by J. B. Haws
Judges was not meant to be a subtle book. At least that’s the impression you get on a first read. The book’s editor/compiler seems to say as much right from the get-go. It’s as if the compiler said, in the first two chapters of the book, “If you’re wondering why I’ve invited you here, dear reader, it’s to make one thing clear: When you forget what the Lord has done for you and go worshipping after false gods instead, misery ensues. Remarkably, though, the Lord is merciful when you cry unto him in your misery, and he can offer miraculous deliverance. But take note: this cycle is hard to break! And you’re about to see story after story that proves this point . . .”
Then come the stories—and they really are unforgettable. The characters and the action in Judges stand out for good reason. The heroes are bold, the means of deliverance spectacular, and the climactic moments of comeuppance leave the oppressors vanquished in dramatic—and often graphic—ways.
But for all that seeming straightforwardness, there are subtleties to be found here—ambivalences, unanswered questions, narrative elements that don’t neatly fit the book’s stated aims—or at least elements that don’t come with clear moralizing attached. These characters in Judges are complicated characters who make complicated choices, and that certainly makes them feel all the more real and authentic. It also makes these stories worth a careful reread to see what might be just below the surface.
Gideon’s story is like that. Who hasn’t delighted in all of the wonder and thrill of Gideon’s triumph? It is gripping reading on so many levels. It starts with a reluctant hero. Gideon is like Enoch, or Moses, or even Barak, just two chapters earlier in Judges.1 Gideon protests his own weakness and incredulity that he has been chosen in the first place—chosen of the Lord to do something almost inconceivable. And in the face of that hesitation, the Lord provides compelling (and repeated) evidence that Gideon need not fear.
Then the Lord instructs Gideon to make the task at hand almost exponentially harder: Reduce your army of 32,000 to 300. There would be—could be—no question under those odds that this victory would belong to the Lord. And the brilliance of the strategy to use those 300 soldiers to incite panic in their encamped and sleeping enemies with a sudden bursting forth of light from 300 torches and sound from 300 trumpet blasts in the middle of the night never gets old in the retelling. The consequent scattering of the Midianites, who flee in fright and confusion, seems on par with the memory of Egyptian forces caught by surprise by collapsing sea walls or the more recent memory of what might have been a sudden flash flood that sent Sisera and his men falling over themselves before Deborah and Barak.2 Gideon’s victory is just that wondrous.
That’s Judges chapters 6 and 7. But then we come to Judges 8, and it’s all a bit more morally ambiguous. How are we supposed to feel about Gideon’s next moves? His anger at the town elders of Succoth and Penuel, who refuse to offer provisions to Gideon’s tired and hungry band, for instance? Their (Succoth’s and Penuel’s) cool, wait-and-see attitude toward Gideon’s exploits would have been insulting and infuriating, but would that justify Gideon’s return-for-revenge mission, when we learn that he trampled the people of Succoth and destroyed Penuel’s tower and then killed the men of that city?
Or what about the way he approached the captured Midianite kings, Zebah and Zalmunna? We learn that a memory of an even earlier offense may have been festering in Gideon—may have been driving a desire for revenge in this case. He interrogated the prisoners and learned that they were responsible for the deaths of his brothers. He told them that he would have spared their lives if they had not been guilty of that act, but now he would exact his revenge. In a very dramatic (and traumatic) turn, he ordered his oldest son to kill the prisoners. The frightened boy shrank back, and Gideon finished the deed himself. How might this have affected his son? Others in his family who saw this unfold?
And what about the ephod Gideon made from the looted earrings? Gideon, this man who started down his path to become a deliverer of Israel by tearing down a shrine dedicated to false gods (Judges 6:27–32), now became the creator of an object that would prove to be some kind of idol itself—“a snare unto Gideon, and to his house” (Judges 8:27).
That house—that family—was destined for heartache and tragedy. Judges 9 is painful to read. We have a son of Gideon—Abimelech—killing his brothers to consolidate power; a surviving youngest brother—Jotham—issuing a forceful rebuke of Abimelech’s allies and prophesying their downfall; and finally, in fulfillment of Jotham’s prediction, a region engulfed in violence and treachery until Abimelech is killed.
This is why the subtleties of Judges make this book worth returning to again and again. What we are certainly left with is more questions than answers, but that may be the point. That may be what this book really has to offer us: introspection.
