W. Robert Godfrey

And when we look carefully at the book of Judges, not all scholars are agreed about this, but I'm convinced, and you know I'm always right, I'm convinced there are 12 judges in the book of Judges.

And I think this is very intentional on the author's part because 12 is an important number in the Old Testament, and it relates to the tribes of Israel.

It talks to the composition of God's people.

It talks about how God is relating to his people.

So I think in a certain sense, the book of Judges is saying, this is my dealing with my people as a whole in this time period through these 12 Judges.

But then when we look carefully, we discover that of the 12 judges, we're only told very much about six of them.

We might almost be tempted to say the other six are fillers.

Now, we should never say that about anything in the Bible.

Nothing is just a filler.

But we're really only told a verse or two about six of the judges.

So the first judge is Othniel, the son-in-law of Caleb.

We have a fair bit of information about Othniel, and then we have Ehud, who's always all children's favorite judge because he, you know, buries the sword in the flesh of the king, who is so fat that the sword disappears.

What a great story.

So we know something about Othniel, and then we have Ehud, and then we have one of the minor judges, Shamgar.

We know very little about Shamgar.

And then we move to Deborah.

And Deborah is, yeah, a judge about whom we know a great deal.

And years and years ago, I first got to thinking about the book of Judges and reading Hebrews because in the book of Hebrews, Barak is commended and Deborah is not mentioned.

Now, is this male chauvinism, leaving the women out?

Why is Barak mentioned and not Deborah?