Explore the Book of Judges with Dr. Dennis Olson, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of the Judges entry in the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary. This episode examines how Judges reveals God's faithfulness through Israel's repeating cycle of sin, oppression, deliverance, and decline. From powerful leaders like Deborah and Gideon to morally ambiguous figures like Samson and Jephthah, the judges show us flawed people through whom God works in messy situations. Dennis helps us trace the book's decline through the treatment of women—from Deborah's leadership to the tragedy of Jephthah's daughter—and understand why this challenging book matters for faith today.

Despite the violence and moral complexity in Judges, this conversation offers hope: God remains faithful even when humans fail. As Dennis reminds us, "Humans are not reliable, but God is." Whether you're studying Judges for the first time or seeking deeper theological understanding, this episode provides accessible biblical scholarship on how God works through human messiness and prepares to do something new. Discover why the decline in Judges ultimately points us toward trusting not in human political structures, but in God's enduring faithfulness.

Welcome to the Bible in a Year podcast, a resource from Enter the Bible. Journey with us through the books of the Bible, discovering more about scripture and how it shapes our lives today. I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker And today we are joined by Dr. Dennis Olson, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. And for purposes of our episode today,

Katie Langston.

Dennis is also the author of the entry on the book of Judges in the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary. So if you're intrigued by this podcast, you might check out that entry in the New Interpreter's Bible. Thank you so much for being with us, Dennis.

Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

So, our Bible in a Year book for today is the book of Judges. And I'm going to say right off the bat that it's probably not in the top five books of the Bible for most people, but we're going to learn a lot more about it. Because frankly, there's some difficult stories there, especially towards the end of the book, but I'm sure we'll get into that.

we're gonna plow through

But let's begin this way. Dennis, if you would just give us a quick summary of this book.

Yes. So the book of Judges comes after the book of Joshua, which is about the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites as they've come out of Egypt, gone through the wilderness, come to the promised land of Canaan. And the book of Joshua indicates that they have conquered ⁓ some of the Canaanites and spaces, but their Canaanites remain as well as the surrounding nations as well.

And so Judges, the Book of Judges is about sort of the ongoing attacks by various different nations and peoples against Israel and the rise of a cadre of temporary rulers that are called judges. It's not really, don't think people with black robes sitting with a gavel, but think more of...

sort of warriors who very temporarily rule over Israel and especially in times of emergency when they're attacked by other nations as well. So that's what the book about in terms of thinking about an outline of it. It begins in the first chapter and reminds us that Israel has not conquered all of the Canaanites.

back in the book of Deuteronomy, that was the initial command given to the Israelites that they should conquer all of Israel and sort of troubling notion that everything that breathes should be exterminated in the land of Canaan. Joshua makes clear that did not happen, wasn't able to happen. And so interestingly, in Judges beginning chapter one, it says that God resolved that this notion of

holy war against the Canaanites was impossible and that the Canaanites would remain and Israelites would live among them as a kind of ongoing test. And so that sets up the conflicts that arise throughout the book of Judges between Israel and other nations along the way. And there is a certain pattern that is set up as a kind of preface to various...

parts of the book that begins with the Israelites worshiping other gods, not being faithful. And God, the phrase is allowing or selling them, the Israelites into the hands of their enemies. So God allows them to be attacked as punishment for their unfaithfulness. They cry out to God and God then responds by sending, raising up a judge, one of these rulers and warrior leaders.

to fight against them and they have some time of peace, but then the cycle continues and recurs along the way. And that's kind of the pattern that's set from the beginning until chapter 16. And then at the end of the book of Judges, things begin to unravel and not even judges appear, but now the sort of religious life of Israel descends and becomes corrupt.

And also the sort of social life among the different Israelite tribes also begins to deteriorate. And there's this horrendous story about the rape and murder of the Levites concubine and its aftermath, which suggests the sort of low point for the whole book. So the book is about a kind of decline and this pattern, but more and more Israel unravels along the way.

That's helpful and they don't seem to learn from the pattern.

They just keep, the downward spiral keeps spiraling.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah. Yeah.

And some of these stories are kind of Sunday school stories, which is perhaps a little odd when you know the larger context, but some of the names of the judges would be familiar, right? So Samson, probably, Deborah, a female judge.

Yes. Gideon. Gideon. Yes. Right.

So just for those listeners who remember vaguely some of those Sunday School stories, that might be helpful. Thank you. Thank you for that summary, Dennis.

Yes. They're all kind of, well, most of them are all kind of morally ambiguous, right? Is that fair to say?

