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Old Testament · Historical narrative

The Book of Judges: Author, Context and Complete Study

Judges tells the story of Israel between the death of Joshua and the rise of the monarchy, when the tribes kept abandoning the Lord for the gods of Canaan. Each time oppression came, God raised up deliverers such as Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson, yet the nation sank ever deeper into moral chaos.

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What is Judges about?

Judges is about Israel's downward spiral in the promised land after Joshua's death, roughly the three centuries before the first king. The book follows a repeated cycle: Israel worships the Baals, God hands them over to oppressors, the people cry out, and God raises up a judge, a military deliverer, who saves them until the next relapse (2:11-19). Twelve judges appear, including Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson, and the book ends with two dark stories that show what happens when everyone does what is right in his own eyes (21:25).

Author
The book does not name its author. Jewish tradition (the Talmud) attributes it to Samuel; the refrain that Israel had no king suggests it took shape early in the monarchy.
Date
Likely early monarchy, c. 1000 BC; events c. 1375-1050 BC (early exodus date) or c. 1200-1050 BC (late date).
First readers
Israelites living under the first kings, who needed to understand why the tribal period ended in chaos and why the nation needed a faithful king to lead it back to the Lord.
Genre
Historical narrative
Chapters
21 chapters
Key verse
Judges 21:25

Historical context

Judges picks up after the death of Joshua (2:8), when the twelve tribes had settled in their allotted territories but had not driven out many Canaanite cities (1:19-36). Israel had no capital, no king and no standing army; each tribe looked after itself, and the only shared center was the tabernacle at Shiloh (18:31). The period falls in the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Egypt's grip on Canaan was weakening, and in the early twelfth century BC the Philistines, part of the so-called Sea Peoples, settled on the southern coast and became Israel's most persistent enemy by the time of Samson (13:1).

The oppressors are named precisely: Cushan-rishathaim of Mesopotamia, Eglon of Moab allied with Ammon and Amalek, Jabin of Hazor with his commander Sisera and 900 iron chariots, the Midianites with their camel raiders, the Ammonites and the Philistines. The greater danger, though, was religious. Canaanite religion centered on Baal, the storm god believed to send rain, and on goddesses such as Asherah and Astarte (the Ashtaroth of 2:13). For farmers who depended on rain, the pull to honor these gods alongside the Lord was constant, and intermarriage with the peoples of the land made it stronger (3:5-6).

Geographical context

Almost all of Judges takes place in Canaan on both sides of the Jordan, and the stories move around the tribes: Othniel in Judah; Ehud in Benjamin near Jericho, the city of palms (3:13); Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim (4:5); the battle near Mount Tabor and the Kishon River in the Jezreel Valley; Gideon at Ophrah in Manasseh facing the Midianite camp; Jephthah in Gilead east of the Jordan; and Samson in the borderland between Dan and the Philistine plain, from Zorah and Timnah to Gaza.

Geography explains much of the conflict. Israel held the hill country, while the Canaanites controlled the plains, where chariots were effective (1:19). The Jezreel Valley, a natural corridor between the coast and the Jordan, suffered repeated invasions. The tribe of Dan, unable to hold its land near the coast, migrated to the far north, took Laish and renamed it Dan (18:27-29), which is why the phrase from Dan to Beersheba came to mean the whole land (20:1).

Why does the book of Judges exist?

Judges explains how Israel went from the faithful generation of Joshua to the chaos that made the people ask for a king. It answers a painful question: if the Lord gave Israel the land, why did they live under oppression and civil war? The answer is not God's failure but Israel's: they did not finish obeying, they intermarried with the Canaanites, served their gods, and each generation forgot what the Lord had done (2:10-13). The book shows that judgment is real, but so is mercy: again and again God hears the groaning of his people and raises up a deliverer (2:18).

The book also prepares for the monarchy. Its refrain, in those days there was no king in Israel (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25), points beyond tribal heroes to the need for a king who would lead the nation in faithfulness, a hope fulfilled in part by David and fully in Christ. Even the judges decline: Othniel is spotless, Gideon ends with an idol, Jephthah makes a rash vow and Samson lives for his own desires. Judges offers a sober portrait of human nature: deliverers can save for a time, but only God can change the heart.

