Week 13 Judges
Of the Twelve Judges in the book of Judges six were in the Minor Category: Shamgar Tola Jair Ibzan Elon & Abdon.
So the others are the Six Majors: Othniel Ehud Deborah-Barak Gideon Jephthah & Samson.
One reason the Minors were minor was because their stories only averaged ~38-words. It’s like they were just entries in an Encyclopedia of Biography (Okay. I admit that length is not definitive – the Othniel story is very short too.)
Another reason Minors were minor was because their foreign opponents were not even named (but I admit that not having a Named Opponent isn’t definitive – I know Shamgar fought the Philistine group).
But one of the key – and definitive – differences is that each of the Six Majors has some kind of (stated) help from the Lord:
Othniel: the Lord raised up a man to rescue Israel…Othniel
Ehud: the Lord raised up a man to rescue Israel…Ehud
Deborah-Barak: Deborah the prophet gave Barak a message: this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, commands you…
Gideon: the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said, “Mighty warrior, the Lord is with you!”
Jephthah: at that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah
Samson: the Lord blessed Samson as he grew… The Spirit of the Lord began to take hold of him.
I was thinking that a good Exercise Idea would be to rank the Six Majors (like I did with the 15 kings-of-Judah last year).
Note: quotes from Judges 3:9 3:15 4:6 5:12 11:29 13:24-25 (NLT)