Is there something cautionary in the way that Gideon asked for so many signs to confirm the Lord’s call to action and confidence? Certainly, we all have felt, at one time or another, the need for some helpful nudging; who hasn’t been, at one time or another, a Barak who benefited from a Deborah’s encouragement? And who hasn’t been a Barak who has said to a Deborah, “I’ll go if you’ll come with me.” But what might it say to us to contemplate that Gideon still teetered on inaction, and still needed to hear the dream of the Midianite on guard duty, before he put the Lord’s plan into motion, even after the fleece had been found to be first miraculously dew-covered and then miraculously dry (and all of that was even after fire had consumed the goat kid and the cakes!)? But then again, maybe the point is that I’m more often like Gideon than I want to admit. Is the point, when I stop to think about it, that the Lord really is this generous with his reassurances even when we are hesitant and unsure—when we say, “Are you really, really sure you want me to do this?” Am I prone to remember past assurances, those nights when I’ve cried out unto the Lord and he spoke peace unto my mind (like in Doctrine and Covenants 6:22–23), or am I all too forgetful of those past moments (à la Helaman 12:2)? Can this Gideon story be a prompt to get me thinking about truly living out Doctrine and Covenants 58:26–29? Not being compelled in all things, not receiving commandments with a doubtful heart, being anxiously engaged in a good cause, doing many things of my own free will, etc.
And then there’s this on-the-other-hand point: Astute commentators have noticed that the Lord—as agent, as driver, as commander—is absent in Judges 8. The narrator does not ascribe any of the events that follow to the Lord’s guidance or volition. Gideon seems to do so, though—seems to imply (unilaterally so—and that’s important) that the Lord would give Gideon what he wants, in terms of the victory, as in Judges 8:7: “When the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand,” he says by way of a threat to the princes of Succoth, “then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.” Is there a danger when we are called to do one thing of becoming over-confident that the Lord justifies our going further than he wants us to go? Could this be why many are called but few are chosen? Is this an example of getting a little authority and then covering a multitude of sins due to a false or inflated sense of divine commission? (D&C 121:34–40) In a sad twist of irony, was this moment actually the time for Gideon to exercise some hesitation and self-doubt and pause and ask for the Lord’s confirmation that he was still on the right path?
It’s interesting that the tactic that discomfited the Midianites did not involve direct violence on the part of Gideon and his men. Would pursuit and capture of their leaders have been enough to secure victory—and peace? What would have been different if Gideon had spared the lives of his enemies? What if he had absorbed the slight at Succoth and Penuel and chosen to forgive? Was his initial impulse to spare Zebah and Zalmunna one that he ignored at a severe cost in the way this example of deadly retribution would reverberate through the next generation? What did his descendants, his comrades, come to understand about violence?
And did Gideon blur lines between faithful worship of the Lord and a semblance of the very thing he had initially sought to root out from his people? Could he have been clearer on where he stood?
What are the patterns we are transmitting to those who are watching us most closely?
Stories of warfare in the scriptures can be tricky. We often assume that the stories make it clear who is in the right and who is in the wrong—especially when we ourselves feel oppressed or beaten down and we hope for liberation and justice. But Judges 8 seems to come to us with more neutrality about how this played out.
This all leaves me with one image in mind.
Imagine having grown up on these stories (and that would be all of us), and imagine feeling the satisfaction of knowing what they mean—that oppressors would get what’s coming to them (and who can’t relate to that?). And then imagine sitting in a crowd and hearing a new teacher say, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them . . . which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44). And the unexpectedness of this new interpretation of scripture just washes over the crowd—and it just feels right.
No wonder Peter would say to Jesus, “Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
The subtleties and ambivalences and unanswered questions of Judges can leave us longing for just such a better way.
J. B. Haws is the Executive Director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship and a professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU. He is the author of The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (Oxford, 2013) and holds a PhD in American History from the University of Utah. His research centers on the place of Mormonism in twentieth- and twenty-first-century America, including public perceptions of Latter-day Saints, trends in contemporary Mormon historical scholarship, and interfaith engagement.
Art by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836–1902) from The Jewish Museum.
The Old Testament Reflections series is published in collaboration with the Maxwell Institute: https://mi.byu.edu/old-testament-reflections.
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See this point in The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, revised and updated (1989), 357, footnote 6.15.
See Judges 4:15 and especially Judges 5:20–21; HarperCollins Study Bible, 355, footnote 5.19–22.
Judges is no weirder than today’s political scene🤦🏼♀️