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into the hands of their enemies, who oppressed them certain years, when they cried unto Jehovah, who raised up a deliverer (whose deliverance is then related) and the land had rest certain years (3:7-9, 11, 12-15 a, 30 b; 4:1-3; 5: 31 b; 6:1-6; 8: 28; 10: 6-18; 13: 1; 15: 20).

The Book of Judges presents, therefore, a constant lesson of the divine government and has a common feature with the Books of Joshua, Kings, and Chronicles, all of which were designed to inculcate similar great principles of divine rule and thus to guide human conduct, especially the national conduct of Israel. (The same fact appears in the earlier chapters of the Books of Samuel, but less distinctly in the remainder of those books which are more purely historical.) The spirit and form of this teaching in the Book of Judges is especially that of Deuteronomy, which contains repeated prohibitions and warnings in connection with the worship or service of any god but Jehovah (Deut. 6: 14 f.; 7: 4; 8: 19 f.; 11: 16 f.; 12:30; 13:6ff.; 30: 17 ff.), and threatens such defection with dire disasters (Deut. 7:4; 8: 19 f.; 30: 17 ff.).

IV. LITERARY CHARACTER

The Book of Judges shares with other books of the Old Testament the characteristic of being, not the work of one writer nor the product of a single generation, but a literary growth of centuries. Its composition can best be understood in the light of that of the Hexateuch, the first six books of the Old Testament, which originally were a literary unit. Three great strands or documents run through these books. The most prominent of these, though the latest, is a priestly writing in the main of the fifth cen

tury consisting very largely of laws, embracing the Book of Leviticus and the related parts of Exodus and Numbers; and yet consisting also of a historical narrative which commences with an account of the creation and ends with the allotment of the tribes in the land of Canaan. This narrative is statistical and formal in character, marked with a well-defined progress in divine revelation or law, and especially with the conception of Israel as fully organized by Moses into a theocracy or church. This document, ordinarily called the Priests' Code, is symbolized by modern scholars by the letter P, representing both the literary material itself and the author or authors.

Next earlier in age to the Priests' Code and of the half century beginning about 625 B.C. is the strand or document which embraces the Book of Deuteronomy (with minute exceptions) and related parts of the Book of Joshua, and possibly a few verses in the earlier books. This, as seen in Deuteronomy, is clearly marked by its hortatory character and the stress which it lays upon the worship of Jehovah and the keeping of the statutes and commandments, with well-defined principles of divine retribution in rewards and punishments. Its symbol, applied both to the writing and the author or authors, is the letter D.

The third and earliest strand or document is a narrative called prophetic because it reveals a divine purpose for the future. In its completed form this was designed to give a history of Israel from the creation to a much later period than the conquest of Canaan. This, composed largely of stories, is the naïve and picturesque element of the Hexateuch. It is a resultant of the literature which grew from the entertainment of assemblies at family

hearths, camp-fires, and sanctuaries. With this some early laws have also been combined. A line of cleavage exists in this strand or document, and it is really composed of two primary ones, known as the Jahvistic (Jehovistic) and Elohistic, so called from the names of deity, Jahweh (Jehovah) and Elohim, used in its respective parts in Genesis. Its symbol is JE and those of the two primary documents J and E. Of these latter J is the earlier. Both were probably composed in the eighth century (possibly J in the ninth) and were united into JE in the seventh. The place of composition or origin of J was in Judah or the Southern Kingdom while E came from the Northern Kingdom, hence J is called the Judean Narrative and E the Ephraimite. The two narratives J and E are not very dissimilar, and yet each is characterized in some degree by its own vocabulary and phrases and notably, as already mentioned, in the use of terms for deity. E is rougher in style than J. Certain conceptions also distinguish them. J is the more naïve. Jehovah appears in J frequently in human form and talks directly with men. In E God is more remote and usually reveals himself or his word in a dream. E exhibits more reflection than J. Its author is not so simple-minded. In E2, a revision of E, the author approaches the conceptions of Deuteronomy.

All of these works, symbolized by the letters P, D, J, and E, are regarded as the products of schools of writers rather than individuals. They bear the marks of not being continuous, or written by a single author, and occasionally of revision (for example, as mentioned, there is E and E2). Account must also be taken of the editor who united JE, i.e. RJE, and other editors who gradually brought the

documents JE, D, and P together and thus formed the Hexateuch. Viewing the Hexateuch as a whole, it resembles in structure largely a harmony of the Gospels, one which might have passed through several editions, as though at first the life of Christ had been written by the union of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, and then later, to this those of Luke and John had been added, and the compilers had also felt free in places to annotate and change according to their own views.

The structure of the Book of Judges, while far from being identical with that of the Hexateuch or such a harmony of the Gospels as we have described, is not altogether dissimilar. Already in the description of its purpose we have noticed, in connection with its second or main part, the introductions and conclusions of the narratives of the great judges (see pp. 8 f.). These form a framework in which the stories of the judges are set. The writer of this framework, who composed in the spirit of Deuteronomy (see p. 10), clearly shaped the main portion of our book (2:6-16:31) and may be called its Deuteronomic author. The stories, however, were not written by him. Scholars are not entirely agreed in regard to their source, whether they existed independently or were taken from a continuation of JE, the constituent part of the Hexateuch. This latter is the prevailing view and the one adopted in this Commentary. Such a composite source explains the duplicate stories of Gideon (see p. 6) and other seeming traces of double narratives. The history of the Book of Judges, then, is as follows: Sometime during the sixth century a member of the Deuteronomic school of writers, having before him the great historical work JE, took from it the

stories of Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson and gave them their Deuteronomic setting, writing likewise the introduction, and the account of the judgeship of Othniel. His work, beginning with the death of Joshua, and closing with the judgeship of Samson, consisted of 2:6-16:31 with the exception of chapter 9, the story of Abimelech, which shows no trace of his hand, and 3:31; 10: 1-5; 12:8-15, the accounts of the minor judges, and possibly also chapter 16. In the fifth or fourth century another writer turned again to the work of JE and excerpted from it the other two parts of our book, the introduction, 1-2: 5, and the appendix, 17-21, both of which he edited with considerable annotations or additions. He also added chapters 9 and 16 and the accounts of the minor judges, although these last may have been composed independently of JE. This author or editor belonged to the school of P and we call him the priestly editor, giving him the symbol RP. He virtually completed the Book of Judges, although a few annotations may have been made later. The verse describing the action of Shamgar (3:31) seems to have been one of these.

We will find, then, in our Book of Judges all this various material; the naïve stories of J, united or inextricably woven together with the more reflective stories of E and E2. A few paragraphs will appear from the compiler of JE, RJE, then considerable material from the Deuteronomic author of Judges, and still later from the priestly editor, and probably, as mentioned, some from another final hand.

V. HISTORICAL CHARACTER

The contents of the Book of Judges taken as a whole are legendary rather than historical. By that we mean

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