In the Deuteronomistic historical work, the period of the Judges is set in relief against the history which precedes and follows it as an era when the emphasis is strongly on saving history. It begins with the death of Joshua in Jg. II. 6fE, and ends with Samuel’s farewell address in I Sam. XII (in the same way as the Deuteronomist also solemnly rounded off the previous era by means of Joshua’s speech in Josh.
XXIII).’ This is the frost place where we encounter this theology of history in all its stark individuality. To it and it alone are we indebted for the preservation of a great deal of the older traditional material belonging to this period. Of course, this school was not simply moti- vated by regard for old historical documents, but rather by its design l On I Sam. XII as the end of the Book of Judges see R. PfeifGr, Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd edn. New York 1948; p. 334; M. Noth, Uberl. St&en, pp. 5, 59f. For the theology of the Book of Judges see M. Buber, Kiinigtum Gotten, pp. I I ff. ;
E. Jenni, “ Vom Zeugnis des Richterbuches,” in Th. Z., 1956, pp. 257ff.
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to disclose that divine meaning of the events of the era which had in the interval become more clearly discernible. In so doing, it starts from the presupposition that the old narrative material already available is not in itself able to make sufficiently clear to an unaided reader what really took place between Jahweh and Israel; that is, the reader needs special theological guidance to enable him to come to an understand- ing of the sum total of this period in the saving history. How little the Deutcronomist believes in reading the old stories without commentary is shown by the weighty theological apparatus which he calls in, in order to weld the old documentary material together and interpret it.
Thus the Deuteronomistic Book of Judges gives the impression of great disharmony. The old stories, taken by themselves, very directly reflect the early period, which was still largely confused: as far as culture and the things of the mind go, they take us back to a bygone world and have a freshness and originality which can only belong to traditions deriving from a nation’s early days. Everything is specific and unique, and no one event is like another. In contrast, in the theological frame- work everything is concentrated reflexion, and reflexion which is always enquiring about what is general, typical for the time, and con- s tantl y recurring.
It would of course be a mistake to think that the old stories of the charismatic leaders give the facts with little or no reflcxion upon them.
This could only hold true at a pinch for the story of Ehud (Jg. III. I+zg). In actual fact, they too already give expression to a thoroughly distinctive conception of the events of the period; but this communi- cates itself to the reader indirectly through the course of events itself as they are given, while the Deuteronomistic theologian approaches him with his reflexions in expansive comments. These old stories originally commemorated political acts of deliverance effected by Jahweh through charismatic leaders and, at the same time, by means of a numinous panic which he caused to break out among the enemy.a Jahweh it was who rose up to protect his people in these holy wars, and the action which was decisive was his-the men of Israel “came to help him”
(Jg. v. 23). The story of Gideon’s war against the Midianites pushes this idea of the all-sufficiency of Jahweh’s action to the furthest possible extreme-Jahweh had given orders to reduce the number of the fight- ing men, and then he only stationed those left around about the enemy’s a The panic of the enemy which Jahweh brought about is depicted iu Jg. VII. d. ;
cf. Josh. x. ION'. ; Jg. IV. 15 ; I Sam. v. I I, WI. IO and frequently.
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camp; within the area in which Jahweh worked his deed they did not so much as set foot. The miracle came down from above, as it were into a vacuum-so rigorously does the narrator exclude the idea of any human co-operation. This is clearly the highly stylised idea of the event held by later generations, since in the actual old holy wars there is no doubt that the men of Israel too fought fiercely.8 This glorification of Jahweh’s acts of deliverance is not, however, the sole content of the stories. For-at least in the cases of Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson- we have to deal not with single narratives, but with little cells of grouped narrative units, so that already something like a history of the charis- matic leader in question is apparent. These histories (of Gideon, Jeph- thah, and Samson, and’we may without more ado take in that of Saul as well) show an almost typified falling gradient. The call is followed immediately by the public proof of the charisma effected by means of a victory over the enemy; but then the line curves steeply downwards.