Yes, and sometimes come out of the blue, sort of from the margins, but somehow are also used by God to rescue them. ⁓ And I think, yeah, it's, and they become more more morally ambiguous and not so ambiguous by the end.

bad, right? From ambiguity to less ambiguous, but it's not bad. I think there's sort of a temptation sometimes with the Bible to try to glean a clean and clear moral right out of our reading. And I don't know that that's possible. But if you could sum up a message or a thesis from this book in a few sentences, what might it be?

Yes, exactly.

Yes. I think it is a story about God's faithfulness in staying with a messed up people and structured of way of doing things and people who continually worship other gods instead of the God who has rescued them from slavery in Egypt and faithfully brought them to this land and given it to them. And so there's a constant forgetting and reverting back to the old pattern

and yet God stays with them. It's also the case that God has to adjust God's ways in light of the mess that humans can make and try to make something good out of it. But by the end of the book, I mean, in a sense, it has come to a point that God has to try a whole new thing, which is the rise of kingship along the way.

Right? Because initially God himself was supposed to be king, right? That was sort of the idea of why they had judges was because God would be king and they would – am I remembering that right?

Yeah, that's correct. so Gideon in particular ⁓ says after he delivered the people as one of the judges, the people after his victory wanted to make him a king with a dynasty. And so his sons would continue as kings and so forth. And Gideon says, no, no, I will not be your king. God, the Lord is your king. Right.

But what's interesting is that Gideon, at the same time, takes some of the nice jewelry and accoutrements of the kings that he defeats, and he enjoys them. ⁓

I'll just act like a king and-

I don't want the responsibility of being their king, but I like the good things that the kings have. And the Angidian fashions, it's called an ephod, and the Israelites began to worship that as an idol. And so he starts to them down the wrong path. And it's interesting that his son, who is the next

Interesting.

person who shows up, his name is Avi Melek, which is my father is king in Hebrew. that's interesting. What you call your son.

Right?

don't wanna be a king but my son's name is my father's

So, yeah. there's a case in which I think Gideon, and Gideon's a kind of turning point, I think in the quality of the judges, he's beginning to show a kind of selfishness by refusal to take the responsibility that goes with being king, a good king, if he could be that.

Yeah. He wants the easy stuff, not the... He wants the luxuries, but not the responsibilities. Well, I may have to eat my words a little bit about not being the top five biblical books. Because I think when you talk about it the way you just did, Dennis, as a book about God's faithfulness in response to the messed up society and the messed up...

Exactly.

human nature that we see from the Israelites then. And it's a significant story. So what is ⁓ a way into this book? Like, how would you suggest people get into

Yes, yes.

It

is hard to read. read it recently. It's hard to read.

Yeah,

I think one way into the book is to recognize that there are three cycles of judges, just to sort of give some structure to how this moves. the first cycle of judges begins in chapter two through five. And those are all fairly positive judges. One could say it's in the time of the Canaanites, because the Canaanites are sort of the primary

enemies. There are other nations that are mentioned who also attack along the way, but they're the main ones. And there you have Ehud, Othniel, and Deborah, and Barak are all judges who are successful at doing what they are called to do, which is to defeat the enemies and do it in a way that

And so, for example, Deborah is a judge. She's a real judge, a legal judge. She arbitrates under and sits under the palm tree and helps mediate disputes among the people of Israel. And she's also a prophet, she is called. She's also called mother of Israel. So she has authority over all of Israel. And she's a singer of songs and a poet along with Barak that they sing. So she's a multi-talented woman and Barak

says he will not when Deborah, as the kind of prophet says, you need to go as Barack, you're the general military leader, you go and Barack says, I'm not going unless you go with me, Deborah, I need to have you on my side. there's a sense of a community and cooperation of their leadership that's working together that's somewhat unique to the other judges along the way.

It's pretty significant that there's a female judge.

Yes, absolutely. Yes. Exactly. And in the history of interpretation, people who had opposed women in leadership have a difficult time trying to explain away Deborah. And they do all kinds of gyrations to try to do that. But the plain sense of it, she has great authority in a public role of leadership. It's religious, political, and

Patriarchal Society.

even military. it's interesting in twelfth century during the Crusades, there's the Morgan Picture Bible, which has a picture of Deborah leading the troops on the Crusades. yeah, she's at the center of the leadership of that. now it's Crusades, military.

Well.

But she's kind of a badass. Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah. So all of those are positive in that way. So that's the first cycle. And then the second cycle is where enemies are the Midianites primarily. And this is where you get Gideon, first of all, and then his son Abimelek. And so as we just said, the Gideon was sort of begins to suggest a more negative kind of thing. And his son Abimelek is even worse because he

kills all of his brothers and makes himself the ruler and clearly very selfish and individualist. So that ends that cycle. And then the third cycle is with the time of the Ammonites and the Philistines. And there you have Jepsa and Samson as the two who are, I think, the least ⁓ positive judges that are there. So a way into that is to sort of see those three cycles.