Outline of Judges

  1. Chapters 1-2

    Incomplete conquest and the cycle of apostasy

    Judah and Simeon fight successfully, but tribe after tribe fails to drive out the Canaanites (1:19-36). The angel of the Lord rebukes Israel at Bochim, a new generation forgets the Lord, and the pattern of sin, oppression, crying out and deliverance is laid out (2:11-19).

  2. Chapters 3-5

    Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and Barak

    After the nations left to test Israel (3:1-6), Othniel defeats Cushan-rishathaim, left-handed Ehud kills Eglon of Moab and Shamgar strikes the Philistines. Deborah and Barak defeat Sisera, Jael kills him in her tent, and chapter 5 celebrates the victory in song.

  3. Chapters 6-9

    Gideon and Abimelech

    The Lord calls fearful Gideon to deliver Israel from Midian. With only 300 men, trumpets, jars and torches he routs a vast army and refuses to be king, but his ephod becomes a snare. His son Abimelech murders his brothers and rules three years until a millstone ends his life.

  4. Chapters 10-12

    Tola, Jair, Jephthah and the minor judges

    Tola and Jair judge quietly. Idolatry brings Ammonite oppression, and the outcast Jephthah leads Gilead to victory but makes a tragic vow concerning his daughter. A clash with Ephraim (the Shibboleth test) follows, then the judges Ibzan, Elon and Abdon.

  5. Chapters 13-16

    Samson

    An angel announces Samson's birth to a barren woman of Dan; the boy is to be a Nazirite. Strong but undisciplined, Samson fights the Philistines through personal feuds, is betrayed by Delilah, blinded and imprisoned, and dies bringing down the temple of Dagon on the Philistine lords.

  6. Chapters 17-18

    Micah's idol and the migration of Dan

    Micah, a man from the hill country of Ephraim, sets up a household shrine with an idol and hires a Levite as his priest. The tribe of Dan steals both, conquers peaceful Laish in the north and establishes a rival worship center there.

  7. Chapters 19-21

    The crime at Gibeah and civil war

    A Levite's concubine is abused and dies in Gibeah of Benjamin. The other tribes go to war against Benjamin until it is nearly wiped out, then secure wives for the survivors by violent means. The book closes: there was no king, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Famous passages in Judges

  • Judges 2:11-19

    The cycle of sin and deliverance

    This paragraph is the key to the whole book. Israel serves the Baals, the Lord gives them over to plunderers, the people groan under oppression, and he raises up judges who save them; when the judge dies, they turn back and act worse than their fathers. Teachers use it to read every later story as one more turn of the cycle.

    Study Judges 2 →

  • Judges 4:4-22

    Deborah, Barak and Jael

    Deborah, a prophetess judging Israel under a palm tree, summons Barak to face Sisera's 900 iron chariots. Barak will not go without her, so the honor of the victory goes to a woman: Jael, who kills the fleeing general with a tent peg. It is famous as the story of two courageous women in a man's war.

    Study Judges 4 →

  • Judges 6:11-24

    The call of Gideon

    The angel of the Lord finds Gideon threshing wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites and greets him as a mighty man of valor. Gideon protests that his clan is the weakest in Manasseh, asks for a sign and builds an altar he names The Lord Is Peace. It shows God choosing the unlikely.

    Study Judges 6 →

  • Judges 6:36-40

    Gideon's fleece

    Gideon asks God to confirm his promise with dew on a fleece while the ground stays dry, then the reverse, and God graciously does both. The scene gave us the expression putting out a fleece. Many readers note that it reflects Gideon's hesitation more than a model for decisions, since God had already spoken clearly.

    Study Judges 6 →

  • Judges 7:2-22

    Gideon's three hundred

    God reduces Gideon's army from 32,000 to 300 men so that Israel cannot boast that its own hand saved it (7:2). At night the 300 blow trumpets, smash jars, raise torches and shout, and the Midianite camp turns on itself. It is the classic picture of a victory that belongs to the Lord.

    Study Judges 7 →

  • Judges 11:29-40

    Jephthah's vow

    Before battle with the Ammonites, Jephthah vows to offer whatever comes out of his house to meet him when he returns. His only daughter comes out dancing with tambourines. The story is famous and troubling, a warning against rash vows, and readers still debate whether he sacrificed her or dedicated her to lifelong virginity.

