The Bible, King James version, Book 7: Judges — Reading Companion

(0 User reviews) 71

In Category - Theology

Authors: Anonymous Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Bible. Judges Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 22,115

Reading time 97 min

Text sections 3

The catalog record for The Bible, King James version, Book 7: Judges — Reading Companion provides practical reading context through 22,115 words, 1 hr 37 min estimated reading time, and 3 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 26.8 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Bible. Judges,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #8007

This editorial note examines the book of Judges through its recurring patterns of divine deliverance, human failure, and the tension between vow and consequence, focusing on the cycles of apostasy, the role of women, and the linguistic marker of identity in the Shibboleth episode.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg8007

Read the Text

Shechem were gathered together.

07:009:048 And Abimelech gat him up to mount Zalmon, he and all the people that were with him; and Abimelech took an axe in his hand, and cut down a bough from the trees, and took it, and laid it on his shoulder, and said unto the people that were with him, What ye have seen me do, make haste, and do as I have done.

07:009:049 And all the people likewise cut down every man his bough, and followed Abimelech, and put them to the hold, and set the hold on fire upon them; so that all the men of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women.

07:009:050 Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez, and took it.

07:009:051 But there was a strong tower within the city, and thither fled all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut it to them, and gat them up to the top of the tower.

07:009:052 And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire.

07:009:053 And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to brake his skull.

07:009:054 Then he called hastily unto the young man his armourbearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A women slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died.

07:009:055 And when the men of Israel saw that Abimelech was dead, they departed every man unto his place.

07:009:056 Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren:

07:009:057 And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.

07:010:001 And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.

07:010:002 And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.

07:010:003 And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years.

07:010:004 And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.

07:010:005 And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.

07:010:006 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.

07:010:007 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.

07:010:008 And that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

07:010:009 Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed.

07:010:010 And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.

07:010:011 And the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?

07:010:012 The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to me, and I delivered you out of their hand.

07:010:013 Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.

07:010:014 Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.

07:010:015 And the children of Israel said unto the LORD, We have sinned: do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth good unto thee; deliver us only, we pray thee, this day.

07:010:016 And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

07:010:017 Then the children of Ammon were gathered together, and encamped in Gilead. And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpeh.

07:010:018 And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.

Continue Reading →

The book of Judges opens with a stark transition: after Joshua's death, the Israelites ask the Lord who shall lead them against the Canaanites. The answer is Judah, and the initial victories are swift—ten thousand men slain at Bezek, the capture of Adonibezek, whose mutilation (thumbs and great toes cut off) he interprets as divine requital for his own past cruelties. Yet the narrative soon reveals a pattern of incomplete conquest and recurring apostasy. The text does not present a linear triumph but a cycle: Israel does evil, is delivered into enemy hands, cries out, and is rescued by a judge, only to relapse. This structure, visible in the excerpts, frames the entire book as a meditation on covenant fidelity and its consequences.

Cycles of Apostasy and Deliverance

The excerpts repeatedly show a formulaic pattern: the Israelites do evil in the sight of the Lord, who then delivers them into the hands of oppressors—Cushan-rishathaim, the Moabites, the Philistines. After years of servitude, they cry out, and the Lord raises a judge to save them. For instance, Othniel, the first judge, delivers Israel after eight years of bondage (Judges 3:9-11). Yet the pattern is not mechanical; each cycle introduces variations. The judge Ehud uses deception to assassinate the Moabite king Eglon, while Deborah, a prophetess, leads a military campaign alongside Barak. The excerpts show that the judges themselves are flawed: Gideon makes an ephod that becomes a snare, and Jephthah makes a rash vow that costs his daughter's life. The cycles underscore a persistent tension between divine mercy and human waywardness.

Vows, Consequences, and the Cost of Speech

Jephthah's vow in Judges 11 is one of the most striking episodes in the excerpts. He vows to the Lord that if victorious, he will sacrifice whatever comes out of his house to meet him. The tragic outcome—his only child, a daughter, emerges first—is narrated with restrained pathos. The daughter's response is notable: she asks for two months to bewail her virginity on the mountains, and then returns to her father, who fulfills his vow. The text records that it became a custom for the daughters of Israel to lament her annually. This episode highlights the irreversible power of spoken vows in the ancient Near Eastern context, and the narrative does not soften the cost. The contrast between Jephthah's military success and his personal loss is left unresolved, inviting reflection on the intersection of faith, rashness, and familial duty.

The Shibboleth Test: Language as a Weapon

In Judges 12, after Jephthah's victory over Ephraim, a linguistic marker becomes a matter of life and death. The Gileadites, under Jephthah, seize the fords of the Jordan and test fleeing Ephraimites by asking them to say 'Shibboleth.' The Ephraimites, unable to pronounce the initial 'sh' sound, say 'Sibboleth' and are slain. The passage reports that forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell. This episode is a stark example of how dialect and pronunciation can serve as identity markers in conflict. The text does not moralize; it simply records the event as part of the internecine strife among the tribes of Israel. The Shibboleth incident underscores the fragmentation and internal violence that characterize the period of the judges, where even shared language becomes a tool of exclusion and death.

Readers approaching Judges should attend to its repetitive structure and the moral ambiguities embedded in each cycle. The book does not offer easy heroes; its judges are often compromised, and the narrative withholds judgment on their actions. The excerpts reveal a world where divine intervention is frequent but not always redemptive in human terms. Pay attention to the role of women—Achsah, Deborah, Jael, Jephthah's daughter—as they navigate a patriarchal landscape with agency and consequence. The text rewards careful reading of its silences and its stark, unadorned reporting of violence and faith.

Sometimes I think about the Shibboleth moment—that single word deciding everything—and how we all carry markers we never chose. Reading through Judges, I kept noticing cycles of forgetting, then remembering, then failing again. It reminded me of something quieter, a book I stumbled on once: The Idea of God in Early Religions — Key Ideas to Explore. It lingers the same way, not answering questions, just sitting with them.