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An online in-depth study of the book of Judges. The Bible book of Judges (old translation: Judges) is a special book. It describes the period between the conquest of the land of Canaan and the time of the kings. This time is characterized by the sentence: At that time there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). The Israelites kept straying from the Lord, which is why God intervened. This is described in 2:11-16: The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. …Then the anger of the Lord burned against the Israelites and he handed them over to the robber bands and to their enemies around them, so that they could not withstand them. Whenever they tried to attack their enemies, the Lord would turn against them, just as he had spoken to them and sworn to them. The Israelites were continually plagued. Then the LORD appointed a judge to lead the people and to deliver them from the bands of robbers. This process was repeated over and over again for several centuries. In various areas of Israel, a number of judges were appointed by God, we distinguish 6 'great' judges (who receive a lot of attention) and 6 'small' ones (who are mentioned in passing). The book begins positively with the generation that Joshua knew, but after that it is a history that goes downhill. It ends with some bizarre and gruesome stories in this time of the judges, which show that the lack of good central authority leads to anarchy and chaos. In this respect, there are many parallels between the book of Judges and our present time and we can learn a lot from this book.