    Study Judges 11 →

  • Judges 16:4-31

    Samson and Delilah

    The Philistine lords pay Delilah to discover the secret of Samson's strength. After three false answers he tells her about his uncut hair; he is shaved, captured, blinded and set to grind grain in Gaza. In the temple of Dagon he prays once more and pulls down the pillars, killing more at his death than in his life.

    Study Judges 16 →

Main themes

The cycle of sin and grace
Judges repeats a pattern: Israel does evil, God hands them to oppressors, they cry out, he sends a deliverer, the land rests, and then they relapse. Each turn spirals lower (2:19). Sin is not one isolated slip but a drift that every generation must resist.
No king in Israel
The refrain that there was no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes (17:6; 21:25) diagnoses the problem: without faithful leadership under God, each person becomes his own standard. It prepares the way for David and ultimately for Christ, the righteous King.
God uses weak and flawed people
A left-handed man, a woman under a palm tree, a farmer hiding in a winepress, an outcast son and a reckless strongman: God saves through unexpected instruments, often by his Spirit (3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 14:6). Their flaws are not hidden, so the glory goes to the Lord.
Compromise with the culture
Israel's trouble starts with half-hearted obedience: Canaanite cities left standing, intermarriage and the worship of Baal and Asherah (3:5-6). By the end, an Israelite town behaves like Sodom (19:22-25). The book warns that tolerated idols eventually shape a people.
The faithfulness of God
Even when Israel is unfaithful, the Lord does not abandon his covenant. He is moved to pity by their groaning (2:18), can no longer bear their misery (10:16) and fights for them in battle (4:15; 7:22). Judges is finally a story about God's patience.

Main characters

Othniel
Son of Kenaz and Caleb's younger brother (1:13). He captures Kiriath-sepher and, empowered by the Spirit of the Lord, delivers Israel from Cushan-rishathaim (3:9-11). He is the model judge, with no recorded failure.
Ehud
A left-handed Benjamite who delivers Israel from Eglon, king of Moab. He hides a short sword on his right thigh, kills the king in private and leads Israel to a victory followed by eighty years of rest (3:15-30).
Deborah
A prophetess who judged Israel under the palm of Deborah in Ephraim (4:4-5). She summons Barak, goes with him to battle and sings the victory song of chapter 5. She is the only woman among the judges.
Barak
Son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali. He leads 10,000 men against Sisera but insists that Deborah go with him (4:8). Hebrews 11:32 still lists him among the heroes of faith.
Jael
Wife of Heber the Kenite. When Sisera flees to her tent, she gives him milk, covers him and kills him with a tent peg (4:17-21). Deborah's song calls her most blessed of women (5:24).
Gideon
Also called Jerubbaal (6:32). A fearful farmer of the clan of Abiezer whom God turns into the deliverer from Midian. He refuses the crown, saying the Lord will rule (8:23), but his golden ephod becomes a snare for Israel (8:27).
Abimelech
Gideon's son by a concubine in Shechem. He kills seventy brothers to become king, rules three years and dies when a woman drops a millstone on his head at Thebez (9:53). He is a warning about grasping for power.
Jephthah
A Gileadite warrior, son of a prostitute, driven out by his brothers and later recalled to fight Ammon. He wins, but his rash vow costs him his only daughter (11:30-39), and he then fights a bloody war with Ephraim.
Samson
A Nazirite from Dan with extraordinary strength from the Spirit of the Lord. Ruled by his desires, he fights the Philistines through private revenge, is betrayed by Delilah and dies destroying the temple of Dagon (16:30). He judged Israel twenty years.
Delilah
A woman of the Valley of Sorek whom Samson loved. Bribed by the Philistine lords with 1,100 pieces of silver each, she persists until he reveals the secret of his strength (16:4-21). The text never says she was a Philistine.

In-depth study of Judges

Introduction

Judges covers the stretch of Israel's history between the death of Joshua and the rise of the monarchy, roughly three centuries in which the tribes lived in the promised land without a king.

