A. What is a Judge?The traditional name of the book is a bit misleading. The name Judges was taken from references to the main figures about whom tales are told. None of the figures is actually called a judge. The name was applied because the text says so-and-so "judged" Israel a certain number of years.There are twelve judges in the book, but they are not judicial figures such as the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who sit in a courtroom behind a mahogany bench. While some of these ancient figures might have occasionally arbitrated disputes (Deborah, in particular), they possessed peculiar qualities of leadership for which they were called judges. The exact reason judges applies remains somewhat unclear, yet they may have gotten the title because they applied God's judgment to Israel's enemies. As in other passages of the Hebrew Bible, judging means standing up for the oppressed and delivering the afflicted, rather than judicially applying a notion of equity. The judges might better be called saviors or defenders, in keeping with their historical function. If the traditional date of the exodus is accepted (mid-thirteenth century B.C.E.), the tales of the judges would be set in the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C.E. From the evidence we have at our disposal, this was, to say the least, an unsettled time in Canaan. The period began with the great international powers in stalemate and then in decline. Both the Egyptians and the Hittites wished to control Canaan because of the importance of its trade routes but were unable to do so. Canaan was not dominated by either of these powers at this time, and this created a virtual free-for-all among the lesser peoples. The most significant challenge to Israel came from a group called the Sea Peoples. They had moved into the coastal plain of Canaan as part of a larger migration of people fleeing the Aegean. One of the groups of the Sea Peoples is called the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible.
They sought to dominate lands eastward from the Mediterranean coast toward the Jordan River. The Israelites, assuming some form of incursion model of conquest, arrived from the east and pushed west. Meanwhile, the indigenous Canaanite population was not willing to stand for a wholesale takeover of its territory and found it had to defend itself. The book of Judges reflects the instability in the land at this time and paints a picture of various groups vying for supremacy.
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