The book of Judges shows the effect of Israel not obeying God and driving out the Canaanites. Over and over God will discipline them and when they cry out, He will inspire a deliverer for them. But the trajectory is basically down. No real lasting revival will occur. Be sure and watch the Bible Project Summary of Judges. You can see it by clicking Judges here.

When you read the book of Judges it seems that it is arranged in chronological order with one judge following another. 1 Kgs 6:1 says, “Solomon began to build the temple for the Lord in the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month.”^[1] Judges 3:7-11 gives the account of the first judge, named Othniel. We are told that Israel worshiped the Baals and Asherahs and were oppressed because of that for 8 years when Othniel delivered them. We then learn that the deliverance brought by Othniel lasted 40 years until the cycle repeats itself. In the next cycle the oppression lasted 18 years see Judges 3:14 then God raised up Ehud the second judge and after his deliverance the land had piece for 80 years. A fun task would be to continue going through the book and noting how long the oppression lasted and how long the peace lasted for each judge. Then add up all the years of oppression and deliverance. Note there are a few judges mentioned with no mention of how long the oppression lasted and there is at least one with no mention of how long he judged. When you do this exercise and consider the 40 years of wondering in the wilderness under Moses, the period of Joshua’s leadership, the period of Samuel’s ministry, the time of Saul’s reign as king and the time of David’s reign as king and compare with the statement in 1 Kgs 6:1 for the time period from the Exodus to the beginning of the building of the temple under Solomon you may decide that the numbers just don’t add up. If that is the case, what conclusions can you draw? Could some numbers be round numbers or maybe symbolic? Could some judge’s terms be contemporaneous and not successive or chronological? If you look up the locations of the different judges (the CSB Study Bible has a map on page 365) you will note that their hometowns are located over most of Palestine. Does this help you in your explanation of these numbers?

Judges 6:25 reads, “On that very night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull and a second bull seven years old. Then tear down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”^[2] Worship of Baal and Asherah will plague Israel until God sends them into exile. But what was the appeal of these foreign gods? Within the Old Testament there is little to inform us about the worship of these deities. Also, there is little that archeologists have found in Canaan that give any significant information. But in 1929 excavations began at a location known as Ras Shamra or Ugarit. It was a city located about 70 miles southwest of Syrian Antioch where the church sent Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. It was north of the area we know as Canaan. Archeologists spent from 1929 to 1939 excavating the area but had to stop because of World War II. After the war in 1948 they began digging again and continued until 1976. What they found were thousands of clay tablets written in several languages and many in an unknown cuneiform script that became known as Ugaritic. In these Ugaritic cuneiform tablets once they were able to read them, they found information about the religion of the area including Canaan. The Hebrew word Asherah was determined to be the name of a Canaanite fertility goddess. Baal is also seen as a fertility god and a god of the thunderstorm. Some of the texts have Asherah as the mother of Baal others seem to say she is his consort. The Hebrew word Asherah can also refer to a wooden pole associated with her worship locations. It would seem that scholars are still learning from the Ugaritic texts. This can be easily seen by comparing Bible Dictionary articles on Asherah from dictionaries published in the twentieth century compared to dictionaries published more recently. If you don’t have an updated Bible Dictionary think about purchasing one as they can be a valuable resource to understanding Scripture.

^[1] Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

^[2] Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.