Read one by one, these stories can sound like adventure tales. Read together, they tell a sobering story of decline. The book begins with Israel asking the Lord who should lead the fight against the Canaanites (1:1) and ends with Israelites fighting one another and seizing wives for a nearly destroyed tribe (21:19-23). In between, the same pattern repeats: Israel forgets the Lord, suffers under oppressors, cries out and is rescued, then forgets again.

Judges is honest about human sin, yet above all it is a book about God's patience. The Lord keeps hearing his people's groaning and keeps sending deliverers. Its closing refrain, that there was no king and everyone did what was right in his own eyes (21:25), leaves the reader longing for a faithful king.

Who wrote Judges and when?

The book does not name its author. The Talmud (Bava Batra 14b) attributes Judges to Samuel, and many evangelical scholars consider that possible, at least for the core of the book. The text itself offers several clues:

  • The refrain in those days there was no king in Israel (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) looks back from a time when Israel did have a king.
  • Judges 1:21 says the Jebusites still lived in Jerusalem, which points to a time before David captured the city (2 Samuel 5:6-9).
  • Judges 18:30 mentions the day of the captivity of the land. Some see here the Assyrian deportation of the northern tribes in the eighth century BC, and therefore a later editorial note; others link it to the time when the ark was captured and Shiloh lost its role (18:31; 1 Samuel 4).

Taken together, the book probably took shape in the early monarchy, around 1000 BC, perhaps with later updating. Many scholars read Judges as part of a larger history running from Deuteronomy through Kings, shaped to explain Israel's story in light of the covenant.

Dating the period of the judges

Adding up the years of oppression, rest and leadership given in the book yields about 410 years. Yet 1 Kings 6:1 places only 480 years between the exodus and the temple, a span that must also include the wilderness, Joshua, Eli, Samuel, Saul and David. The usual solution is that some judges led different regions at the same time; 10:7 mentions Philistine and Ammonite oppression together, so Jephthah in the east and Samson in the west may overlap. Those who date the exodus c. 1446 BC place the judges c. 1375-1050 BC, and Jephthah's remark that Israel had been in the land 300 years (11:26) fits that view. Those who prefer a later exodus, c. 1260 BC, compress the period into c. 1200-1050 BC.

Literary style and structure

Judges is carefully built in three parts:

  1. A double introduction (1:1-3:6). The first part reports the military situation: tribe after tribe fails to drive out the Canaanites. The second gives the theological explanation: a generation arose that did not know the Lord, and the cycle of apostasy began (2:10-19).
  2. The stories of the judges (3:7-16:31), from Othniel to Samson.
  3. Two appendices (17-21): Micah's idol with the migration of Dan, and the crime at Gibeah with the war against Benjamin.

Repeated formulas

The narrator marks each new cycle with stock phrases. The statement that Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord opens new cycles at 3:7, 3:12, 4:1, 6:1, 10:6 and 13:1. The Lord gave or sold them into the hand of an enemy, the people cried out, and the Lord raised up a deliverer. The note that the land had rest closes the stories of Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Gideon (3:11, 30; 5:31; 8:28), and then it disappears. After Gideon, there is no more rest.

A downward spiral

The judges themselves decline. Othniel is spotless; Ehud is a cunning deliverer; Barak hesitates; Gideon doubts and later makes an idol; Jephthah bargains with God and loses his daughter; Samson breaks every part of his Nazirite calling. At the same time the tribes grow more divided: Gideon calms Ephraim's complaint (8:1-3), Jephthah fights Ephraim (12:1-6), and in the end all Israel goes to war against Benjamin.

Literary art

Judges uses irony (a left-handed deliverer from Benjamin, a name that means son of the right hand), dark humor (fat King Eglon and his servants waiting outside the locked room, 3:24-25), poetry (the Song of Deborah, chapter 5), a fable (Jotham's trees, 9:7-15), a riddle (Samson's, 14:14) and wordplay. The appendices are not in chronological order: Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, is still serving as priest (20:28), and the priest of Dan's shrine is Jonathan, a descendant of Moses (18:30), so these events likely happened early in the period. They are placed at the end because they show where Israel's road was heading.

