《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – Judges (Vol. 1)》(Johann P. Lange)
Commentator
Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer).
Introduction
THE
BOOK OF JUDGES
by
PAULUS CASSEL, D.D.
professor in berlin.
translated from the german, with additions
by
P.H. STEENSTRA
professor of biblical literature in the protestant episcopal divinity school at cambridge, mass.
THE BOOK OF JUDGES
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INTRODUCTION
§ 1. Contents and Plan
1. The Book of Judges is in a special sense the first historical book of Israel. It does not, like the Book of Joshua, relate the deeds of one Prayer of Manasseh, nor does it, like the last four books of Moses, revolve around the commanding figure and lofty wisdom of a prophet. To a certain extent, this book also is a Genesis. The first book of the Pentateuch describes the opening period of the primitive patriarchal family; the Book of Judges relates the earliest history of the people of Israel in Canaan. “The children of Israel asked the Lord,” is its opening sentence. It rehearses the fortunes, deeds, and sufferings of the people, as they occurred after the death of Joshua. For this personage was only the testamentary executor of the prophet who remained behind on the other side of the Jordan (cf. on Judges 1:1). When he also died, Israel, the heir, deprived both of the authoritative direction of Moses and the executive guidance of Joshua, entered upon the independent management of its acquired possession. The Book of Joshua is the history of a conqueror; the Book of Judges that of a people for the first time in possession. Hitherto, Israel had always been in a condition of unrest and movement, first enslaved, then wandering in the desert, finally undergoing the hardships of the camp and conquest; the Book of Judges exhibits the nation in the first period of its life as a settled, possessing, and peaceable people. Hitherto, the nation, like a minor, had been authoritatively directed by its guardian and friend; the Book of Judges opens at the moment in which the people itself is to assume the administration of its affairs in accordance with the sacerdotal and civil constitution which has been framed for it. This is indicated, from various points of view, by the name which our Book bears in the Canon: Shophetim, Judges. The same title is borne by the Synagogue pericope which begins, at Deuteronomy 16:18, with the command, “Thou shalt make thee Judges (Shophetim) in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Since Moses no longer exercised his legislative, nor Joshua his executive functions, these Shophetim constituted the highest civil authority (cf. on Judges 2:16), who in conjunction with the priesthood, were to watch over the observance of the law. The Book of Judges, accordingly, recounts the history of the times, after the death of Joshua, in which the governing authority in Israel was to be exercised by the Shophetim.
2. The Biblical books are throughout books of instruction. For this purpose, and this alone, were they written. Their design is to show the relations, first of God, and through God of Israel, to history. In their view, all history, and that of Israel especially, is a continuous fulfillment of the truth and purposes of God. The achievements and the fortunes of all nations are the consequences of their moral relations to God. But the preëminence of Israel consists in this, that the God of nature and of time was first revealed to it, and that in the Law which it received from Him, it has a clear and definite rule by which it can order its relations to God and know the moral grounds of whatever befalls it. Upon the observance of this law, as the evidence and expression of faith in the living God, the freedom, well-being, and peace of Israel repose. This had been made known to the people, before under Joshua’s direction they left the desert and addressed themselves to the conquest of Canaan. If after victory, they shall observe the law, and be mindful of their calling to be a holy People of God, prosperity will follow them; if not, they shall fall into bondage, poverty, and discord ( Deuteronomy 7:1 ff.). The Book of Judges is a text-book of fulfillment to this prediction. The twenty-one sections of which it consists are organically put together for this purpose. It may, indeed, be said that there are three principal divisions recognizable: first, Judges 1, 2; secondly, Judges 3-16; thirdly, Judges 17-21. But the lessons which these three divisions respectively contain, evince precisely the organic connection in which the whole narrative stands with all its parts, as the necessary fulfillment of what was promised in the law. The first two chapters are a pragmatic introduction to the history of the book as a whole. They explain the possibility of the events about to be related. Not in the history of Joshua could the germs of the subsequent conflicts lie; for Joshua stood in the spirit of the law, and moved in the steps of Moses. It was only in what the tribes did after his death, that their foundation was laid. Accordingly, when Judges 1relates the prosecution of the conquest by Israel, its main object in so doing is not to tell what was conquered and how, but rather to show that in violation of the Mosaic command the tribes failed to expel the Canaanites. In consequence of this failure, the forewarnings of the law ( Deuteronomy 7) went into fulfillment. Peace endured only so long as the elders yet lived who remembered all the great works that were done for Israel at their entrance into Canaan ( Joshua 24:31). The younger generation soon fell into the snares of temptation, and consequently into spiritual and political servitude. In distress, indeed, they sought after God, and then heroes rose up among them, who were truly their Judges, and who, acting in the spirit of God, regained their liberty. Their deeds are reported in Judges 3-16. But the root of the evil was not thereby removed. Heathenism continued to exist in the bosom of Israel. The occasion of apostasy afforded by the idolatry of the Canaanites was permanent, but the institution of the judgeship was transient. The service of Baal perpetuated itself from generation to generation; but the strength and energy of the Judge expired with the person in whom they dwelt. So also all those judges whom according to the law Israel was to elect for the administration of its local affairs ( Deuteronomy 16:18 f.), were invested with merely personal, not hereditary, dignity. The permanent evil was not confronted with any equally permanent institution. To this fact Judges 2already alludes; for it says, Deuteronomy 16:19, that “when the Judge was dead, they turned back.”
