3. Judges as a Whole

Figure 7.5 The Judges of Israel in their Locations

    The chronology of the book suggests that the Deuteronomistic Historian artificially chained the judge stories together to create the feeling of a continuous history such that each generation after the next fell away from Yahweh. If all the time indications are added together, the book spans exactly four hundred years. This is too exact to be an accident, and much too long to fit the archaeological and historical record. A reasonable estimate for the time span of the period of the judges is one hundred fifty years. Evidently, many of the judges actually lived and ruled contemporaneously. Further suggesting a certain artificiality, many of the judges judged for twenty, forty, or eighty years--or in biblical parlance, one-half, one, or two generations respectively. Table 7.1 draws together the geographical and chronological data on the individual judges for easy reference.

    The Deuteronomistic Historian took up the judges' stories, gave them a theological introduction, and reshaped most of the individual stories to fit the cycle of disobedience outlined in the theological introduction. They were combined in such a way that the Israelites are pictured as continually forgetting Yahweh and falling into trouble. Thus, originally local stories were "universalized" into all-Israel tales and combined in linear fashion in order to say something in general about the entire nation and its faith tendencies.
    Thus exposing the nation's corporate lack of faithfulness, the Deuteronomistic Historian justified the need for a faithful king who would lead the people back to their God. The book of Samuel picks up the story at this point, recounting the rise of kingship. Note that the book of Ruth follows the book of Judges in many English versions, but you will not find a discussion of Ruth in the next chapter of our book. Ruth is not counted among the Former Prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, it is one of the Five Scrolls (see Chapter 16).