Judges in the story of the Bible

Judges continues directly from Joshua. Its second introduction (2:6-9) echoes the end of Joshua (Joshua 24:28-31), and Joshua's warning at Shechem, that Israel could not serve the Lord while keeping foreign gods (Joshua 24:19-23), comes true in Judges. The book of Ruth is set in the same era, in the days when the judges ruled (Ruth 1:1). First Samuel then presents the last judges, Eli and Samuel, and Israel's request for a king (1 Samuel 8:5).

Judges also sets the stage for Saul and David. Gibeah, the town of the crime in chapter 19, becomes Saul's hometown (1 Samuel 10:26), and Saul summons Israel to war by cutting oxen in pieces (1 Samuel 11:7), a grim echo of 19:29.

Later Scripture remembers the judges. Samuel recalls Sisera and the deliverers (1 Samuel 12:9-11). Psalm 83:9-11 asks God to act as he did against Sisera, Jabin, Oreb, Zeeb, Zebah and Zalmunna. Isaiah speaks of the day of Midian (Isaiah 9:4; 10:26), and Hosea uses the days of Gibeah as a byword for Israel's corruption (Hosea 9:9; 10:9). In the New Testament, Paul summarizes the period in his sermon at Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:20), and Hebrews 11:32-34 lists Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah among the heroes of faith.

Judges and Jesus Christ

Judges points to Christ mainly by showing what Israel lacked.

  • A deliverer who saves for good. Each judge brings only temporary relief; when the judge dies, the people fall back (2:19). Jesus saves completely and always lives to intercede for his people (Hebrews 7:25).
  • A king who does what is right. The refrain about having no king prepares for David, and through David for the Son of David whose kingdom has no end (Isaiah 9:7; Luke 1:32-33). Christ is the righteous King who rules hearts, not only borders.
  • The Spirit-empowered Savior. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel, Gideon, Jephthah and Samson (3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 14:6). Isaiah promised a Messiah on whom the Spirit would rest (Isaiah 11:2), and Jesus applied that promise to himself (Luke 4:18).
  • Victory through weakness. God reduced Gideon's army so that Israel could not boast (7:2), a pattern Paul sees fulfilled in the cross, where God chose what is weak to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). Isaiah even compares the victory of the promised child to the day of Midian (Isaiah 9:4-6).
  • Samson and the greater Deliverer. Samson's birth is announced by an angel to a barren woman, as John the Baptist's would be (Luke 1:13-17), and he is set apart from the womb. Samson defeats the Philistines by his death, but he dies asking for revenge (16:28). Jesus also conquers through his death, yet he prays for his enemies (Luke 23:34). The contrast shows how much greater the true Deliverer is.

Interpretive challenges

Did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter?

Many interpreters read 11:39 literally: Jephthah offered her as a burnt offering, an act the Law condemned (Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10), and the narrator presents it as a tragedy, not a model. Others note that the mourning centers on her virginity and on the fact that she never knew a man (11:37-39), and conclude she was dedicated to lifelong service at the sanctuary and never married. Either way, the vow was rash, and the story shows how far Canaanite thinking had seeped into Israel.

How can such flawed people be heroes of faith?

Gideon makes an idol, Jephthah sacrifices or loses his daughter, and Samson is ruled by his appetites, yet Hebrews 11:32 names them. Hebrews does not praise their sins; it singles out the moments when they trusted God against impossible odds. Judges shows both sides so that readers admire the faith, avoid the failures and give the glory to God.

What about the violence?

Judges contains assassination, war and the horrifying abuse of chapter 19. The book describes what happened without approving all of it; much of the violence is the fruit of Israel's rejection of God, and the closing refrain is the narrator's verdict. Battles against oppressors are presented as God's acts of deliverance, while the crimes of the appendices appear as signs of a society that has lost its way.

Little-known facts

  • Ehud was left-handed (3:15), and he belonged to Benjamin, a name that means son of the right hand. Later the tribe had 700 chosen left-handed men who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss (20:16).
  • The English word shibboleth, a password or test of group identity, comes from Judges 12:6, where the men of Ephraim gave themselves away by pronouncing it sibboleth.
  • Jotham's story of the trees looking for a king (9:7-15) is one of the very few fables in the Bible; another appears in 2 Kings 14:9.
  • In the Hebrew text of 18:30, the name Moses carries a small raised letter n that turns it into Manasseh; ancient rabbinic tradition explains that scribes wanted to spare Moses the shame of a descendant serving an idol.
  • Deborah's song in chapter 5 is widely regarded as one of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible.
  • An Egyptian monument, the Merneptah Stele (c. 1208 BC), mentions a people called Israel in Canaan. It is the oldest known reference to Israel outside the Bible and comes from the era of the judges.