3. In consequence of this, the Book of Judges is the book of fulfillment from yet another point of view. It teaches that by reason of the fact just alluded to, the hereditary kingly office had to be set up. In Deuteronomy ( Judges 16:18 f.), the institution of Judges in all the gates of Israel is immediately followed by this provision ( Deuteronomy 17:14 ff.): “When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me, then shalt thou set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose.” The Book of Judges shows that this result was unavoidable. The government of the Judges, it points out already in Judges 2, has no traditional strength. The authority of the greatest among them ceases when he dies. Each one of the great heroes who are portrayed from Judges 3onward, affords proof of the want of the hereditary kingly office, albeit in different ways. When Othniel died, no second hero of Judah was forthcoming to restrain Israel from sin. Ehud was a deliverer ( Judges 3), but he is not even called a Judge. After him, the work of delivering and judging devolved on a woman, and Barak was willing to fight only if she went with him ( Judges 4, 5). Gideon became inspired with courage only through great wonders on the part of God ( Judges 6); and however pious and great, he himself occasioned confusion in Israel ( Judges 8:27). Jephthah had no legal descent of any kind. Samson was an incomparable hero; but he fought single-handed, without a people to support him.
The Judges were indeed deliverers; but their authority was not recognized throughout all Israel. The call of Deborah was answered by only two tribes. Gideon’s leadership was at first opposed by Ephraim. Jephthah fell into sanguinary discord with the same tribe. Samson was bound to be delivered up to the Philistines by the terror-stricken tribe of Judah itself.
The judgeship did not even maintain itself within the same tribe. Of the six principal heroes, three belonged to the south,—Othniel, Ehud, Samson,—and three to the north,—Barak, Gideon, Jephthah; none to Ephraim, the tribe of Joshua, and two to Manasseh.
The title of the hero was Shophet, Judge. But judges there were always. In every tribe, the judge was the local magistrate. The hero who rose up to conquer bore no new title. And his authority was merely the authority of the common Shophet territorially extended by virtue of his mighty deeds. But whatever unity he might have formed during his activity, dissolved itself at his death. The tribes then stood again under their separate Shophetim. Permanent organic connection could be secured only through a king. Without this common and permanent centre, the interests of the several tribes diverged, and each section became indifferent to whatever occurred in the others. National interest decayed, and with it, of course, national strength. The narratives of Judges 17-21form, it is true, a division by themselves, but a division that stands in organic connection with the whole Book. The events there related do not follow after the last judge of whom Judges 16 speaks. They belong to much earlier times, and yet the position assigned them is well considered and instructive. They demonstrate by new and striking illustrations the necessity of the kingly office to strengthen Israel, within and without, over against the existing idolatry, which could maintain itself only by reason of the divisions and want of unity between the tribes of Israel. The events of these last five chapters do not seem to have occurred under the tyranny of any hostile king. So much the more strikingly do they set forth the weakness of the form of government which Israel had at that time,—a weakness which, to be sure, had its ultimate ground in the weakness of the people itself. They show the decay both of religion among the people and of the priesthood. The first two of these chapters (17,18) teach us what sins in spiritual matters and what deeds of civil violence were possible in Israel, without causing the whole nation to rise in remonstrance. The last two show the reverse of this, namely, the fanaticism of self-righteousness with which the whole people proceeded against one of the brotherhood of tribes, reducing it even to the verge of extinction. Both kinds of sins were possible only because the hereditary, general, and authoritative kingly office was wanting, which everywhere interposes with the same comprehensiveness of view, because it everywhere governs with the same strength. For that reason the narrator several times adds the remark ( Judges 17:6; Judges 18:1; Judges 19:1): “There was no king in Israel.” It is the last sentence he writes: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” But the whole Book points to this conclusion. It is the essence of its special teaching. It is that which makes its title doubly significant. The civil authority of the Shophetim would have sufficed, if Israel had been obedient, and had not retained the Canaanites in its borders. As it was not obedient, it needed extraordinary Shophetim to effect its deliverance. But their sporadic activity could not prevail against a permanent evil. This the concentrated strength of the kingly office alone could overcome; just as, according to the gospel, every evil to which the children of men were subject, has been dissolved by the true kingship of the Son of God.
§ 2. Time of Composition
The doctrinal tendency which we thus perceive in the Book is of great importance; for it undoubtedly furnishes a clew to the time in which it was edited. The idea of explaining the possibility of such events as are related in Judges 17-21by the remark, “There was no king in Israel,” could be entertained only at a time when perfect political unity and order were still expected to result from the kingly office. No such explanation could have been appended to the account of Micah in Judges 17, if the division of Israel, and the institution of Jeroboam’s political idolatry, had already taken place. After the reigns of various sinful kings of Judah and Israel had become matters of history, and after the rebellion against David and the sanguinary conflicts between Judah and Israel had taken place, the want of a king could not have been offered in explanation of the civil war between Israel and Benjamin. This could only be done while people yet looked with confidence to the kingly office for certain victory without, and divine peace and order within. On the other hand, the prominence with which the lack of hereditariness in the judgeship, and the want of any guaranty against apostasy are set forth, is explainable only if done at a time when the judicial office had ceased to inspire confidence. There is but one period in the history of Israel in which both these conditions meet, namely, when the people desired a king from Samuel, and he consecrated Saul, and the victories of the latter afforded peace within and without. The Book might be called a text-book for the people, collected and written to instruct and establish them in the new kingly government.