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Judges

Mar 24, 2009 Print This Post

Judges

Author

Traditionally, Samuel has been listed as the author of Judges although we can’t know for sure and that’s just an educated guess

Date
1050-1000 BC

Theme

This book is the opposite of Joshua. Where Joshua shows everything going well for the Jews, Judges shows everything unraveling. Not just once, either. It shows their world unravelling seven times. Then when things are really sucking, they call out to God to save them and He does. It’s called judges because each time God raised up judges to restore the people.

What this book teaches me about Jesus

Again and again, we see the same theme pop up in the Old Testament: God redeems. In Judges, he delivered the people through a series of human judges, ultimately Jesus came to deliver us once and for all.

Random Thoughts

A “judge” in the Old Testament sense of the word wasn’t what we think of today. It was more like a combination of the Executive and Judicial branches of the our governmental system. They were the military, civil, and judicial leadership all rolled into one person.