The one who was a special instrument of Jahweh’s will in history falls into sin, degradation, or some other disaster.4 Thus these little narrative complexes already have as their background a defXte, pessimistic con- ception of the charismatic leader. But for a moment was he able, in virtue of his charisma, to rise above the limitations of his being, only then simply to get himself more deeply entangled in deadly chaos.
Behind these narratives lies, it would seem, the unspoken question, where is the one who serves his people as deliverer not merely on one occasion alone?
The old stories make it clear that the influence of each of these charismatic leaders was regionally very limited. Ehud was of Benjamin, Gideon of Manasseh, Barak of Naphtah, Jephthah of Gilead, and Sam- son of Dan. Seldom did more than the nearest neighbouring clans join the levy which followed their summons to arms. In contrast the Deuter-
* I described the alteration in ideas about Jahweh’s holy wars in Der heilige Krieg im alten Israel, 2nd edn., Ziirich 1952. What eharaeterises it is the increasingly radical exclusion of any co-operation firom the human side (“not with the sword, nor with the
bow,” Josh. XXIV. 12), a n d t h e e l a b o r a t i o n o’f o f t h e d i v i n e a c t i v i t y and the consequent demand for faith. Things have shifted to such an extent in the
story of David’s fight with Goliath that the real cuhninating point is no longer the miracle but rather David’s address to Israel ( S a m . XVII. 45-7), the aim of which is
“that this whole assembly shall know that Jahweh worketh victory not with sword and spear.”
* With Jephthah the victory over the outside enemy is followed by an internecine
X I I
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onomistic theology of history thinks of these men as wielding supreme
power over all Israel, a power which each is said to have exercised for a considerable number of years. 6 In keeping with this general extension of the judge’s territorial jurisdiction there is also a schematisation of the chronology. For a time Israel followed the judge; but after his death she fell away from Jahweh, and an interregnum ensued, during which Jahweh handed his eop ple over to their enemies for punishment. Then,
when they cried to him in their distress, he once again sent them a deliverer, and the cycle began all over again. It is of course a question whether, in this theological conception of history in the Book of Judges, Israel was not paying a dangerous tribute to the ancient East’s cyclical way of thinking.6 Surprise must be felt, too, that while Jahweh had worked in a wholly incalculable fashion in the old stories, his actions appearing now here and now there, and always in a different form, this action is pictured by the Deuteronomist as a rhythm, whose conformity with the divine law can be demonstrated. All these hesita- tions are justified. We have already seen, of course, how this theology of history seeks to make clear by means of old documents something which the traditional material does not of itself supply. But this does not free us from the task of grasping as clearly as possible this theo- 6 The summons of even the old charismatic leaders was certainly directed in prin- ciple to all Israel, and on that account the narrators quite often speak of “Israel”:
but the group of clans who thereafter really complied with the levy was neverthe- less always much smaller (G. von Rad, Der heilige Krieg im alten Israel, pp. zsff.).
The older traditions let this be seen clearly, while Deuteronomy from the very start takes its stand upon the idea that the judges had the whole of Israel at their back.
s Even the Old Sumerian historical legends know this alternation of times of good and times of bad: W. von Soden, in Die Welt als Geschichte, Stuttgart 1936, p. 452.
G. Ostbom has recently once again brought Israel’s conception of history into closer connexion with the cyclic thinking common throughout the Orient (G. ijstbom, Yahweh’s Words and Deeds, Uppsala Universitets hi&rift, Uppsala and Wiesbaden 1951, pp. 6off.). What is undoubtedly correct here is that in Israelite accounts as well ideas constantly crop up which derive from this mythical way of looking at things.
But there is no reference to the unresolvable tension which does exist between Jahweh’s unfettered guidance of history and ideas of any kind of a fixed pattern.
