I've long been intrigued by the book of Judges, with its hopeful start and disastrous end.
At SMBC preaching conference yesterday I heard a very encouraging talk by Bryan Chappell on the story of Gideon. His talk was both personally encouraging, and also started me thinking about the structure of Judges again.
I recently read Judges and I've been convinced again about a theory which I heard a couple of years ago in first year, that the entire book is structured as a chiasm, and the story of Gideon is the centre.
Apart from the chapters 1 and 2 which seem to summarise the chiasm (roughly speaking chapter 1 summarises the first half, and chapter 2 the second half). There seems to be three themes of the chiasm:
Worship
In chapters 3 to 7 the focus is on the judges worshipping God, not idols.
In chapters 8 to 21 the focus is on worshipping idols.
Obedience
In chapteres 3 to 7 the Israelites obey God and fight the foreigners whom God has instructed them to fight.
In chapters 8 to 21 the Israelites war among themselves.
Women
In chapters 3 to 7 the women are respected and treated well.
In chapters 8 to 21 the woman are disrespected and treated badly (culminating with the story of the concubine who is raped and murdered and her body sent to the 12 tribes of Israel).
That is not to say that the Judges in the first half of the chiasm are perfect. They all seem to be unusual in some way: a younger brother, left handed, a woman, or very afraid...
I wonder if this points to any intent of the author? Is he saying that when God is obeyed and worshipped, that women are treated well?
Does that agree with your observation of the world?
3 comments:
Does that implicitly make women objects, and passive rather than active persons? Just a question
Hmmm.... do you think so?
I think that women were relatively powerless, but that doesn't mean that the author was necessarily commenting on the women being objects.
Interesting thought though. Deborah and Acsah were pretty active. Although Acsah didn't have a choice who she married, she had influence in her relationships. The concubine towards the end didn't have any power in her relationship it seems.
What do you think of Samson's treatment of women?
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