The last five chapters of the book of Judges (chs. 17-21) contain some shocking and bizarre stories, and precisely how these stories relate to the rest of the book is a major question in scholarship on the book. Leveraging work from literary studies and hermeneutics, Beldman reexamines Judges 17-21 with the aim of discerning the "strategies of ending" that are at work in these chapters. The author identifies and describes a number of strategies of ending in Judges 17-21, including the strategy of completion, the strategy of circularity, and the strategy of entrapment. The temporal configuration of Judges and especially the nonlinear chronology that chapters 17-21 expose also receive due attention. All of this offers fresh insights into the place and function of Judges 17-21 in the context of the whole book.

"Reading these apparently unpromising texts with Beldman, you will be instructed and challenged. In short, this is a most worthwhile study of a valuable part of the Bible.."--Cover.

Judges is a book for our time. It forces readers to come face to face with the way that faith speaks into the situations we encounter and read about in our newsfeeds. Warfare, authoritarianism, sexual exploitation, tribalism—these are a few of the repercussions from not having our social order oriented toward God. In this commentary David Beldman expounds the story of God and Israel that unfolds in the book of Judges, highlighting the vital message it speaks to contemporary Christians who strive to live lives of integrity and undivided loyalty to Jesus under the constant pressure of the idols of twenty-first-century culture.

From Elie Wiesel, a gripping novel of guilt, innocence, and the perilousness of judging both. A plane en route from New York to Tel Aviv is forced down by bad weather. A nearby house provides refuge for five of its passengers: Claudia, who has left her husband and found new love; Razziel, a religious teacher who was once a political prisoner; Yoav, a terminally ill Israeli commando; George, an archivist who is hiding a Holocaust secret that could bring down a certain politician; and Bruce, a would-be priest turned philanderer. Their host—an enigmatic and disquieting man who calls himself simply the Judge—begins to interrogate them, forcing them to face the truth and meaning of their lives. Soon he announces that one of them—the least worthy—will die. The Judges is a powerful novel that reflects the philosophical, religious, and moral questions that are at the heart of Elie Wiesel’s work.

A fresh and conservative approach to studying the Scriptures through the eyes of the Reformed Theological heritage, this Silver Medallion award winner is the first NIV study Bible incorporating a summary of Reformed theology.

A judge’s role is to make decisions. This book is about how judges undertake this task. It is about forces on the judicial role and their consequences, about empirical research from a variety of academic disciplines that observes and verifies how factors can affect how judges judge. On the one hand, judges decide by interpreting and applying the law, but much more affects judicial decision-making: psychological effects, group dynamics, numerical reasoning, biases, court processes, influences from political and other institutions, and technological advancement. All can have a bearing on judicial outcomes. In How Judges Judge: Empirical Insights into Judicial Decision-Making, Brian M. Barry explores how these factors, beyond the law, affect judges in their role. Case examples, judicial rulings, judges’ own self-reflections on their role and accounts from legal history complement this analysis to contextualise the research, make it more accessible and enrich the reader’s understanding and appreciation of judicial decision-making. Offering research-based insights into how judges make the decisions that can impact daily life and societies around the globe, this book will be of interest to practising and training judges, litigation lawyers and those studying law and related disciplines.

No matter your circumstance, everyone is born with a birthright and an inheritance. God has promised this inheritance to each and every one of us, although many of us may not know how to access our birthright—and some of us may not even know what we will inherit. Birthright of Freedom is an in-depth Bible study centered on the Old Testament book of Judges. It focuses on seven major oppressors of Israel during that period, explaining their origins and the generational sins that typified their relationship with Israel. The study looks at the importance of covenant, covenant blessings, and consequences of covenant violations. There is opportunity to discover contemporary manifestations of those same generational curses, using the biblical model to deal with generational sin. Alongside each curse, authors Doyle & Rebecca Musser look at the covenant blessings God has given us through the redemptive gifts and the redeemer himself, Jesus. As Jesus proclaimed, we are all heirs to the throne of the kingdom of God, and he has given us the freedom to claim our place alongside him in this coming kingdom. By identifying the specific areas that hold us back from the freedom God intends, you too can apply the Word to your life and begin following kingdom protocol.