Judges
King James Version · 21 chapters · 618 verses · Old Testament
The same mistake, over and over
Joshua dies and the nation comes apart. The book runs on a cycle you can set your watch by: Israel abandons God, an enemy oppresses them, they cry out, God raises up a judge to rescue them, there is peace, the judge dies, and it starts again. Deborah, Gideon and his three hundred, Jephthah and his terrible vow, Samson, who has every advantage and wastes all of them. The last chapters are genuinely dark. The line that closes the book explains it: there was no king in Israel, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.