Furthermore, the question still remains whether one single nexus from a be#nning to an end entitles us to speak of a cyclic system; again, the references which Ostbom adduces are not able to bear the weight which he puts upon them, least of all those from Ecclesiastes, which are rather an argument against his thesis, for, as Ecclesiastes is unable to think in terms of the saving history, the return to cyclical ideas is per- fectly consistent (see below, p. 455).
.I
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logical concern of the Deuteronomist’s with history as it is given us.’
We must to begin with recognise that the Dcuteronomist set him- self, vi+h-vis the history, an incomparably more ambitious task than can be attributed to those narrative complexes which have just been mentioned. His concern is the totality of the history of Israel, the meaning and the content of a whole era in the eyes of God. So he is at pains fast and foremost to show the unity in this history. Although
it
appears to split up into a great number of more or less discomlectcd single events, still, in God’s eyes, it is a whole. This is what he implies by his curious schematisations and generalisations-it is with the whole of the people of God that Jahweh always deals. The Deuteronomist’s other desire is to show the serious threat under which Israel stood by reason of her own refractoriness and openness to the temptations of the nature religions, a thing which Jahweh can only counter by dire punishment. He also wishes to show, on the other hand, the infinite patience of Jahweh, which is seen in the continual raising up of new“WiOU13.“8 Here too the material presented is controlled by a doctrin- aire schematisation, for that cast-iron alternation of worship of Baa1
’ Unfortunately the question as to the sense in which these deliverers are called
“judges” is still not satisfactorily explained. The term does not occur in the older stories which the Deuteronomist took over: thus it is Deuteronomistic; but in what sense? The question why the Deuteronomist came to use just this term and no other has to some extent to be distinguished from the other question as to what specific meaning is to be attached to it. It is probably to be assumed that the term came to the Deuteronomist from somewhere in the tradition or &om concepts existing else- where. But even if the basis were to be found in the tradition about Jephthah, in the f&t that Jephthah also at the same time stood in the list of the so-called lesser judges (Jg. XII. 4, and that because of this the official title now passed over to the warlike cha&matic leaders as well (M. No& ifberl. St&w, pp. 49, g8), the question as to the meaning of this now Deuteronomistic title would still remain open. Grether has shown that, for the interpretation of the term, only the most natural meaning of
“judging,” “arbitrating,” “helping someone to get his due,” comes into question, and that therefore the once popular meaning of “ruling” is in particular ruled out (Z.A.W., 1939, pp. IIOE). But the question is, did the Deuteronomist imagine that
&arismatic leaders were also real judges? In view of the use of the term in I Sam. WI.
sf. for example, and of the length of time which the Deuteronomist attributes to these men’s periods of office, this possibility is questionable in the extreme. OII the other hand, only the meaning “to help to get what one is due” can be extracted from Jg. III. IO, for here the judging consists in a warlike act. In that case the judges would
be men whom Jahweh raised up in order through them to prove to his people his justice in history. Cf. also for this idea II Sam. xvm. rg, 3 I ; I Sam. xxrv. 16.
JJ For the expression
mm
see Jg. III. g, IS.332 T H E O L O G Y O F I S R A E L ’ S T R A D I T I O N S
and worship ofJahweh between which Israel-be it noted the whole of Israel-is said to have moved is absolutely inconceivable historically.
But by means of it the Dcuteronomist again expresses something that has great theological importance: every generation was confronted by Jahweh’s whole historical revelation both in judgment and in salvation.
It was not the case that one generation was subjected only to his wrath while the next was solely subjected to his will to save. It was rather that each generation experienced the whole Jahweh.
