God of Justice and Mercy

A Theological Commentary on Judges

Hamley

• Editorial: SCM Press
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780334060222
• Categoría: Teología y religión
• Categoría: Crítica e interpretación bíblicas

Judges is one of the most misunderstood and underused books in the Old Testament - it is a text people outside of the higher echelons of Old Testament academia are afraid of. Too often it is dismissed as too violent, outrageous, or simply too puzzling for practical use – or full of tales which are only of any use as children's stories or as simple moralising tales for adults.Focusing on core theological themes across the book, this commentary is predicated on the idea that far from being too awkward to touch, Judges in fact holds up a mirror to today's world, with its stories of abuses of power, war and violence, and the human tendency towards individualism. Overall, the commentary argues that in Judges we are given the story of a people who keep getting life and faith increasingly wrong, and the story of God's response to their cry for justice and mercy.Bridging the gap between accessibility and scholarly rigour, this commentary offers an excellent tool for ordinands, students, teachers in higher education and preachers to engage with the theology of the book in its Old Testament context as well as how its message is revealed in the New Testament and continues to speak today.

1. Setting the Scene (1.1—3.6)

Chapters 1.1—3.6 introduce key themes and set up expectations of patterns of behaviour and leadership to follow. This prologue is a different type of text to the main stories, more reflective, with a stronger narratorial presence, designed to set the book within its historical, theological and spiritual framework. It recounts similar events in chapters 1 and 2, with a focus on history and politics in 1, and on theology and ethics in 2. Right from the outset, questions of leadership and covenantal faithfulness take centre stage. The introduction diagnoses the problem that will recur throughout: Israel moved away from Yahweh.

1: Historical overview

1.1–10: Judah first

Judges opens by setting the story in its wider context. ‘After the death of Joshua’ is more than a temporal marker: it announces a paradigm shift in Israel’s history. Until now they were strangers in the land, seeking to establish themselves, their leader a military man focused on conquest. Now they are called to become dwellers in the land. Judges forms the transition from nomadic refugees to an agrarian society with some budding urban centres. The attendant search for suitable governance underlies the importance of the question, ‘Who will go first/lead?’ (1.1) The mention of Joshua sets up both continuity and discontinuity. As the book of Joshua culminates in the renewal of the covenant at Shechem, we expect Judges to open onto the same triumphal sense of national unity, covenant faithfulness, and readiness to possess the land. The picture already shows cracks. The book of Joshua had opened with ‘after the death of Moses’, followed by Yahweh designating a new leader, Joshua, nurtured into leadership by Moses (Deut. 34.9), with clear instructions about covenantal faithfulness. Judges similarly opens with the death of the old leader, yet no one obviously formed into leadership, the people unsure how to organize themselves, and no mention of the covenant. Did Joshua not plan for succession? Why did Yahweh not intervene? One could argue that the instructions about the land and how to live in it, given to Moses and Joshua, were sufficient. Canonically, the people were given the law and a shape for living in the Torah. Judges marks a new chapter in learning how to walk with Yahweh, not relying on constant, ongoing revelation in times of crisis but learning to live well in more settled times – a task which the people of God find almost impossible throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, and beyond.

Judges chronicles the birth of a nation, the liminal stage of starting out with no institutions, no systems, whether political or religious, and negotiating how the different kinship groups relate. Israel’s question is instructive; they ask who should lead, a tactical question, but not how they should proceed, or whether they should wage war. It is unclear whether the question is a mark of deference for Yahweh as commander-in-chief, or a hint of what is to come: the people treating Yahweh as a tribal god to ensure victory and prosperity. Implicitly, it suggests that Israel will act as a whole, following the leadership of Judah; however, this unity never materialises and the exchange with Yahweh gives way to a tribe-by-tribe account. The question refers to the ‘Canaanites’, a term used as a generic marker for all the inhabitants of the land in their various tribes and city-states, in a geographic area covering most of Palestine west of the Jordan, modern Lebanon and Southern Syria. Yahweh responds: ‘I have given the land into his hand.’ The tense is perfect (qatal), hence this has already been done, in contrast to passages that promise that Yahweh will give the enemy into Israel’s hand. Yahweh has already promised, and acted. Israel needs to make the promise a reality. Yahweh’s response places the emphasis on the land, rather than the Canaanites. Israel focuses on war and battle, Yahweh on life in the land. Israel’s identity is shaped around ethical and practical ways of living that interweave the land and its people. The land is a key theological concept here, in continuity with what has come before (the promise to Abraham, the Exodus, the conquest), and what will come later (the cataclysmic impact of the loss of the land and return to it), and will be eventually reshaped in the New Testament into a community of faith. Israel’s ethical behaviour is repeatedly said to impact the land in Exodus–Deuteronomy (Num. 35.33–34; Lev. 18.25–30; Deut. 21.23; 24.4) and later by the Prophets (e.g. Isa. 24.5; Jer. 2.7; 16.18; Ezek. 36.18). The book of Joshua explores how much of the land the people will conquer; Judges, by contrast, concentrates on why the people haven’t possessed the land that Yahweh had already given into their hand.

