W. Robert Godfrey

So the faithful judges rule 40 years, and then it gets shorter and shorter.

The last three minor judges each are ruling less than 10 years.

You see, this is decline.

they're not experiencing the blessing of the Lord.

They're not experiencing the longevity with which God had blessed the judges earlier.

And then we also see their families are shrinking.

This is another sign of the Lord's judgment.

They're having fewer and fewer children.

Children were a sign of the blessing of the Lord in the Old Covenant, and that's shrinking away.

And this does help us understand Jephthah.

You see, Gideon had many children.

Jephthah had one daughter, and he killed her.

That's

Spiritual decline, you see.

And Samson had no children and killed himself.

So this is the pattern of spiritual decline that we're going to see here in the book of Judges.

And all of this, you see, is very intentional.

But if you don't see the big picture, you might not notice that.

And you might say, well, why is this crazy Samson in this story?

He does one bad thing after another.