Conquest and Judges
- When
- c. 1200–1050 BC
- Written by
- Unknown; tradition names Samuel
- Chapters
- 21
The big idea
Israel falls into a cycle of sin, oppression, crying out and rescue. Each time God raises up a judge, but the people keep sliding further down.
Themes
- The cycle of sin
- Flawed leaders
- Life without a king
- God’s mercy in rescue
Memory verse
And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.
Key passages
- 2:11–19The cycle
- 4–5Deborah and Jael
- 6–8Gideon
- 13–16Samson
- 21:25Everyone did what was right in his own eyes
Links to other Scripture
- Hebrews 11:32–34The judges by faith
- 1 Samuel 8Israel asks for a king
- Romans 15:4Written for our learning
- Psalm 106:34–45The cycle remembered
Read the text
Choose a chapter to read it here in the King James Version. Verses with a dotted underline have notes from Bible scholars. Tap one to open them.
Notes from
Chapters
King James text and the commentaries of Henry, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Gill, Clarke, Calvin, and Keil and Delitzsch are in the public domain. Tyndale Open Study Notes are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license, from tyndaleopenresources.com. Texts were reformatted for this site.
Journal prompts
Keep a journal or notebook for your study. Write your answers there, in your own words.
- Where do you see Christ in this book?
- Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Where do you notice yourself doing that?
- The cycle in Judges repeats: forget, fall, cry out, be rescued. Which part of the cycle are you in?
- God used flawed people like Gideon and Samson. What do you think he might do with your weakness?
- In one sentence, this book is about…