W. Robert Godfrey

It's not telling us the whole history.

It's a series of family snapshots from around Israel because each of the judges is largely regional.

They're not ruling the whole country.

They're leading a section of the country usually.

So if you want a history of Israel in every detail, Judges is not the book for you.

And that immediately alerts us to the fact it's obviously not what God intended.

God is not giving us an encyclopedia full of interesting tidbits, which is the way you eventually ruin people's interest in history.

Endless tidbits that have no meaning or connection.

Rather, he's offering us a series of snapshots to show the decline of Israel spiritually.

And that decline, that picture of decline, you know, be like us getting snapshots out of our family album, and I could give you a snapshot of me when I was

too.

And I was really adorable.

My mother tells me that.

And so and then I could have a snapshot when I was, you know, a teenager, not looking so good.

And then, you know, when I was 30, better.

And then

you know, 70, you know, who is that old guy?

And so that's a little bit of what we're seeing here, the spiritual decline, the spiritual suffering, the growing suffering of Israel.

And that's part of what the minor judges show us.

Because when we look at the little we are told about the minor judges, what we discover is they're ruling a shorter and shorter period.