Among the various attempts that have been made to identify the structure of the book of Judges, one of the most useful, as well as influential, is that proposed by the late Professor David Gooding. In his important article “The Literary Composition of the Book of Judges,” Gooding outlines a convincing chiastic structure for the book.1 Although his approach includes the introduction (chapters 1 and 2) and the conclusion (chapters 17 to 21), and although a central element of the article is its forceful and compelling argument for the unity of the book of Judges, we will focus here on his analysis as it relates to the central section of the book.
In this section, Gooding argues, the narratives of the major characters are arranged so that the accounts in the second half mirror those in the first half, with each pair connected by shared concerns and motifs. So, for example, the opening account of Othniel, which focuses on the importance of his marriage, is echoed by the closing account of Samson’s career, a story in which relationships with women in general, as well as marriage in particular, loom large. Similarly, the account of Ehud in 3:12-30 is echoed by that of Jeph-thah in 10:6-12:7. Ehud’s deliverance of Israel begins with his bringing a message to Eglon, king of Moab, and culminates with his rallying the men of Ephraim and leading them in battle at the fords of Jordan. Jephthah’s mission, too, begins with a message to the King of Ammon and ends at the fords of Jordan, with the involvement, once again, of the men of Ephraim. The third narrative, of Barak and Deborah, is echoed by the sad story of Abimelech: both involve the slaying of a commander by a woman, both of whom employ unconventional weapons, and both of whom inflict head injuries.
Two things are notable, based on this analysis. The first is that in each of these pairs, “the second member presents a deterioration from, or a worse example of, the position presented by the first member.”2 Samson’s marital and sexual shenanigans stand in sad and striking contrast to the exemplary union between Othniel and Achsah. It is also interesting to note that Othniel is the only judge that we meet before he becomes a judge; we have already learned something of his quality before the LORD raises him up as a deliverer (3:9). By contrast, Samson is the only judge whose role is foretold before his birth. The implication seems to be that the nation is now so depleted that no one currently alive can be raised up to deliver God’s people; a deliverer, we might say, must be built from scratch. Ehud’s leadership of the men of Ephraim to victory at the fords of Jordan contrasts tragically with their slaughter at the hands of Jephthah at the same location. And the slaying of Sisera, a foreign commander, by Jael stands in contrast with the killing of Abimelech, an internal oppressor, by the woman of Shechem. This structure reinforces the fact that the story of Judges is not just a cyclical tale of departure and deliverance, but is also an account of deterioration – a downward spiral, not just a loop. “Judges is not, of course, relating a simplistic history in which everything before Gideon is good and everything after Gideon is bad”3 – the narrator of Judges is far too subtle and skilful to adopt such a simplistic approach. But the symmetry underscores the inexorable religious and political decline of the nation in the days when the judges ruled. This is further emphasised by the fact that the expression “the land had rest” (3:11,30; 5:31; 8:28)4 which punctuates the earlier section of the book does not appear again after the account of Gideon.
This last fact also serves to highlight the second important implication of this chiastic structure: the centrality of the Gideon narrative to the book as a whole. This is further confirmed by the length and scope of the account of his judgeship. Though his is not the longest account (one of the interesting features of Judges is the way in which the accounts of the major judges increase in length throughout the book), the amount of detail included about Gideon and his preparation for service mark a clear step-change from what has gone before. In addition, the changing moral trajectory of Gideon’s life, beginning with his delivering Israel from the consequences of their idolatry and ending with the construction of the golden ephod after which “all Israel went … a whoring” (8:27), seems to echo in miniature that of the book as a whole.
With all of this in mind, and the focus of the present series of articles, it is significant that family plays an important role in the account of Gideon’s life. In a unique way, he is linked with his family at the beginning and end of his story. At the beginning, Gideon is introduced as his father’s son: “There came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites” (6:11). At the end of his life, he is linked again with his father: “And Gideon the son of Joash died in a good old age, and was buried in the sepulchre of Joash his father, in Ophrah of the Abiezrites” (8:32). Between these bookends we get an unparalleled amount of information about Gideon’s family. Gideon tells the angel, “My family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (6:15). We hear more about his father and his Baal worship, and his intervention is important in saving Gideon from lynching (6:25,31). Later in the narrative, we will encounter – if only posthumously – Gideon’s brothers, “the sons of my mother” (8:19), who, we are told in a highly suggestive aside, were like Gideon in resembling “the children of a king” (8:18). In the same context, we encounter Jether, Gideon’s firstborn. As the Israelites ask Gideon to be their king, they will speak of his sons and his sons’ sons (8:23), with tragic irony, given the near-total extirpation of Gideon’s line as a result of Abimelech’s monarchical ambitions. And, at the end of his story, and again uniquely in the context of Judges, we are told of his seventy sons “of his body begotten” and of his “many wives” (8:30), and ominously of his son, “whose name he called Abimelech” (8:31 – Abimelech meaning ‘my father is king’). If the story of Gideon is central to the book of Judges, family is central to the story of Gideon. In the articles that follow we will seek to learn some very important – and very solemn – lessons from Gideon’s family life.
1 D.W. Gooding, “The Composition of the Book of Judges,” in B.A. Levine and A. Malamat (eds), Harry M. Orlinsky Volume (Eretz-Israel 16; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1982), 70-79. Gooding’s conclusions have not been universally accepted. For example, Gregory T.K. Wong, Compositional Strategy of the Book of Judges: An Inductive, Rhetorical Study (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 22, makes some legitimate criticisms (though these are in large measure motivated by a belief that the book should not be approached as “an integrated whole”).
2 Gooding, 74
3 Gooding, 74
4 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV.
