Women in Judges

Did anyone else find Judges a gruesome read? For me, not least because of the horrific stories involving women. A wide spectrum, kind of moving from light to dark.

- Caleb’s daughter Achsah, a reward to Othniel, his nephew, for conquering Kirjathsepher. She asked her father for a blessing, specifically springs of water, and he gave it to her. (1:12-15)
- Deborah, (ch. 4) prophetess, wife of Lapidoth, judge of Israel. She must have been some woman for Barak to say he wouldn’t go to war unless she went with him. She was the whip cracker of the operation, “Up;” she said to Barak, “for is this is the day….” And when it was all over, the captain of the army was done in at the hand of a woman. It’s hard not to conclude Barak was a bit lame.
- Jael, wife of Heber, slayer of Sisera with a tent peg and a hammer through the head.
- The anxious mother of Sisera and her wise ladies show up in Deborah’s exultant song in chapter 5, expecting their victor home with the spoils, preparing to decorate their men with handwoven banners of honor, presumably become their shrouds.
- Jephthah’s daughter rushed out with timbels and dancing to celebrate her father’s victory, which got her sacrificed in fulfillment of her father’s rash oath. (ch. 11) She laments her unfulfilled dreams for two months with her girlfriends, but returns to face her death. Did Jephthah do it himself I wonder? Did he ever sleep again? Stranger still, Jephthah is counted among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. I have to wonder if verse 35 is the key “Women received their dead raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.” Still, strange strange story. Makes me shudder.
- Thirty daughters of Izban, who it says had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He traded his daughters away for thirty daughters from abroad, presumably wives for his sons, and his daughters as wives for some foreign men. The original mail order brides.
- Manoah’s wife, barren, visited by “an angel of the Lord,” who turned out to be the LORD himself. As a result she gave birth to Samson, a whole other can of worms as a mother, I can only imagine.
- Samson’s women. I count three. His wife, the daughter of the Philistines in Timnath whose father gave her to his buddy after she had tricked him; a harlot he took up with in Gaza; and finally, Delilah, who it says he loved.
- Micah’s mother, from whom he stole a lot of silver, returned it eventually, whereupon she made a graven image with it and gave it back to him, encouraging his idolatrous ways and giving birth to a strange syncretism that seems to have a had a widespread following.
- The Levite’s concubine is as dark and X-rated a tale as I ever hope to read. She left him and went home to her father’s house, he came to win her back, finally extricated her from her father again, only to offer her as a peace offering to the deviant men of Benjamin, who ended up killing her after an all-night orgy, whereupon the Levite in some kind of weird holy indignation chopped her up and couriered her body parts to each of the twelve tribes of Israel as some kind of wakeup call to the evil days in which they found themselves.
- The women of Jabesh-gilead and the dancing daughters of Shiloh, finagled and co-opted to save the tribe of Benjamin from extinction.

All I can say is, what a relief to get to Ruth and Naomi!