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How Judges Points to Jesus
Few books are as depressing as Judges. The old Methodist commentator Adam Clarke once lamented that some of its worst characters are people whom “humanity and modesty wish to be buried in everlasting oblivion.” The book serves as a painful reminder of what we’re capable of apart from God’s grace.
But unsurprisingly, human depravity in Judges also provides the dark backdrop for God’s mercy. Paul tells us that all Scripture is profitable for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). And Christ himself instructs us that the Scriptures testify about him (John 5:39; Luke 24:27). So let’s examine three ways this dark book of Judges contains glimmers of light that eventually lead to Jesus.
Rise of Judah
In the book’s opening words, we see the tribe of Judah singled out for prominence and leadership. Israel inquires of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” The Lord responds, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand” (1:1–2).
The same thing happens near the book’s end, suggesting the author is trying to get our attention (20:18). Once again Israel inquires, and once again the Lord says, “Judah shall go up first.” This story of God choosing Judah to lead the other tribes in battle bookends Judges. In both cases, Judah takes the lead in defending Israel against its enemies, whether external (the Canaanites) or internal (Benjamin).
This prioritizing of Judah didn’t come out of nowhere. Long before Judges, we can see the beginnings of the tribe’s prominence. In Genesis, the tribe’s namesake emerges as a sacrificial leader among his brothers (Gen. 44:8–9, 14–34). His tribe is prophetically singled out as the one from which Israel’s kings would eventually come (49:8–10). Finally, during Israel’s time in the wilderness, we see the tribe setting out first on the march (Num. 2:1–9). After Judges, Judah’s military leadership over Benjamin will reemerge in 1 Samuel when a leader from Judah (David) replaces the leader from Benjamin (Saul).
But it culminates in Jesus Christ, whom Revelation 5:5 famously describes as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” A Lion who, like his forebears in Judges, conquered his people’s enemies, both external (the world and the Devil) and internal (our own sin). By the mid-first century, Jesus’s Judah connection was so widely known that the author of Hebrews could claim, “It is evident that our was Lord descended from Judah” (7:14). Thus by being structured around Judah’s leadership, Judges carries forward a theme that will find its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus (see Mic. 5:2; Matt. 1:3; Luke 3:33).
Sending of Saviors
The book’s title, “Judges,” refers to the men (and in one case, a woman: Deborah) whom God sent to deliver his unfaithful people again and again. Chapter 2 summarizes the cycle that will be repeatedly depicted until chapter 16:
Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. . . . But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. (2:18, 19)
While these judges did sometimes engage in what we think of as “judging” (4:4; 10:2, 3), their main activity is described as “saving.” This is how they’re first introduced in 2:16—“Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them” (see 3:9, 31; 6:14; 10:1; 13:5). It’s because of this repeated description of judges “saving” Israel that Nehemiah would later look back at this period and say that “[God] gave them saviors” (Neh. 9:27).
Jesus is a Lion who, like his forebears in Judges, conquered his people’s enemies, both external (the world and the Devil) and internal (our own sin).
This word in the Greek translation of Nehemiah 9:27 (sōtēr) would later be used in the Greek New Testament to describe the ultimate deliverer: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior [sōtēr], who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).
We might well ask, “Why would God send saviors to a people so persistently disobedient and fickle?” Judges tells us: “The LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them” (Judg. 2:18; see Neh. 9:27). As the Puritan Thomas Goodwin once counseled believers, “Your very sins move him to pity more than to anger . . . even as the heart of a father is to a child that hath some loathsome disease.”
God sent them saviors for the same reason he sent us one: not because we deserved one but because he saw how much we needed one. This is how Judges points to Jesus—by showing us a God who’s not only angry at sin but also filled with pity for sinners.
Need for a King
After chronicling the sad cycle of idolatry-repentance-deliverance-idolatry for 16 chapters, Judges ends with a lengthy and sordid epilogue (chap. 17–21). One of Israel’s cities becomes like Sodom, and one of its tribes is almost wiped out. Not once but four times during this epilogue, we’re told that “in those days there was no king in Israel” (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25).
The book’s final verse reads, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25; see 17:6). The reader is meant to see a connection between the absence of a king and the presence of anarchy, and to pray, “God, please send us a king, since we clearly need one!”
As the biblical storyline progresses, this will soon lead Israel to sinfully demand a king (1 Sam. 8–10). For this, God gives them the king they deserve, a king after their own heart (Saul). But the fact that Israel asks with bad motives (vv. 7–9) doesn’t mean that wanting a king is wrong in and of itself, or that they don’t need one.
We know this not only because of how Judges ends but because generations earlier, Moses had spoken of a day when Israel would seek to set up a king over them. This king, though, must be a man who fears God and keeps his law, rather than doing what’s right in his own eyes (Deut. 17:14–20).
This is how Judges points to Jesus—by showing us a God who is not only angry at sin but also filled with pity for sinners.
This is the kind of king Judges leaves us longing for—a man after God’s own heart who loves righteousness and hates lawlessness and trembles at God’s Word. God would eventually give them just such a king in the person of David (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22), a man who also fulfilled God’s promise that the scepter would come from Judah (Gen. 49:10).
But as exemplary as David was, he wasn’t the ultimate king (1 Kings 15:5). Someone greater than David was needed. And according to the New Testament, someone greater than David is here. A King from the house of David who will sit on the throne forever (2 Sam. 7:13–29; Isa. 9:6–7). A King so powerful he can stop the downward spiral we see in Judges—a King able to subdue our strongest passions and cause us to walk in his statutes (Ezek. 36:26–27; Rom. 5:20–21; 6:14).
Read in Hope
Much more could be said. Time would fail me to speak of the greater Gideon, or how Jesus is the ultimate Jael who crushes the Serpent’s head (Judg. 4:21–22; 5:26; 9:53; see Gen. 3:15; Heb. 11:32). This’ll have to do for now.
So next time you read Judges, don’t just see the depravity of man. Look for glimmers of hope. The gospel rebar of the Bible’s foundation has been carefully laid in Judges, continuing from the law and leading on to the Savior and King who springs from the tribe of Judah.
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