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Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 8: Judges is unavailable, but you can change that!

Dr. Trent Butler expounds on the book of Judges as a riddle. The book takes up a dreary theme of failure and disobedience and presents it with irony, satire, and humor. These instances of humor not only enliven the stories, they also provide the keys that he uses to address the scholarly riddles the book so frequently presents. Dr. Butler observes that Judges is a complex work of literature that...

story-lines (10:6–18 and 11:1–12:7)” (70). For ease of commentary, I have divided chaps. 11–12 into four parts: Ammonite war report (11:1–33) Vow narrative (11:[30], 34–40) Intertribal battle report (12:1–6) Annalistic reports of minor judges (12:7–15) For the narrator, however, only two sections are important: the Jephthah narrative (11:1–12:6) and the minor judges annals (12:7–15). The Jephthah narrative features an introduction (11:1–3) and an epilogue (12:1–6). The central narrative appears to
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