And then the final part of the book is there are no judges left and things are going very badly, both religiously to religious leadership. They're just selling themselves to be priests or whatever. And then you have this civil war that erupts in Israel because of the rape and murder of the Levites concubine. those three cycles of the judges and then the final section of the 17 through 21 chapters.

are the collapse of Israel as a society that's functioning in any kind of healthy way. ⁓

Thank you. Okay, so now it's time for our favorite part of the Bible Any Year podcast. We're playing Bible Bingo. And so the way that this game works is that you shared with us before we started five kind of concepts, words, people, places, context, you know, that might be on your bingo card as you read through this book of the Bible. So we're going to go through those in kind of rapid fire format.

Ha ha ha!

Okay.

So the first one you have is judge. Tell us about judge.

Yes. our mind immediately goes to a judge in robes and behind a bench. are rulers, but also ⁓ warriors. So think more like warlords if you want, than a judge. ⁓

of violence seems like a good follow up to what you said.

mean, the book of judges, I think one of the reasons it puts us off is it is full of violence. But I would also say it tells the reality of human existence across centuries and millennia, the ways in which violence happens and its reality. And I don't think we should walk away from that in that kind of way. At my own home congregation one Lenten season,

we did sort of midweek Lenten services and read through the whole book of Judges over the course of those six weeks. And we all wondered how was this going to go. But, you know, there people preaching on it. And it was an intense experience of being exposed to the Bible's knowledge of how broken the world is in many places and the resonances.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

in any time and place of wars and violence that's going on, the ways in which revenge and all kinds of attempts to rule against others and attack and counterattack. And that is one part of the human experience that the Bible is not afraid to look at squarely and make us wrestle with that. That is part of our reality.

Yeah, the Bible does not look at the world through rose-colored glasses. It's in this sense descriptive rather than prescriptive. Right. That it's describing reality, the reality of human sin and violence. Yes. Not saying this is what should be. Right. Fair. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. And I think it, I mean, how complicated humans are and human communities are. I mean, like a figure like Gideon. So he was called, comes to God and begins by speaking lament. God, why are you allowing the enemies to fight against us? And God in effect says, well, then don't do something about it. And so, and then Gideon says, I'm nobody. I'm from the

weakest clan and weakest tribe of all Israel, who am I to do this? And God says, that's not the question. The question is whether I will be with you or not. so Gideon said, okay, I'll go ahead. But in the course of gaining power, he becomes corrupted. So the notion of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. That's part of what the book of Judges is about.

Yeah.

Mm. Mm.

The next one you have is Cry of Pain.

Yeah, so a lot of times when people think about the book of Judges, they think the pattern is, so the Israelites, they worship other gods, God sends enemies against them, and then the Israelites repent of their sin, and then God responds. But that's not what actually is there. What is there is that the Israelites cry out in pain because they're oppressed. And it's that to which God responds.

not their repentance, which is a really important ⁓ theme throughout the Old Testament is the power of the cry of those who suffer to get God's attention and leverage God to act in that way. So, mean, classically in Exodus chapter three, God hears the cries of the Israelites in slavery and in their oppression and God sees their pain and

knows their sufferings and that that has particular power. But it also has power even with non-Israelites. The cry of Hagar and her child gets God's attention. There's a law that says don't oppress the alien and cause them to suffer or they will cry out to God and God will bring punishment on you. So it is the human cry of humans of all kinds.

that gets God's attention and is God's concern. And there is one place in chapter 10 in Judges where the Israelites do, it says, repent of worshipping other gods. But the text says, eventually God responds by lifting up a judge because he couldn't stand to hear their cry of pain anymore. wasn't the repentance that moved God there. So that's a powerful theme.

God's hearing the cry of those who suffer.

That's beautiful.

That

is beautiful. Thank you. Next is individualism.

Yes. So as I said earlier on, one had the tribes of Israel being quite willing to gather together and to fight against enemies. Deborah and Barak joined together as leaders. But even there, there's some tribes that don't join even them. So there's a little inkling even there of some potential issues with unifying all of the Israelites and joining them all together in the same cause.

under the same mission and purpose. But as you move then towards the second cycle with Gideon there, he gets angry at some other tribes that don't join him. then there's almost come to blows and then they work it out. Avi Melek, next his son, kills members of his own family. And then you get with Jephthah also issues of him actually attacking.

some other fellow Israelite tribes for not helping him out. And then with Samson, you get simply a loner. He's totally alone. He's just a crazy, wild, strong man, playboy, know, doing things at whim and so forth, but not leading anybody, but just doing things himself. And then you have this refrain at the end of the book, which sort of puts a assessment of what is...