How to study Judges

Reading plan

Judges can be read in three weeks at one chapter a day, or in seven sessions that follow the outline: 1-2, 3-5, 6-9, 10-12, 13-16, 17-18 and 19-21. Read chapters 1 and 2 carefully first, because they give the key to everything else.

What to look for

  • Mark every time Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord, every cry for help and every note that the land had rest.
  • Note each time the Spirit of the Lord comes upon someone, and what follows.
  • Watch the women of the book: Achsah, Deborah, Jael, Jephthah's daughter, Manoah's wife, Delilah and the Levite's concubine. Their stories often reveal the moral health of the men around them.

Teaching it in Sunday school or a small group

Draw the cycle on a board (sin, oppression, cry, deliverer, rest) and let the group place each judge on it, noting the enemy, the years of oppression and the deliverer's strengths and failures. Ask what the Baals of our day are: what people rely on for security and prosperity instead of God. With children and youth groups, Gideon and Samson work well, with emphasis on trusting God and on the cost of disobedience; chapters 19-21 are better handled with adults. End each lesson by pointing to Jesus, the Deliverer who never fails and the King who always does what is right.

Judges chapter by chapter

Every chapter of Judges with a summary, key verses explained, themes, people, questions with answers and application.

Frequently asked questions about Judges

Who wrote the book of Judges?

The book is anonymous. The Talmud attributes it to Samuel, and that fits part of the evidence: the refrain in those days there was no king in Israel looks back from a time when Israel had kings, and 1:21 says the Jebusites still lived in Jerusalem, which suggests a date before David captured the city. A few phrases, such as until the day of the captivity of the land (18:30), may point to later editorial updating.

When was Judges written and what period does it cover?

It was probably written in the early monarchy, in the time of Saul or David, c. 1000 BC, with possible later editing. Its events cover the roughly 300 years between Joshua's death and the birth of Samuel (compare 11:26): c. 1375-1050 BC for those who hold an early date of the exodus, and c. 1200-1050 BC for those who hold a later one.

What is the main message of Judges?

When God's people abandon him and everyone does what is right in his own eyes, they fall into oppression and moral collapse, but God remains merciful and raises up deliverers. The book also shows that even the best human saviors are flawed and temporary, which points to the need for a faithful king.

How many chapters does Judges have and how is it organized?

Judges has 21 chapters in three parts. Chapters 1:1-3:6 are a double introduction: the incomplete conquest and the cycle of apostasy. Chapters 3:7-16:31 tell the stories of the judges from Othniel to Samson. Chapters 17-21 are two appendices, Micah's idol and the war against Benjamin, which show the depth of Israel's corruption.

How many judges are there in the book of Judges?

The book presents twelve: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah (with Barak), Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon and Samson. Six have full stories and six are mentioned briefly, which is why they are called the minor judges. Abimelech ruled but was not raised up by God, and Eli and Samuel, who also judged Israel, appear in 1 Samuel.

What was a judge in the Bible?

The Hebrew word shophet means more than a courtroom judge. In this book the judges are leaders raised up by God, usually empowered by his Spirit, to deliver the tribes from their enemies and then lead them. Some, like Deborah, also settled disputes (4:5). Their authority was personal and temporary, not a dynasty.

Did Jephthah really sacrifice his daughter?

Interpreters are divided. Many read 11:39 as a literal burnt offering, a horrifying act the Law forbade (Deuteronomy 12:31) and that the book reports without approving. Others note that the mourning focuses on her virginity (11:37-39) and argue that she was dedicated to lifelong service and never married. Either way, the story warns against rash vows.

Why are Gideon, Samson and Jephthah listed in Hebrews 11?

Hebrews 11:32-34 names Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah among those who through faith conquered kingdoms and were made strong out of weakness. The writer does not endorse their sins; he highlights the moments when they trusted God. Their place in that list shows that God works through imperfect people who turn to him.

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