Charles Ellicott Commentary Judges 2:16

"And Jehovah raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those that despoiled them." — Judges 2:16 (ASV)

Nevertheless. —Rather, And.

The Lord raised up judges. —Acts 13:20; 1 Samuel 12:10–11. This is the keynote to the book. (Judges 4:4; Judges 10:2; Judges 12:7, and others; Judges 15:20.) The word for Judges is Shophetim.

The ordinary verb “to judge,” in Hebrew, is not Shaphât, but dayyân. Evidently their deliverers (Psalms 2:10; Amos 2:3) are of higher rank than the mere tribe-magistrates mentioned in Exodus 18:26; Deuteronomy 1:16, and others.

Artemidorus (Judges 2:14) says that to judge (Krinein) signified among the ancients “to govern.”

Of the judges in this book some—e.g., Tola, Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon—are not said to have performed any warlike deeds. They may, however, have been warriors, like Jair, whose exploits are only preserved in tradition. Samuel, though not himself a fighter, yet roused the military courage of his people.

They received no salary, imposed no tributes, made no laws, but merely exercised, for the deliverance of Israel, the personal ascendancy conferred upon them by “the Spirit of God.”

Perhaps they find their nearest analogy in the Greek Aisymnetai (elective princes) or the Roman Dictators. The name is evidently the same as that of the Phœnician Suffetes, who succeeded the kings and were the Doges of Tyre after its siege by Nebuchadnezzar (Josephus, 100 Ap. i. 21).

Livy tells us that the Suffetes of Carthage had a sort of consular power in the senate (28:57; 33:46; 34:61). So, too, in the Middle Ages, Spanish governors were called “judges,” and this was the title of the chief officer of Sardinia.

The judges of Israel, at any rate in their true ideal, were not only military deliverers (Judges 3:9), but also supporters of divine law and order (Genesis 18:25).

The abeyance of normally constituted authority during this period is seen in the fact that one of the judges is the son of a “stranger” (Judges 11:2), another a woman (Judges 4:4), and not one of them (in this book) of priestly or splendid birth.