The Deuteronomistic picture of the Judges is thus a late literary reconstruction, for its whole idea of men ruling over all Israel for the rest of their lives and being her leaders in war cannot have come into being apart from the monarchy, which was of course historically 1ater.O Nevertheless, the later kingdom cannot simply be regarded as directly modelled upon the of&e of the judge, for this theology of history draws a sharp distinction between the two institutions, and in fact places them in direct opposition. In I Sam. XII. ION. especially, the two offices are weighed up against one another, and the balance comes down against the monarchy. For the Deuteronomist’s way of thinking, Israel stopped allowing Jahweh to bear rule over her when the monarchy came into being (Jg. VIII. 23), but to his mind the institution of the judges still left room for this sovereignty of Jahweh over Israel. How different the planes are on which the two offices lie is also seen from the fact that the Deuteronomist passes censure on the kings, but the judges are called directly by Jahweh, and so he does not criticise them. The real point at issue is Israel’s proper ordering under God’s rule, and it is understandable that the Book of Judges has been designated as the
“Plato’s Republic” of the Bible. lo The Deuteronomist clearly regards the office of the judge as the form of government most appropriate to Israel: it was a tragedy that she asserted her own autonomy over against Jahweh by means of her kings. In this clear preference for the amphic- tyonic organisation the Deuteronomist follows Deuteronomy, which 9 Most recently H. W. Hertzberg, Die Bikher Josua, Richter, Ruth (A.T.D.), G&in- gen 1933, p. 143. M. Buber (Kiinigtum Got&, pp. I&) is the one who most distinctly brought out the relationship of the Book ofJudges to the institution of the monarchy.
But his thesis that there were two Books of Judges, the one anti-monarchica and the other monarchical (the latter with the refrain which reveals its purpose in Jg. xvrr. 6, XIAI. I, xxx 25), out of which our present Book of Judges was put together, is, as he propounds it, untenable. Chs. XVII-XXI are only a later addition to the Deuteronomis- tic Book of Judges.
lo M. Buber, Kiinigtunr Gottes, p. 44.
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undertakes the ordering of Israel wholly on the model of the sacral people of God, that is, on the model of the old Amphictyony.ll
The oddest figure amongst the judges is Samson: the reader will indeed fmd it absolutely impossible to understand him as judge over Israel. He never has a militia behind him, but is always completely alone in his exploits. When it is said that he “judged Israel for twenty years” (Jg. XVI. 31b), the Deuteronomist’s schema completely departs from the traditional material which lay before it.12 A much more effective measure towards including the garland of the Samson stories in those of the Judges was a prefixing of the story of the call (Jg. XIII)
which took place much earlier.18 The basis of the stories about Samson is extremely old-they show us Dan still living in tents on the western slopes of the hill country of Judah, and involved in all manner of squabbles with the Philistines. In these quarrels, in which each party sought to outdo the other not only by force of arms but also by witticisms and practical jokes, a charismatic leader named Samson played a conspicuous part. But as has been said, everything gets a peculiar slant because of the story of the call which precedes the whole, as it were like an entrance hall. Very strong emphasis is laid on the call and the setting apart as a Nazirite, a special instrument which Jahweh intends to use. This prehistory of Samson’s life puts to the reader what is the real problem of the Samson story; for anyone who comes from the pious story of the call (with its mention of a manifestation of God, and of sacrifice and a vow) must be astounded by the whirlwind of very unspiritual adventures in which Samson gets lost. In particular, Samson showed great interest in women. He certainly inflicts many an injury on the Phihstines, but in the end he falls victim to them. Jahweh’s spirit departs Corn him, and the man who had formerly been a charis- matic leader had, blinded, to turn his enemies mill. The stories of Samson are told in such a way that, wonderfully endowed as he was with powers of spirit and body, he makes a very human appeal to the
l1 See above, p. 228.
l2 This complex of tradition betrays so little of the spirit of the Deuteronomist and of his conception of history that the whole of it has been envisaged as a later insertion.
M. Noth, Ifberl. Studien, p. 61.
l3 Eissfeldt is very probably correct in saying that, as far as literary criticism goes, ch. ~III camrot now be divorced from the block of stories in chs. XIV-XVI (Die Quellen des Richter&u&s, Leipzig 1925, pp. 81E). But in respect of the history of its matter and form, ch. xm stands by itself; it is basically a cultic legend, and not a story about Samson.