While the book opened on Israel as a whole, we immediately move to a more tribal, local focus, with Judah and Simeon. Critics are divided on their alliance: have they deviated from Yahweh’s command for Judah to lead (Beldman, 2020, p. 60), or is it healthy cooperation (García Bachmann, 2018, p. 4)? Instances of cooperation lead to good outcomes in these early chapters (Oeste 2011, p. 298), with victory in the story of Deborah and Barak, though critics are keen to see their cooperation as a negative attribute. The text here bears no overt judgement and simply records a positive outcome. The tribes continue the strategy set in Joshua of attacking the main centre of city-states to destabilize a region.

1.5–7 is the first of three vignettes in chapter 1 that focus on individuals(Adoni-Bezek, Achsah and the man from Luz) and the conquest of major cities (Jerusalem, Hebron, just south of Debir, and Bethel). Each is theologically significant and links to themes of justice, fairness, and mercy, and all three have echoes in the closing chapters through place (Jerusalem and Bethel), focus on women, mutilation and questions of appropriate justice.

Adoni-Bezek is a Canaanite overlord; Judges will consistently explore leadership not only within Israel, but in contrasting pen pictures of enemy leaders, inviting readers to ponder whether Israel is truly distinctive. The introduction of enemy leaders, however sketchy, serves to portray them as people; they are not just generic, faceless Canaanites. Against the specific instructions of holy war, Judah does not execute Adoni-Bezek, but mutilates him and holds him captive. Cutting off thumbs and big toes was particularly humiliating as opposable thumbs are a key mark of humanity, while big toes enable erect walking. The practice de-humanizes the enemy, marking them out as a lesser ‘other’. Adoni-Bezek had set this as his personal practice, reducing enemies to the status of dogs under his table. The laws of Deuteronomy did not permit Israel to dehumanize their enemies in this way; instead, they were to be put to death. Israel chooses Canaanite practices over those of the covenant. Adoni-Bezek articulates his fate theologically: just deserts for what he has done as a cruel leader, which he attributes to God. His god would not have been Yahweh. Israel following the practice implies that they choose another god’s approach to justice. They are already behaving like the people of the land.

Jerusalem reappears in 1.10, out of sequence with previous verses. Ambiguity around when and whether Jerusalem is taken persists throughout Judges: it is still called ‘Jebus’, its pre-conquest name, in chapter 19. The equivocation around Jerusalem is symbolic of Israel’s relationship to the land as a whole. There is no definitive conquest, but a constant struggle to establish themselves. The language used in 10.11 is that of ḥērem, the ban/extermination. Ḥerēm is the most complete form of war in the Hebrew Bible, mostly directed against foreigners. It always involves killing humans and the complete destruction of booty. Ḥerēm comes with a prohibition against profiting from war, is rooted in direct divine command, and is normally supervised by religious leaders. The fight then extends from city to country. Twice the Canaanites are referred to as those who ‘live in’ the hill country or Hebron. It is Israel that is supposed to live in the land post-Joshua, but they are still newcomers seeking to establish themselves. The entire book explores the struggle to settle, the ambiguity of who are the residents and who the aliens, and what it means to possess a land given to them as an inheritance. Joshua 13.1 recognized that much of the land still remained to be possessed, and Judges graphically chronicles the reality of a partial, painful and slow settlement.