Paul come to and there was no king in the land, there was no central ruler, and everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes. So that's the point at which the end of the book comes to chaos that results from that.

And then finally, the last one you have there is disintegration.

Yes. Yes. So it's to see the way in which the book of judges, as I said, moves from a more positive way in which judges work together and are successful to the beginning fracturing of that with Gideon and then Jephthah, Samson, and then the final. And it's the religious and the political social that are joined together. So it's the disintegration of the texture and

cohesiveness of Israel as a people, as an identity, as one people under God, all the tribes joined together, but also the sense of worshipping other gods, being attracted and tempted by what idols and in some cases, making idols, the Israelites themselves to worship all against God's will along the way. it's challenging because in many books of the Bible,

there is always a sense of moving through challenges and difficulty, whether it's the prophets who make judgments about what's going on. in the end, often prophetic books end with promise and hope. And that same thing, the book of Genesis ends with Joseph and family all together. The book of Exodus ends with the wilderness tabernacle and...

Yes, right.

receiving the law and other narratives as well. And books in general, mean, we're sort of narrative, our minds are wired for narratives and we like happy endings, right? We like our movies to end with a... Yeah, don't like a sad ending. No, no. But the book of judges really does end in kind of a total collapse and something new has to come along. ⁓

Hmph. Wow. Well, it's a- it's- it's not a happy story. Yeah.

think it's not the last book of the Bible.

You're wild, that's right.

All right. Thank you for playing Bible Bingo, Dennis.

Yeah, that was fun. All right. ⁓

You

did. You did. You won. won. are. Okay. That's That's it. What is weird or interesting about the book of judges?

on the way out.

Yeah. What's interesting to me is the fact that the book of Judges contains probably more women characters than any other book of the Bible. If you were to count up all of them, not all of them have names, particularly in the last chapters. So there are a number of women characters. what we talked about disintegration, what's interesting to trace is that what happens to the women characters from the beginning of the book to the end of the book,

functions as a kind of barometer of the social and religious health of Israel. So what's happening to women tells us what's happening to Israel as a community. I mean, it starts even in chapter one, there's a woman character, Aksa, who is married and she asks for a wedding gift.

from her father and her father said, okay, well, I'll give you the Negev, which is south and southern part, very, very ⁓ sort of dry land and not much happening in the Negev in terms of crops or anything that are there. But then she says, okay, but also give me some land that has water on it. And so he gives her that. she negotiates that and sets it up for herself and her husband.

in a positive kind of way. So, Judge's one right away, you have a woman who's taking care of herself and has some agency that's there. And then of course, Deborah is really strong in that first cycle of judges as well as a character one who. I mean, and Deborah says to Barak, the military general, when he insists that Deborah come and go along with him into battle, she says, I will, but...

you should know that you will not receive the glory of this victory, but it will go to a woman. As a reader of the story, you think, okay, Deborah is going to get the glory of this. But then it ends up being another woman, Yah'ael, who is not an Israelite. But when the Israelites, Barah, Deborah, they're victorious over the Canaanites, the Canaanite general named Sisra sort of abandons his

troops and runs away and finds the tent of Ya'ael, who is a non-Israelite and hides out there. And Ya'ael is among the people who are, can I say, sort of borderline people between Israel and Canaanites. And she gives him some nourishment and he's been fighting all day. And so he's tired and he goes to sleep and Ya'ael pulls out a tent peg and a hammer.

puts the tent peg to his temple in his head and defeats, kills the Canaanite general. And so she's the one that ⁓ sort of wins the victory. there's a really interesting

You mentioned the violence.

Yes, Jason, there it is. There it is. There's this wonderful painting from around 1500s Dutch painter, Solomon de Brey. And he has the three characters, Barak, and Barak is in the back of the portrait, sort of in shadows. He sort of looks like a deer in headlights. just like, doesn't know what's going on quite. And then right

In front of him is Deborah, and her eyes are up to the heavens with her hands folded in prayer, looking to God. And then in front of both of them, in full light, is Yah'el, and her presence is powerful at the very front of the picture, the painting. And she has this huge hammer and this huge tent peg in her hands, and she's

looking straight at you, straight out at you as the viewer of the portrait. if to say, you you want a piece of me? She's very, she's, it's an awesome picture, but it sort of captures the glory that went to Yahyael. So they're powerful women characters in that first cycle. And then in the second cycle, you have no women there, they disappear. And then the third cycle, you have Jephthah's daughter who

Jephthah speaks a vow when he goes off, although he has already the Spirit of God has been given to him. He wants to add to that and says to God, a vow that if you give me victory, then when I come home, whatever comes out of my house, I will sacrifice to you, dedicate to you. And when he does come home from victory, it's his daughter, his only child who comes out of the house.

