Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
Governors of Israel between Joshua and the kings
They were called of God, elective or usurpative. Qualification, martial or moral prowess. Rule arbitrary. Fifteen are recorded. Period, B. C. 1400-1091, about 310 years. Book of Judges, 7th of O. T., probably compiled by Samuel. Its history is that of a tumultuous period, completing Joshua’s conquests and leading to legitimate kingly rule.
Concise Bible Dictionary:
This book is occupied with the period from the death of Joshua to the time of Samuel. Joshua, the man of faith, before he died gave them good advice and solemn warnings. The people answered, “The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey.” They had now, under the guidance and power of God, to work out their own salvation. They served the Lord as long as Joshua lived and the elders he had appointed, and then they forsook God, allied themselves by marriage with the Canaanites, and turned to idolatry. It is a vivid illustration of the history of the professing church, which, after the times of the apostles, rapidly became worldly, and had to be disciplined by God, though there have been revivals, as there were in the time of the Judges.
A long catalog had to be made of the districts from which the tribes did not drive out the Canaanites. Israel being thus unfaithful, making a league with the inhabitants, and regardless of their evil, the Lord let them remain to prove Israel: in like manner the world-bordering of the church has become a snare to it constantly. The Angel of the Lord was at Gilgal during the book of Joshua (to which place the Israelites should in spirit have constantly returned: it is the place of circumcision, that is, for the Christian, thorough separation from the first man); but now He came to Bochim, and reminded them that He had delivered them from Egypt, and had declared that He would never break His covenant with Israel; they were to make no league with the people of the land, but they had not obeyed His voice. The failure was now irretrievable. The people wept and sacrificed there.
Nevertheless they formed alliances with the Canaanites, and sacrificed to Baalim. Then they were oppressed by their enemies; but as often as they turned to the Lord, He raised up a judge who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors. Yet when the judge died, they returned again to their evil ways. This experience of evil doing—oppression, repentance, and deliverance—occurred again and again during a period of over three hundred years. (The action of the judges is considered under the name of each.)
Judges 17-21 are not in historical order, but are grouped together to show the inner life of the people.
Judges 17-18 disclose a sad attempt to mingle the worship of God with domestic idolatry, See MICAH No. 1.
Judges 19-21 show the moral character of the people, especially of Benjamin, who brought upon themselves severe punishment. When the other tribes saw the destruction they had made upon Benjamin they came to the house of God and wept, lamenting that one tribe was lacking in Israel; but no mention is made of their weeping over the sin that had brought it all about.
The book ends by repeating what it had said elsewhere: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” God would have been their king if they would have been His subjects.
The chronology of the book of Judges presents some difficulties. It is clear from various passages that the periods during which the judges ruled could not all have been consecutive. The 480 years from the Exodus to the fourth year of Solomon (1 Kings 6:11And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 6:1)), necessarily shortens the period of the judges, and one passage in the book itself implies that two of the oppressions were going on at the same time, namely, that of the Philistines and of Ammon (Judg. 10:77And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon. (Judges 10:7)). In Acts 13:2020And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. (Acts 13:20) the AV reads that God gave them judges about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet. This would not agree with the 480 years of 1 Kings 6:11And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 6:1); but there is a different reading in Acts 13, which has been adopted by editors of the Greek Testament and in the RV irrespective of all questions of chronology. It reads “He divided to them their land by lot, about 450 years; and afterward He gave them judges”; thus the 450 years are not applied to the duration of the judges. This period may have been made up thus, reckoning from the birth of Isaac, because the promise was to the seed of Abraham, and Isaac was the child of promise.
Years
Age of Jacob when he stood before Pharaoh 130
Age of Israel in the wilderness 40
Age to the division of the land 7
(about 450 years). 452 (sum of the above years)
Years
From the Exodus to the crossing of the Jordan 40
From the Jordan to the division of the land 7
In the West. In the East.
The above totals 492 years
Deduct for parts of years being reckoned as full years -12
480
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