1.11–21: Judah’s successes and incipient failure

The next section keeps the focus on Judah, with another short vignette of war and leadership. Caleb, who was not an official leader but had been granted land in Joshua 14 in recognition of his faithfulness, features as a clearly influential man seeking to encourage the men to battle by offering his daughter Achsah as a reward. The story is repeated almost word for word from Joshua 15.13–19, which shows that Judges is not organized chronologically to strictly follow from Joshua but rather explores its own motifs around the conquest and settlement. The trio of characters set up an important theme: the porousness of Israel’s ethnic and identity boundaries. All three protagonists are Kenizzites, yet they lead for Judah; Caleb and Achsah are the first named individuals to receive land for Judah. The Kenizzites were a people who had chosen to follow Yahweh and were therefore integrated into the covenant (starting out as the ‘people of the land’ in Genesis 15.19, to become models of covenant faithfulness in Joshua 14). Therefore, the first representatives of Israel that we meet are not ethnically Israelite. Yet they shape a paradigmatic story of successful conquest and healthy family structures to enable settlement. The story establishes a counterpoint to ḥērem and extermination of the Canaanites. Foreigners can be integrated into the covenant people as they choose to serve Yahweh. They do not forgo their ethnic identity – Caleb, Achsah and Othniel are still called Kenizzites – but ethnicity is secondary to covenant belonging. The high praise for Caleb’s faith in Joshua 14 forms part of the wider scriptural theme of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the community of faith, a story that will only develop fully in the NT, but whose seeds are scattered throughout the Old (Melchizedek, Jethro, Rahab, Ruth …).

It is unclear why the men needed additional motivation to fight, given this was already part of an overall military campaign; it contrasts with the question in 1.1: who goes first now will be a contest between men for courage, status and, possibly, lust. The practice is not unusual: giving and taking women in war was a traditional way of sealing alliances between clans and tribes and cementing kinship networks, feeding into the theme of households and the health of families. While Achsah had no apparent choice, the story shows a system of interrelated households, with clear positioning of status and rights, something that will gradually ebb away in Israel. While Achsah is the object of men’s bargaining, she quickly becomes a subject in her own right, in a story where women are safe, secure and negotiate for themselves. Achsah decides on what her own value should be and requests it. She asks her husband to negotiate (1.14); the phrase, ‘as she came to him’, suggests consummation of the marriage and Achsah using sexuality as a way to achieve her goals. Many translators struggling with the idea of a woman initiating this sequence of events reverse the sentence to say that Othniel persuaded her to do the asking (Klein, 1993, p. 57). MT has no such scruples. Achsah travels alone across country, a dangerous enterprise, to meet her father. She contrasts sharply with another woman, who will also travel to her father, in Judges 19, yet meet a very different fate. The interaction with her father is respectful and affectionate, presuming a deeper relationship. Her father’s question, ‘What is with you?’, sounds terse, but likely expresses surprise and concern that she had travelled alone. Unusually, Achsah uses the imperative talking to her father (Schneider, 1999, p. 15) and presents her request as self-evident. She reminds her father of what he has done to her, ‘set me in the land of the Negev’. She does not say ‘set us’, or ask for something for her and her husband. She simply assumes she can ask for property. The frequent translation of 1.15 as ‘give me a present’ is a poor choice; what she actually asks for is a ‘blessing’. Not a dowry, a blessing, as sons get when leaving home, and daughters may get when there are no sons (Num. 27.1–11), though there is no mention of whether Achsah has siblings. She asks for water, essential for life and an agrarian lifestyle. Achsah considers herself as responsible as her husband for the flourishing of her household.

The story is an important marker, at the very beginning, of what healthy households look like. Achsah behaves in ways acceptable within her (patriarchal) culture, using the power she has despite overall limitations. She is bold and creative, qualities often depicted as desirable and attractive in women in the Hebrew Bible (Klein, 2003, pp. 18–20). Power is negotiated between different groups, between men and women, husband and wife, father and daughter (Niditch, 2008, p. 41). The picture that emerges is of positive household and gender relations, a picture that will serve as yardstick against which to plot the later degeneration of social structures. Here, structures are clear, power negotiated, children respect parents and parents bless children. Some argue that this is depicted as a model marriage and Achsah as a model woman. ‘Model’ is not quite the right word. What it depicts is a configuration of relationships (within a specific context with its own limitations) promoting peace, safety and prosperity. This configuration can then work as a paradigm to assess different configurations of relationships for the fruit that they bear. In Judges, we see the failure of blessing by Jephthah towards his daughter, and the failure of both father and husband towards the woman of chapter 19.