And she ⁓ then is because of that vow, that foolish vow that Jephthah had made, she will be sacrificed. And that's the tragedy of that story. But Jephthah made a foolish vow, should never, he already had the Spirit of God, didn't need to do that. Could have negotiated with God, but didn't.

But, alright.

And then you have Samson who engages with women of all kinds, including Delilah and marries a Philistine woman. And then just because she tells a riddle that he had made a sort of bargain with some of his fellows, he divorces her. yeah, so he's, the women there are just for him an object. And then you have at the very end, the murder and rape of the Levite concubine. So there's that.

So you sort of trace the decline through the stories of the women.

Yes.

Watch what happens to the women there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That is really interesting.

Dennis, why would you say this book is important for Christian life and theology?

I think this book is a kind of reminder that God works in and through the sort of messiness of humans, the messiness of conflict, the messiness of violence. I think that the book draws us in to really reflect on what's God up to here. But it also reminds us that God sometimes allows

humans to do what they do and to suffer the consequences of that. Even at the same time, while God does respond to the suffering of God's own people, but also the suffering of others, and that God is also preparing to do something new. And so at the end of the book of Judges, the refrain is, there's no king in the land, everybody who's doing what's right in their own eyes. And depending on which sort of

form the canon you're looking at in the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Bible. The next book is the book of Samuel, which begins with a strong woman character, Hannah, and about how the mighty will be thrown down from their thrones and the lowly will be brought up and thus begins another chapter and the rise of kingship and of prophets and then Saul and

David and Solomon, but then, and that goes on for a time, but even kingship in Israel eventually ends at the end of the book of Kings, right, in exile and the collapse of that whole political structure as well. Which tells us, I think, that we will not be saved by our human political schemes and agendas and structures. Those are temporary. They're in place.

as long as they function to serve the community and the well-being of the community, but that they will sometimes collapse on their own weight and it will take time. And God will be working in and through all of that very complicated human sort of decision-making and conflicts, but also cooperation so that deep within humans, God has placed within us capacity to cooperate and to adapt.

and that's part of God's working alongside of us and calling us to faithfulness. And as people of God, I think, you we can look at our world and what's going on and not be totally in despair, right?

God. Because I'm at least halfway there.

Yeah, I know. Me too, me too.

And throughout the history of the church and the people of God, they've often been there. They've been at places that just seem hopeless and despairing. But ultimately, our hope is not in what we do, but in what God has done for us and continues to do for us and works in and through us. And there are glimmers of hope in the midst of that. Yeah.

and sometimes in spite of us.

Yes, totally. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, exactly. Yes. Yeah.

That's really helpful. Because there's a lot of, human beings can really mess things up pretty royally. ⁓ so to hear that word of hope, as you say, there's glimpses of hope there that God can work in and through and in spite of. ⁓

super helpful.

And in the Christian canon, it's the book of Ruth that comes after judges, which is also a story about cooperation of Naomi and a Moabite woman, Naomi an Israelite, surviving through what seemed a hopeless situation. Naomi loses her husband, her family. She has these daughters-in-law and Ruth joins together with her and rebuilds a life.

from collapse. So that's a word of hope as well at the end of Judges.

Mm.

Yeah, for sure. And that even in that terrible time, God's love shown through human actions can redeem and heal suffering. Well, our last question that we always ask, and it's a little whimsical, if you could, you, Dennis, could you describe the book of Judges in seven words or less?

Okay, here they are. All right. Got them? All right. roll. roll. Humans are not reliable, but God is.

General.

Well, that's awesome.

Okay.

That's

amazing. Wow, that's cool. Well, thank you so much, Dennis, for being with us here today on Bible in a Year. And reminder, Bible in a Year is an Enter the Bible podcast, part of the Faith Lead Podcast Network from Luther Seminary. And we're going through all the books. So here we are on our way. Thank you for joining with us. can find

this and other great podcasts and content and resources and all sorts of things at our website, enterthebible.org. Please share this podcast, rate and review, like and subscribe, bring it in Bible studies or small groups or use it in your context as you're studying the Bible, either individually or with others. And of course, the very best compliment you can pay us is to share this podcast with a friend. Until next time.