Prophecy in Judges

“But the LORD raised up judges to save them from the power of their plunderers…” (2:16)

Reading

A new generation arises “that did not know the LORD or the work he had done for Israel” (2:10). The pattern that follows runs through the whole book: Israel serves other gods, falls under oppression, cries out, and God sends a deliverer. God's mercy moves first: “The LORD would change his mind when they groaned in their affliction under their oppressors” (2:18). But the rescue lasts only “as long as the judge lived.” Then the cycle starts again: “But when the judge died, they would again do worse than their ancestors” (2:19).

Fulfilled

Every judge was a savior who died, and every rescue was temporary. Hebrews describes the priests of the old covenant the same way, “prevented by death from remaining in office,” and then the difference in Christ: “Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:23, 25). The cycle of Judges is broken by a Deliverer who does not die again.

“That is what God did that night: the fleece alone was dry, but there was dew on all the ground.” (6:40)

Reading

Gideon, threshing wheat in hiding, is greeted by the messenger of the LORD: “The LORD is with you, you mighty warrior!” (6:12). Unsure of himself, he asks for a sign. He lays a woolen fleece on the threshing floor, and in the morning there is dew on the fleece alone; he “squeezed enough dew from it to fill a bowl” (6:38). Then he asks for the reverse, and God grants that too. In its plain sense the story is about God's patience with a hesitant man he has chosen.

Fulfilled

This is a reading of the Fathers and the liturgy, not of the New Testament. St. Augustine, preaching on Psalm 72 (71 in his numbering), whose Latin text compares the king's coming to rain falling on a fleece, read the fleece as Israel, first alone wet with God's dew, and the dry ground as the nations, which later received it. Medieval writers and the liturgy went further and saw in the fleece the Virgin Mary, who received the Word silently, as the fleece took in the dew without the ground around it being touched. An old antiphon for the octave of Christmas sings that at his birth from the Virgin Christ came down “like rain upon the fleece.” The greeting Gideon heard returns at the Annunciation: “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28).

“Though you are barren and have had no children, you will conceive and bear a son.” (13:3)

Reading

An angel of the LORD appears to the barren wife of Manoah and announces a son who will be a nazirite, “a nazirite for God from the womb,” and adds: “It is he who will begin to save Israel from the power of the Philistines” (13:5). When Manoah asks the angel's name, he is told, “Why do you ask my name? It is wondrous” (13:18). The child is Samson, and “the spirit of the LORD” comes upon him (13:25).

Fulfilled

Judges 13 belongs to a pattern that runs through Scripture: an angel, a woman who cannot have a child, a son named before his birth and set apart for God. Sarah, Hannah and Samson's mother lead up to Elizabeth, whose son John, like a nazirite, “will drink neither wine nor strong drink” (Luke 1:15), and then to Mary, to whom the angel says, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus” (Luke 1:31). Samson would only “begin to save Israel”; Jesus “will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The angel's name, “wondrous,” echoes the word Isaiah uses for the promised child, “Wonder-Counselor” (Isaiah 9:5). Samson himself is a deeply flawed hero, and some of the Fathers saw in his death, when he brought down the house of Dagon on his enemies (16:28–30), a figure of Christ who conquered by dying.

“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (17:6)

Reading

The refrain sounds four times in the last chapters (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) and is the book's last sentence. The stories around it, of a private idol and a hired priest, a migrating tribe, a crime at Gibeah and a civil war, show a people with no shepherd. Yet the book is careful about what kind of king Israel needs. Gideon had refused the crown: “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. The LORD must rule over you” (8:23). The longing is not for any king, but for one who rules as God rules.

Fulfilled

The next book ends with the birth of David's grandfather (Ruth 4:17), and in the books of Samuel God gives Israel David, the king after his own heart. In David's line the angel promises Mary that “the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father” (Luke 1:32). In Jesus, the two halves of Gideon's answer meet: the king of David's line is himself the LORD who must rule.

Future

His reign is begun but not yet complete. Revelation sees its fullness when the rider whose cloak bears the name “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16) comes, and the seventh trumpet proclaims that “he will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).