The Deliverers of Israel

“lion of God” · tribe of Judah

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.

“united” · tribe of Benjamin

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.

⚑ No regnal years are given; his placement in the cycle is inferred from order alone.

“bee” · tribe of Ephraim

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.

“hewer / one who cuts down” · tribe of Manasseh

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.

“my father is king” · tribe of Manasseh (Shechem)

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.

⚑ Counted among the book's leaders though he delivered no one, a self-made king, not a judge.

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.

“he opens / God sets free” · tribe of Manasseh (Gilead)

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.

“of the sun” · tribe of Dan

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.