Judges

The very first judge, and the model for every one that follows: Israel forgets the LORD, is sold into servitude, cries out, and is rescued. A kinsman of Caleb from Judah, Othniel breaks eight years under Cushan-Rishathaim of Mesopotamia and the land rests forty years.

A left-handed Benjaminite, an irony, since Benjamin means 'son of the right hand.' Ehud forges a short double-edged sword, straps it to his right thigh where no guard would check, and delivers a private message to the fat Moabite king Eglon: a blade to the belly. Israel's longest recorded rest, eighty years, follows.

One verse, one deed. Shamgar son of Anath kills six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad, a farmer's cattle-prod, and 'he too saved Israel.' No years, no tribe, no burial: a reminder that deliverance can come from anyone holding whatever is at hand.

The only judge who is also a prophetess, holding court under her palm in the hills of Ephraim. She calls Barak to face Jabin's commander Sisera and his nine hundred iron chariots; when Barak balks, she foretells the glory will fall to a woman, and it does, as Jael drives a tent peg through Sisera's skull. Her victory song in chapter 5 is among the oldest poetry in Scripture.

Threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from Midian's raiders, Gideon is the reluctant judge, twice testing God with a fleece and the morning dew before he'll move. God then whittles his army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred so the victory can't be claimed by human strength; they smash jars, blow trumpets, and Midian turns its swords on itself. Also called Jerubbaal.

Not a deliverer but a usurper, Gideon's son by a Shechemite concubine. Abimelech murders his seventy brothers on a single stone to crown himself king; only the youngest, Jotham, escapes to curse him with the parable of the trees. Three years on, God turns Shechem against him. He razes the city, and at Thebez a woman drops a millstone on his head, so he has his armor-bearer run him through, that none say a woman killed him.

After Abimelech's carnage, a man of Issachar named Tola son of Puah 'arose to save Israel.' Scripture records no war and no enemy, only that he judged twenty-three years from Shamir in the hills of Ephraim, and was buried there. Sometimes the work is simply to hold things steady.

Jair the Gileadite judged Israel twenty-two years. What Scripture remembers of him is his household: thirty sons who rode thirty donkeys and ruled thirty towns in Gilead, called Havvoth-jair. A judge measured not in battles but in a wide and settled clan.

A Gileadite outcast, son of a prostitute, driven off by his half-brothers and later begged back to lead. Jephthah vows that if God grants victory over Ammon he'll offer whatever first comes out of his house to meet him, and it is his only daughter. He wins the war and keeps the vow. Afterward he crushes Ephraim at the Jordan using a password its fugitives couldn't pronounce: 'Shibboleth.'

Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel seven years. His mark was dynastic marriage: thirty sons and thirty daughters, the daughters sent to husbands abroad and thirty brides brought home for the sons, sixty alliances knitting the tribes together.

Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel ten years and was buried in Aijalon in Zebulun. That is all Scripture says of him, a name, a tribe, a span of years. Even the near-silent are counted in the tally.

Abdon son of Hillel, from Pirathon in Ephraim, judged Israel eight years. Like the minor judges before him, his legacy is counted in offspring, forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode seventy donkeys, a sign of wealth and quiet just before the storm of Samson.

Set apart as a Nazarite from the womb, with no razor and no wine, Samson is raw strength and reckless appetite. He kills a lion bare-handed, slays a thousand men with a donkey's jawbone, and is finally undone when Delilah coaxes out the secret of his hair. Blinded and chained, he asks God for strength once more and brings the temple of Dagon down on himself and more Philistines than he'd killed in all his life.

Jacob's favored son, sold into slavery by his brothers, imprisoned on a false accusation, and raised to second in Egypt because he could read dreams. When his brothers finally stood before him he said the line the whole story turns on: you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.

Moses' assistant and one of the two spies who came back from Canaan saying it could be taken. He led the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest, and at the end of his life made the whole nation choose openly whom they would serve.

The general with nine hundred iron chariots who oppressed Israel for twenty years and lost to a militia in a rainstorm that bogged his chariots down. He fled on foot to what he thought was a friendly tent and was killed in his sleep by Jael with a tent peg.

The very fat Moabite king who held Israel for eighteen years and was killed in his own locked upper room by a left-handed Benjaminite with a homemade dagger. The narrative lingers on the grisly details and on the servants waiting outside, embarrassed to knock.

She offered the fleeing Canaanite commander milk and a blanket, waited until he slept, and drove a tent peg through his temple. Deborah's song calls her most blessed of women, and the episode fulfills the warning that the glory of the day would go to a woman.

Eleazar's son, who ended a plague at Peor by driving a spear through an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, and was granted a covenant of lasting priesthood. A second Phinehas, son of Eli, was a corrupt priest who died carrying the ark into battle.

The man Deborah summoned to lead ten thousand against Sisera's chariots, and who answered that he would go only if she went with him. She agreed, and told him the honor of the day would go to a woman instead.

A Danite of Zorah and his wife, who is never named, and to whom the angel of the LORD appeared twice to announce a son who would be a Nazirite from the womb. She is the one the angel comes to both times; Manoah asks to have the visit repeated so he can hear it himself.

The four Midianite leaders Gideon's campaign brought down. Oreb and Zeeb, whose names mean raven and wolf, were killed at the rock and the winepress that afterward carried their names. Zebah and Zalmunna were pursued far east and taken.

A man of the hill country of Ephraim who stole eleven hundred pieces of silver from his mother, gave them back when she pronounced a curse, and watched her dedicate the silver to make an image. He set it up in his house, made an ephod and household gods, and installed one of his sons as priest.

Manasseh's son and the clan descended from him, who took Gilead east of the Jordan. In the Song of Deborah, Machir stands in for the whole tribe. A separate Machir of Lo-debar sheltered Mephibosheth and later supplied David during Absalom's revolt.