Deborah, Barak Defeat Canaanites | Gideon Defeats Midianites | Samson Opposes the Philistines |
c. 1209–1169 BC | c. 1162 BC | c. 1075–1055 BC |
The book of Judges demonstrates God’s continued faithfulness to his persistently wayward people. The cyclical pattern of the people’s sin and God’s rescue is the steady refrain throughout the book. Often God demonstrated his love through judgment, purging the filth of sin from among the people and teaching them to fear him alone. Yet despite their sin, God continued to send human deliverers—namely, the judges—whom he empowered to remind the people of God’s ways and call them to repentance and obedience.
Judges demonstrates the depravity of humankind and the necessity of God’s judgment. God did not turn his back to Israel’s sin; rather, he turned toward his beloved people in loving pursuit. God’s redemptive mission necessitated that he allow Israel to feel the weight of their choices because sin has earthly consequences as well as heavenly ones. Israel suffered consistent internal strife and external turmoil with foreign nations. Through it all, God was always faithful to the covenant promises he made to Abraham and his descendants. Then as now, salvation happens by God’s sheer grace: There is no question that the people don’t merit God’s mercy through their own moral uprightness or their willingness to turn from their sin. God acts because he is faithful. This same covenant faithfulness provides the only hope of God’s people throughout time and eternity.
The pattern of rebellion, judgment and deliverance dominates each subsequent event in Israel’s life. Over time, this pattern devolved as the Israelites found increasingly heinous ways to rebel against God’s decrees and their faithlessness necessitated God’s judgment. The book consistently demonstrates Israel’s corrupt nature throughout the time of the judges, beginning with the generation that followed Joshua’s (2:6–15). In contrast to the preceding book of Joshua, this book sounds a depressing, hopeless tone that indicates just how far and how quickly the people of God had fallen.
By the end of the book, there is no question as to whether a human leader would ever be capable of delivering the people from their sin. As we see from the cycles in Judges, only God is capable of rescuing such a wayward people.
Today, all believers understand this reality. Broken and battered by sin, people long for the true deliverer, the One of whom the judges were a mere shadow. Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, has provided this deliverance by taking God’s judgment on himself and fulfilling for all time God’s promise to always be faithful to his people.
He sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”