Week 13 Judges 1-13
I always just figured that the judges in Judges appeared consecutively in the order they’re described in the book. But then I heard somewhere that maybe they’re not all just listed one-after-the-other. Maybe they showed up in different places at different times…not in order.
I’m not sure I buy that idea so I tried testing it by scanning through for hints in the text to see if the record is sequential:
Othniel appeared first in chapter 3 (so I’m guessing he’s the first judge). From there it goes like this:
Israel again did evil (then Ehud appeared)
after Ehud, Shamgar…
after Ehud’s death… (Deborah appeared)
again Israel did what was evil... (then Gideon appeared)
one day Gideon’s son Abimelech…
after Abimelech’s death, Tola…
after Tola died…Jair…
again the Israelites did evil… (then Jephthah appeared)
after Jephthah, Ibzan…
after Ibzan, Elon…
after Elon died, Abdon…
again the Israelites did what was evil… (then Samson appeared).
The word ‘after’ is used seven times. After sounds pretty sequential to me. First one person and then after that another.
It’s a bit harder with the word ‘again’. Even though there’s the idea of repetition I can’t say for sure it means after or later or subsequently or next-in-order. But even so it easily could mean later-in-time.
So for now I’m going to stick with my original idea that the judges are written-up in order by date.
Note: quotes from 3:12 3:31 4:1 6:1 9:1 10:1 10:3 10:6 12:8 12:11 12:13 13:1 (NLT)