📖 The Book of Judges
Start reading →Old Testament · 21 chapters · History
A cycle of sin, oppression, repentance, and deliverance.
Who wrote Judges?
Author
Anonymous (trad. Samuel)
Written
c. 1050 BC
Genre
History
Why Judges was written
To show the consequences of Israel's failure to fully drive out the Canaanites and their subsequent spiritual decline — and to demonstrate that God repeatedly raises up deliverers for a people who continually forget him.
Outline of Judges
- 11–2: Incomplete conquest and its consequences
- 23–16: Six cycles of sin-oppression-repentance-deliverance through twelve judges
- 317–21: Appendices showing Israel's moral and spiritual chaos
Key verses
Judges 2:16Judges 17:6Judges 21:25
How Judges points to Christ
Each judge is a partial, flawed deliverer who points to the need for a perfect, permanent Saviour. Samson's death — arms outstretched, achieving victory through his own destruction — is one of the most striking typological images in the OT.
How Judges begins
1Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?
Read Judges 1 →