Book of Judges
| Central Theme: | |
|---|---|
| Synopsis: | The second of the Nevi'im |
| Series: | The Bible |
| Preceded by: | Book of Exodus |
| Followed by: | Books of Samuel |
| First published: | In its current form, sixth century BCE |
The seventh book of The Bible.
Years after the Israelites settled into Canaan, they are still suffering from foreign attacks and inter-tribal conflicts. Whenever Israel is in trouble, God calls a "Judge" to save them.
Judges is followed by the Book of Ruth.
Tropes used in Book of Judges include:
- Arc Words: "Israel had no king in those days. Everyone did as he pleased."
- Badass: The Judges
- Badass Israeli: A whole bunch of them.
- Badass Long Hair: Samson.
- Breakout Character: Samson
- Camping a Crapper: Eglon
- Chosen One: The Judges
- Chronic Villainy: The Israelites lapse in their faith whenever God saves them.
- Crapsack World / Humans Are the Real Monsters: Made alarmingly clear in the stories after Samson.
- Cycle of Revenge: The Central Theme of Samson.
- Fat Bastard: Eglon.
- Fatal Flaw: Samson's drunkenness.
- Foreshadowing: The Israelites did not destroy all the Canaanites. They became thorns in Israel's side.
- Hope Spot: The battle of Gibeah showed the Israelite tribes can still band together to oppose evil.
- Improbable Weapon User: Shamgar used an ox goad and Samson had his... donkey's jaw bone.
- Also, Yael, who killed the enemy king using a tent peg.
- Lady of War: Deborah
- No Ending
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Ehud's "I have a message from God for you."
- Rape and Revenge: A Levite man gives his concubine to a bunch of horny townsmen to protect his own ass. They rape her to death, and he hacks up her body and distributes the pieces to his buddies to call them to war with the town of Gibeah.
- Token Girl: Deborah is the only female judge; she took the job when no men were willing or able.
- You Don't Want to Die a Virgin, Do You?: Due to a poorly thought out promise on the part of her father, Jephthah's daughter cannot marry. A sacrifice in more ways than one, as having descendants was a big deal back then.