Judges: Beware of Women

The purpose of the paper is to introduce you to different women in the book of Judges and their story in relation to how God was using women in different ways than is normally assumed. These women are heroic, exploited, lovely, and sacrificial. Their stories are amazing and horrible and do not fall into the stereotypes of biblical women. Our Goal is to understand God’s purpose in giving us these stories, and how they are to fit into our understanding of God and there place in our lives.
The first lady is Achsah, who would be Caleb’s daughter. She is brought onto the scene by the announcement of her father to give her away to the one who defeats and captures Kiriath-sepher. This might seem like a horrible thing by our understanding of how things happen today, but this was actually rather normal for leaders to give their daughters away to other leaders, champions, heroes, etc. if nothing else, it insured that the giver’s daughter married a great man of some sort. So Othniel, Caleb’s younger brother, according to the text is the one who arose to the challenge, thus becoming Caleb’s brother and son-in-law. The Talmud argues that Othniel was Caleb’s stepbrother, while others argue still that Caleb and Othniel’s father were brothers, while I don’t care, because there seems like a little too much inbreeding back then anyway.
Achsah’s story is not over; Achsah encourages her new husband to get some land from her Father. It seems kind of odd that she asked her husband to ask Caleb for the land because she was the one who went and asked for it anyway, maybe she was just letting Othniel know what was going on, or she wanted him to think it was his idea. So she went to Caleb and he immediately knew she wanted something so he cut to the chase and asked what she wanted, so she said, “Give me a blessing since you gave me some land, oh and I want a natural spring to.” Caleb gave her a blessing and two springs instead, this seems like a really sweet story to me of the relationship between a father and daughter, it reminds of the verse that says if a father is happy to give his children gifts, how much greater it is for your heavenly Father to give to His children.
In Judges 4 and 5 the story of the Judge of Israel Deborah unfolds, she is introduced to us as the Judge during a time of oppression for Israel, because of their wickedness. Deborah got her experience from being the go to person for advice while she was in Ephraim, the text actually says that she sat under a tree and people came to her to get judgment calls.
By the way, Deborah is also referred to as a prophetess, which probably explains why the first thing the text tells us she did was tell someone what God wanted them to do. She summoned a man by the name of Barak from Kadesh-Naphtali and told him, "Behold, the LORD, the God of Israel, has commanded, 'Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun. 'I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand.'" I love Barak’s response to this, maybe because like I said earlier I think we have an off impression of how God views women, but his response is basically, “I’m not going, unless you go with me” so she does. Deborah goes on to tell him that though God will use him to help gain a victory for Israel, the victory will not be his, but a women’s.
So through some semi-elaborate plan the Canaanites were drawn out, and beaten, chased down, and beaten again, and everyone died, except their commander Sisera, who got away. Sisera fled on foot to some woman’s tent by the name of Jael. Sisera thought he would be safe because these people had the same allies as his people. So Jael fed him and took care of him, and then he took a nap, and while he was napping Jael ran and got a hammer and nailed his head to the floor, so he died. Barak showed up some time later from tracking Sisera, and when Jael saw him she told him that she knew where Sisera was, and then she took him to where he was. Which is exactly what was prophesied by Deborah.
The next woman in Judges is unnamed, but her role is not. The story is about a man by the name of Abimelech who was not nice. Abimelech was the son of Gideon, and he had 70 brothers, Abimelech thought that he should be ruler rather than all 70, so he devised a plan and killed them all except one, and then became ruler. The thing was that Abimelech did not have a rightful claim to that position since his mother was a concubine. As the story goes Abimelech terrorized the people and the land going to and fro destroying everything in his path.
Abimelech reigned three years and near the end he and his men entered into a campaign to take the city of Shechem. During the fighting, a woman through a millstone down onto Abimelech’s head, thus crushing his skull. Abimelech had the presence of mind to ask his armor barer to stab him so that it would not be said that Abimelech was killed by a woman, so he did. Unfortunately for Abimelech we know the real story which is that he was in fact killed by a woman, loser.
The fourth woman is probably actually a girl, a daughter to be more precise. Her story comes out by way of a man named Jephthah. Like other men in Judges who find their life intertwined with “the women” of Judges, he is a valiant warrior, and also the son of a harlot, which seemed important back then. So important that Jephthah’s step brothers kicked him out of the house of their father once they were old enough to do so. So Jephthah went and hung out with a rough group until one day the house of his father called him back to become their leader in a defensive against the Ammonites. Jephthah responded as pretty much anyone would, and said, “first you kick me out, and now you want me to lead you?” and they said, “yeah, sorry about that.” So Jephthah started corresponding with King of Ammon as the leader of the army of Israel to try and reconcile the issue. Jephthah plead his case and the King of Ammon decided he wanted to attack the people and take their land anyway, so he did.
The Lord had blessed Jephthah in battle and on the eve of fighting the Ammonites he vowed to the Lord to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house upon his return home, if God would give them the victory. God did give them the victory, and the first thing out of Jephthah’s house was his daughter, oops! So Jephthah gave her some time, and then he killed her, but she was commemorated after that. Someone else noted that it is interesting that in the beginning of Judges we see Caleb blessing his daughter and near the end we see Jephthah cursing his.
Then we have the story of Samson and his many foreign women that led him further from God, and then finally his penultimate demise was brought about by Delilah. Delilah sold out Samson for a few bucks, while Samson sold himself out for some sex, and God used this.
Our final women in Judges is introduced by the unfortunately common and boding phrase, “Now it came about in those days, when there was no king in Israel…” the story of this last girl is tragic, she was the concubine of a Levite (whats up with that?). So the Levite and his harlot were traveling and at nightfall they had to make a decision as to where to stay. They decided it would be better to stay with people of their own country than with foreigners, so they stayed in a territory owned by the Benjamites, in an old man’s house. Later that night some of the men of the city came to the house and requested that the Levite come out so that they may sodomize him, he said no thank you, but you can use my concubine, so they did, all night. When the Levite awoke he found the girl dead at the foot of the door, so he threw her on his donkey and continued on his journey. When he got home he cut her up into 12 pieces and sent them to the twelve tribes of Israel. The men of Israel decided that they should kill all the Benjamites, and whatever Benjamite was not killed would not be able to copulate with any of the other tribes ever, thus ending their existence. So Israel killed 25,000 Benjamites, leaving only 600 to hide out in the rocks. Well Israel felt kind of bad about that, and they thought it would be a shame to have only 11 tribes, so they went to a nearby city and killed everyone who was not a virgin, and then kidnapped the remaining 400 virgins to give to the Benjamites. But they men in charge of Israel’s fighting men felt bad because there were 600 Benjamites and only 400 virgins – do the math. So they told the Benjamites about a party in Israel were all these virgins were hanging out so that they could go kidnap them and make them the mothers of their children, and they did. Thus the tribe of Benjamin was saved.
As you can see from the book of Judges the role women play is varied they are heroes sometimes, mail other times, and sometimes they are just wombs. I have to admit Judges leaves me a little ill, and by a little I mean violently and deathly. I suppose it is good to note that when these wicked things were perpetrated on the women, it was because, “Israel did what was right, in their own eyes” rather than follow God. I appreciate that while amidst the wretchedness of Isreal’s men, there were wise and godly women who led Israel to victories, and who followed God.
There is more to note, and that is that God does whatever He wants, and uses whomever He wants. God does not fall into a system or a theology, He is not predictable, but He is consistent with His nature. I walk away from Judges thinking that all there is to do is serve God, and beg Him to sustain me through whatever trial He leads me through.