The Story Of Samson Deborah Jephtha And Gideon

The Book of Judges provides information about judges who corrected the behavior of the descendants of Israel while ruling over them as their leaders.It includes details about battles of victory and defeat, angels, Deborah and Barak, Gideon and the fleece, Jephthah and his daughter, Samson and Delilah, the consequences of idolatry, and restoration. This book includes verses translated from the Greek old covenant writing, sometimes referred to as the Septuagint. Additionally, some comparisons to the Hebrew text are provided.

This is a book about a book: it is an in-depth yet reader friendly analysis of the Book of Judges, one of the most dramatic books of the Bible. Against the commonly-held view that this remarkable work is no more than a collection of hero tales stemming from Israel’s earliest days in its land—its “Heroic Age,” so to speak—this study makes the case that the Book of Judges is a unified composition with a single focused message: that it is the values held by a people and not its politics that determine its fate. Further, Judges contends that there is a direct connection between the kind of values people internalize and the level of violence that racks their society, both inflicted from without and generated from within. And not least, that the presence of violence is a symptom that a society has abandoned the moral values of monotheism for the Machiavellian politics of a pagan worldview that worships power as the ultimate reality. The larger-than-life heroes and heroines—Ehud and Jael, Deborah and Gideon, Jephthah and Samson—who people the pages of Judges serve by their example to illustrate the way this thesis works out in the world.

The Old Testament books of Judges and Ruth record some of the most powerful stories in all of Scripture. Set in a time when everyone “did what was right in his own eyes,” these books highlight God’s faithfulness in the midst of Israel's continual disobedience. Exploring the stories of figures such as Gideon, Samson, and Naomi and Ruth, this accessible commentary emphasizes the countless ways God protected and preserved his people in the Bible. Experienced preacher Barry Webb explores important connections between Judges and Ruth, pointing out God’s promises to his people and practical applications for daily life. Complete with powerful illustrations and engaging anecdotes, this commentary is a helpful resource for all who study, preach, and teach God’s Word. Part of the Preaching the Word series.

An excerpt from the INTRODUCTION - General Character of the Book: The book purports to give the last words, at the approach of death, of each of the twelve patriarchs to his sons. It is evident that the general idea of the book is based upon Jacob's last words to his sons as recorded in Gen. xlix. 1-27. Just as Jacob portrays the character of his sons and declares to them what shall befall them, so in our book each of the patriarchs is represented as describing, in some sense, his own character and as foretelling what shall come to pass among his posterity in the last times. From this latter point of view the book partakes of the character of a prophetic-apocalyptic work. In six of the testaments, those of Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Dan, Naphthali and Joseph, there is a certain correspondence between our book and Gen. xlix. regarding the characters of the patriarchs; as for the remaining six patriarchs no such correspondence exists.

JUDGES: Book of Heroes traces the tragic story of the people of God from the glory days of Joshua to the gloomy days of Samson; from courage to compromise; from conquest to capitulation. But despite the subject matter, this book is not a gloomy book! The author shows that for all their failings, the judges were men and women of rare faith, men and women who stood for God in troubled times. And he encourages us, too, to live for God where He has placed us; to serve Him faithfully in the work to which He has called us. "We may not have the spiritual gifts of a Samson or a Deborah. We may not have the courage of an Othniel or a Jephthah. Perhaps we're just ordinary, like Gideon, or maybe we feel like one of the minor judges, like Abdon or Ibzan or Tola, whose names nobody can remember. Nevertheless, God delights to use ordinary people, and He delights even more to use really useless people! God will use those who have faith in Him, those whose hearts are loyal to Him. The judges of Israel, imperfect as they were, stand out for God like shining beacons in a dark night, because at the end of the day, they trusted God, and were available to Him."

This research provides a new reading of the Gideon, Abimelech and Jephthah narratives, and uncovers the ideology behind them. They aim to present the two parameters by which the Israelite leaders are examined, their loyalty to God and their altruistic character: A leader who prefers his own interest is doomed to fail.

The Hebrew Bible is permeated with depictions of military conflicts that have profoundly shaped the way many think about war. Why does war occupy so much space in the Bible? In this book, Jacob Wright offers a fresh and fascinating response to this question: War pervades the Bible not because ancient Israel was governed by religious factors (such as 'holy war') or because this people, along with its neighbors in the ancient Near East, was especially bellicose. The reason is rather that the Bible is fundamentally a project of constructing a new national identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies. Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, Wright shows how biblical authors, like the architects of national identities from more recent times, constructed a new and influential notion of peoplehood in direct relation to memories of war, both real and imagined. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.