1.16 moves the focus onto another liminal group that flits in and out of Israel’s life, the Kenites, who fight with Judah but settle ‘with the people’. While many translations emend the text to read ‘with the Amalekites’, following Moore and Budde (Webb, 2012, p. 106), there is no textual reason to do so, as both MT and LXX have ‘with the people’. Hence the status of the Kenites is unclear, as are their overall loyalties – a motif that reappears in the story of Jael. Once again, the boundaries of ‘Israel’ are porous, not defined purely on ethnic grounds. Judah fulfils its responsibilities by taking Hormah and carrying out ḥērem. So far, they have been worthy leaders. The comment, ‘Yahweh was with them’ reflects their success, yet also problematizes what is to come. If Yahweh was with them, why couldn’t they take the lowlands as well as the hill country? The explanation blames iron chariots, more useful in the plains than in the hills. Yet chariots are not an insurmountable obstacle, as the story of Deborah will show. This creates questions right at the outset: is this Judah’s fault? Is Yahweh’s power limited? Did Yahweh only want to give the hill country? Clearly, divine presence only confers potential for success (Bowman, 1995, p. 36); it is up to human beings to actualize it, through faithful covenantal partnership. A pattern now starts of retelling partial, difficult settlement of the land. Benjamin also fails to drive out the inhabitants of the land, but this time the narrator points out that they simply did not, rather than could not, drive them out. Benjamin simply can’t be bothered to follow Yahweh’s orders, settling with the people. Israel is just one of many in the land, which will set the background for most of the other stories. The picture of Israel which emerges is not of a unified whole with Yahwism as their organizing principle, but multiple tribal settlements in the midst of largely Canaanite areas.

1.22–36: Conquest annals

The rest of chapter 1 chronicles the tribes’ incomplete attempt at settling the land. A short vignette zooms in on the house of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh). As before, the narrator emphasizes Yahweh’s presence, which should have led to easy victory; instead, they send spies and make a covenant. The episode echoes Joshua 2 and 6 and the taking of Jericho. In Jericho, the spies’ lives were threatened, hence the need to enlist local help. Here, spies find a random local outside the city and ask for information that would have been obvious – city gates are not hard to find! In Jericho, Rahab volunteered testimony to Yahweh’s saving acts, asked for mercy (Josh. 2.8–13) and was incorporated into the covenantal community. Here, the man from Luz does not testify, is not incorporated into the covenant but offered a separate, parallel covenant and founds another city with the Hittites, who will remain antagonists of Israel. Joseph has made a covenant with the people of the land, a forbidden practice (Ex. 23.32; 34.15; Deut. 7.2). Israel itself sows the seeds of its later struggles. 1.24 has one of only two mentions in Judges of ḥesed (loving-kindness). Here, in a forbidden covenant, and in the story of Abimelech, ḥesed is withheld from the household of Gideon. Israel does not testify to Yahweh’s loving-kindness for them, but chooses to love the wrong people and withhold love from those they should care for.

Chapter 1 resembles Assyrian descriptions of military campaigns, with a geographic rather than chronological logic (Block, 1999, p. 80). Assyrian documents, however, usually celebrate the victors, whereas the account here is more balanced, acknowledging as much failure as victory. The leitmotif ‘Yahweh’s presence was with them’ gradually disappears. Manasseh not only does not drive the people out, but makes them perform forced labour (mas), which suggests that the problem was not military strength, but willingness. Forced labour is distinguished from slavery (῾bd), as an Ancient Near East practice specifically distinguishing between victors and defeated nations (Klingbeil, 1997, p. 993). It is tragically ironic that so soon after having been slaves in Egypt, the Hebrews are forcing others into service. As Israel becomes more Canaanized, they will in turn be forced into compulsory labour. Deuteronomy 20.11 does make provision for the people of the land to choose to surrender to Israel, in which case they will not be exterminated or driven out but agree to forced labour as part of a settlement. There is no indication that this applies here. The rest of the chapter repeats the failure to drive out inhabitants. The narrator subtly signals the unsettled status of Israel: in 1.21 the Jebusites have ‘lived among the Benjaminites’; in 1.27 the Canaanites ‘continue to live in that land’; in 1.29, 30 ‘the Canaanites lived among them’; in 1.31, 33 i...