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The Deuteronomic editors, in chs 2.11 - 3.6, state their understanding of Israel's 'failures' relating them to the people's disobedience towards their Covenant promise to YHWH, and their attraction to baalism as they began learning how to grow crops from their Canaanite neighbours. (fertility was all-important!). Intermarriage too, inevitably led to the apostasy of some.

The editors have created a distinctive literary framework for each of the separate, and localised stories of heroes dating from this time. It is easily recognisable, as in the story of Othniel, 3.7-11.

D-frame: 'The Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD/YHWH, ... worshipping the baals and Asherahs. Therefore the anger of YHWH was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of ... '

Story: King Cushan of Aram; the Israelites suffered for 8 years ...

Frame: 'But the Israelites cried out to YHWH, and YHWH raised up a deliverer ...'

Story: Othniel ... The Spirit of YHWH came upon him and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and YHWH gave King Cushan into his hand.

Frame: So the land had rest for 40 years, then Othniel died.

Immediately, in 3.12, it starts all over again, and in 4.1, 6.1, 10.6, etc.

Some judges were good, some not so good,but each story gives us fascinating details of the Israelites' lives during these first years in Israel.

'Judges' were always military leaders; some were also administrative and legal leaders, while a few were religiously motivated, eg Gideon. The main stories are as follows:

EHUD 3.15-23, Ehud was a left-handed diplomat who killed King Eglon of Moab who was very fat! Ehud left the body locked in the loo-chamber on the roof of the house, while he escaped.

DEBORAH and Jael, chs 4&5, two outstanding women in androcentric Israel! This story is told twice, once in storytellers' prose, and then in ancient poetry which is thought to be almost contemporary with the event.

The enemy is King Jabin of Hazor (cp Josh 11), and the struggle was for the very fertile Plain of Esdraelon in the Valley of Jezreel. Jabin's army commander was Sisera (who had chariots in his weaponry), and it was the Wise Woman, Deborah who inspired Barak to lead Israel's attack near Mt Tabor. During the battle Sisera left his chariot in a panic and fled. He sought refuge in the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. She lulled Sisera into a false sense of security, and then killed him with hammer and tent peg while he slept.

The poem, - the Song of Deborah - is very exciting:

• a) Its language is a very ancient example of Hebrew, (quite different from the later poetry of the psalms), very economic with words, and staccato in style, with repetitions similar to tablets found at Ugarit.

• b) The poet, (poetess?), was brilliant, with the empathy and pathos worthy of Homer. Thus it is one of the world's literary treasures.

• c) It is thought to be contemporary, and possibly an eye-witness version of the event because poetry was always repeated word for word the same, and therefore was not trimmed by the storytellers.

• d) It describes an alliance between several tribes and berates the absence of others, though there is a strange lack of mention of Judah down in the south. (Judah was cut off from the others by the Jebusites in their stronghold of Jerusalem).

• e) Sisera fled his chariot because of a cloudburst, so the poet ascribes the victory to YHWH, fighting with all the forces of nature for Israel.

• f) The battle is located 'by the waters of Taanach', near Megiddo. Both archaeology, and the language of the poetry, suggest a positive dating for this event, c1125 BCE.

• g) The two women are described in great contrast to each other: Jael, the Tent-dweller, and Sisera's mother, leaning out of her house from the upstairs lattice window, waiting for her son to come home.

GIDEON chs 6-8 Gideon was one of the most important judges. His story follows logically after Deborah's, when the Canaanites were not preventing the arrival of more nomadic incomers, Midianites and Amalekites with their camels. They raided and plundered the Israelites' crops so badly that many of them took to living in caves for safety.

Gideon's story opens with a theophany story, (cp Abraham). An angel approached, was entertained, (but did not 'eat'!), before YHWH himself commissioned Gideon to break down his father's baal altar, burn the Asherah pole, and offer a sacrifice to YHWH instead. Gideon did, under cover of darkness, and escaped death from the townsfolk when the baal took no action itself. Then the Spirit of YHWH' took possession of Gideon and he became an inspirational hero. He summoned the central tribes to battle, and so many came he had to reduce the numbers. He watched how they drank from a river, and chose the alert ones who watched all the time while lapping like dogs. They made a surprise attack on the enemy and won, (the nomads had no chariots). Next, Gideon proved himself a leader not to be crossed when he dealt with two groups of people who ought to have been more helpful, and claimed equality with two captured kings when he condemned them to death.

Gideon declined the Israelites' request that he should become their hereditary king, and lived the rest of his life prolifically with many wives and 70 sons. But as soon as he died ... the Israelites relapsed, 'prostituted themselves with baals', making Baal-berith their God at Shechem.

ABIMELECH ch 9 Gideon's son, by a concubine at Shechem, persuaded his mother's people to make him their King, and set off and killed all but one of Gideon's other sons. The survivor, Jothan, stood on Mt Gerizim outside Shechem and warned the people of the bramble who became king of the trees in the forest, (the earliest parable in the OT). Only three years later the Shechemites had had enough of Abimelech, but he took his revenge by setting fire to Shechem. He died soon after.

JEPHTHAH chs 10.6 - 11.40, A more serious situation developed next, when a new enemy encroached from the West, the Philistines!, and the Ammonites simultaneously came from the East. Jephthah was a Robin Hood - style outlaw whom the people begged to return as their leader in the new crisis. He made a vow to YHWH, won the battle against the Ammonites, and then had to redeem his vow even when it was his only daughter who was the first to come out to welcome him home. (a universal folk tale!).

SAMSON chs 13 -16, Samson was destined to become the Hero against the Philistines, so his story begins with a heroic birth narrative. He was born to a barren woman of the northern tribe of Dan. She had been told by an angel that she was blessed by YHWH, and would bear a son who was to be dedicated as a Nazirite (with uncut hair) to YHWH. Again the angel declined to eat, but when the child was born he was named Samson.

His subsequent story is far from admirable, and evolves around the two women whom he loved, both of whom were Philistines. The second was Delilah. She wheedled from him the secret of his phenomenal strength, and betrayed him by cutting his hair; eventually he died very dramatically while destroying many Philistines as they feasted.

AFTER SAMSON, there are several small stories, including

ch 17, The idol-maker who was betrayed by a Levite from Judah, who stole his portable shrine, and took it north to Dan. (is this a polemical prelude to 1Kgs 12.25-30?)

ch 19, The civil war of the tribes against Benjamin, a sadly disreputable tale caused by the rape of a concubine at Gibeah , the main town of Benjamin. Archeologists have unearthed proof of Gibeah's destruction and rapid rebuilding in the 11th cent. BCE. Subsequently the Benjaminite men had to steal some girls to become their wives, from Shiloh where they were dancing in a vinyard, as part of the annual festival of - YHWH! - (an agricultural festival?)

The Book of Judges ends on a downbeat note of sadness, 'there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes', 21.25. How very different from Joshua! It suggests that the tribes were quite independent from each other, and held together only by a weakening Covenant bond with YHWH, while their victories were more like small skirmishes in which the weather played a part. Nevertheless, they survived!