Summary of Judges

Chapter by Chapter:

The Book of Judges takes off where Joshua left off. The Israelites are in the Promised Land, but haven’t completed the job of getting land for each of the 12 tribes.

The Book of Judges is filled with famous stories of Gideon and the story of Samson and Delilah. But most of the book, to me represents the downfall of the Israelites. For example, chapters 19-21 are probably some of the most gruesome parts of the Old Testament and probably the whole Bible.

After the death of Joshua it seems that the younger generations of Israel start to go away from God and start to do things that were contrary to the will of God. The younger Israelites intermarry with the Canaanite women and start to worship false gods. The Lord places a series of Judges to rule over the land as leaders for the people. Judges follows a pattern of Israel being evil and then when the Judge of the land die, they once again get evil, and more so.

The last verse in the Book, really does sum up the Book of Judges; “…every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). Because of this we have mass corruption and evil invading the hearts of Israel.