13 verse 20, the time period of the Judges spanned a period of about 450 years, from the death of Joshua up until the time of Samuel the Prophet, who was the last judge.

That was before the monarchy was established under King Saul. The book ends in chapter 21 verse 25 with this sad commentary. In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.