W. Robert Godfrey

You got to stay at it.

And Gideon is that transition point.

Then after Gideon, we have a lot of talk about his son Abimelech.

But I don't think Abimelech is a judge either.

He's a kind of anti-judge, contrasted with the true judges of Israel.

Abimelech, you remember, has a Hebrew name, means, my father is king.

Now, Abimelech presumably didn't name himself.

Maybe this was Gideon's pride.

But Abimelech certainly lived as if his father had been king, and he was now.

And what God was saying is, you're not king, and you're a danger to your people.

So,

Gideon's a very important judge.

And then we have Tola and Jair.

Not important.

You can write them down if you want, but they're not important.

And then we come to Jephthah.

Now we can spend a lot of time and have a lot of interesting discussion of Jephthah.

Jephthah's the only person in the Old Testament that I can think of, at least, among the people of God who offered a human sacrifice.

And this has mystified many people.

I can explain it to you, but I don't know if I have time.