30. § 4. The Civil Constitution at the Time of the Judges

§ 4. The Civil Constitution at the Time of the Judges

We have already more than once drawn attention to the fact that the hereditary constitution of the Israelites remained unaltered throughout this period; during it the judicial and executive power was always in the hands of the natural rulers of the people, the heads of families and tribes. Besides the proofs of this already given, we may refer to the transactions of the elders in Gilead with Jephthah, in Judges 11:6 ff.: the power which is conceded to Jephthah appears as potestas delegata, and is so regarded by both parties. The transactions of the elders of the nation with Samuel respecting the establishment of royalty, also show plainly that the office of judge did not interfere with the continuance of the ordinary magistracy. A distinction between this and the former period obtains only in one point, and that of a nature which has nothing to do with the surrender of established institutions, but only with the dissolution of a bond which had always been mainly internal, and was never outwardly established. Owing to the nature of the Israelitish constitution as a nation of tribes, there was necessarily a want of the centrum unitatis. In earlier times this want was compensated by the unity of mind, which formed an internal bond of union among the twelve tribes who were outwardly separated, as well as by the free authority exercised by the leading representatives of this tendency, a Moses, a Joshua, and a Phinehas. In the events narrated in the appendix to the book of Judges, we do not find anything of this want. The people rise up as one man. Further on in the period of the judges the only bond which held the tribes together disappeared, and the whole was immediately resolved into its constituent parts. Nowhere do we find a co-operation of the whole nation; nowhere the summoning of a national assembly; nowhere an allied army of all the tribes, nor one commander-in-chief. We meet only with temporary confederacies of separate tribes, such as were called forth by common danger, or by the similar interests of their geographical position. Then the numerous, powerful, and proud tribe of Ephraim, in whose midst was the sanctuary at Shiloh, laid claim to a kind of leadership; and the remaining tribes, with the exception of Judah, which maintained its independence throughout, submitted more or less to this claim. We recognise this claim not only by the reproaches of Ephraim against Gideon in Judges 8:1, and their protest against Jephthah in Judges 12, but even more clearly from Psalms 78, which was composed in the time of David, and which represents it very fully. From it we learn also that this relation was by no means advantageous to the nation. The bad spirit afterwards manifested by Ephraim as the soul of the kingdom of the ten tribes, already characterized them in the time of the judges; and its effect at that time was equally deleterious. But the relation was of a very loose kind, and could not prevent the disunion of the nation. This severance was at once the necessary consequence and punishment of their apostasy from the true centrum unitatis, from the Lord. When the nation turned again to the Lord, it was in some measure remedied by the judges whom the Lord raised up. For though none of these succeeded in uniting the whole nation under his command, yet by their means a bond of union was generally established between a few tribes, if only for a time, and thus an end was put to that weakness against the enemy which was the result of separation. We have already shown that the opinion that his activity extended over the whole nation has arisen in a misunderstanding of the remark which the author makes respecting every judge, viz. that he judged Israel. With equal justice we might conclude from the title bishop of the evangelical Church that an evangelical pope was meant. The author does not intend by this remark to point out the special sphere of the activity of the separate judges, but only to draw attention to the fact that the divine benefit was conferred on a part only by virtue of its connection with the whole. The covenant of God, of which the raising up of the judges was an issue, was concluded, not with Dan or Naphtali, but with Israel. If the author had said of the judges that they judged Israel in any other sense than this, he would have directly contradicted himself in the case of Jephthah, of whom he states both that he judged Israel, and that he was merely head over the trans-Jordanic tribes. With respect to the position of the judges, it is generally estimated falsely when they are looked upon as proper judicial personages in our sense, men who were possessed of ordinary judicial power. This error has been occasioned by the assumption that the Hebrew שפט is perfectly synonymous with our judging, while in reality it has a much wider signification. The שפט in the book of Judges generally denotes the exercise of authority and superiority. It has undeniably this general meaning at the very beginning with respect to the first judge, Othniel, and therefore is a passage where the author certainly used the word in what he regarded as its true and principal meaning. In Judges 3:9-10, we read of Othniel: “The Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war; and the Lord delivered the king of Mesopotamia into his hand.” This can have no reference to judging in the usual sense, for the words “and he judged Israel” stand before the giving of the Spirit of the Lord or gifts for the conquest of the enemy, and that conquest itself. They can therefore refer only to the authority which Othniel received, by the fact that he was made partaker of the Spirit of God. The history of Samson also necessarily leads to the same idea of the שפט. We read that he judged Israel for twenty years; where there can be no idea whatever of judging in the ordinary sense. Having once obtained a sure foundation in this way, it will certainly appear significant that of no single judge is it expressly stated that he sat in judgment. Only of Deborah do we read, in Judges 4:5, that the Israelites went up to her for judgment. But she cannot be placed on a level with the judges throughout. She pronounced judgment as a prophetess in matters where no confidence was placed in the decision of the ordinary judicial jurisdiction, and a judgment of God in the proper sense was desired; just as, according to Exodus 18, the nation, leaving their natural judges, thronged to Moses, to draw justice immediately from its source, and not from the tributary channels, which were so often corrupt. As little does Samuel belong to the ordinary judges: his position was exactly similar to that of Deborah; he was judge in another sense than the judges of the book of Judges. If the mention of judging were wanting only in the case of this or that judge, we might look for the reason in the fact that their activity in the national wars of deliverance was the proper subject of the narrative; but since it is wanting in all, this reason does not suffice. If the judges had really exercised judicial functions, there would at least be some mention of the circumstance, if only a casual one, such as we find in the case of Deborah. Moreover, the author relates much of the judges besides their principal activity. The result is this: the judges had nothing to do with the proper administration of justice. This remained in the hands of the natural rulers of the nation. The judges were men who had gained confidence and authority by what they had done in the strength of the Lord for the deliverance of the nation, and to whom the people were glad to appeal in public and private matters,—in matters of justice, too, in which, however, they acted merely as arbitrators,—and who exercised a guiding influence over them, which, however, was also of a free nature. The only exception was Jephthah, who formally claimed a kind of regency among the trans-Jordanic tribes before he entered into war, and had it confirmed by the natural rulers of the nation.