The Book of
King James Version
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A Levite, his concubine and his servant are invited to lodge with a farmer returning from his fields in Gibeah, Canaan occupied by the Tribe of Benjamin. Later that night, a mob of Benjamites surround their house and the Levite gives them his concubine whom the mob rapes and she then dies. The Levite carves her into 12 pieces and sends them throughout Israel in an appeal for justice (Judges 19:14-30). This leads to the Battle of Gibeah wherein other tribes of Israel join the Levites to take revenge on the Tribe of Benjamin (Judges 20) which becomes referred to as "the smallest of all the tribes" due to so many if its tribe dying in battle. Saul, the first king of Israel, descends from the surviving Benjamites. Image Source
The Book of Judges covers 14 judges of biblical law who lead the Israelites through continuous cycles of prosperity, unfaithfulness, falling and repentance.
The book covers the history of each of the series of biblical judges, for whom a single cycle lasts for the lifetime of a single judge. Key figures include Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Abimelech, Jephthah, Samson and Delilah. The judges are divinely inspired leaders who champion the cause of the Israelites during the period lasting from Joshua to Samson. The stories follow a consistent pattern: the people are unfaithful to God and then fall into the hands of the enemies; the people repent and entreat God for mercy and are delivered from oppression by a judge so they may prosper again; the people fall into unfaithfulness again and the cycle is repeated. Genres that are used to tell the stories include poetry, riddles and historical narratives.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.
– God, Judges 6:12
• Wikipedia Article on the Book of Judges
• Biblical judges: a ruler, military leader or someone who presided over legal hearings (Wikipedia).
The King James Bible text is sourced from the BibleForgeDB database (https://github.com/bibleforge) within the BibleForge project (http://bibleforge.com). Popularity rankings are based on search volume data from the Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool.
