who till
the soil and bend patiently over the plough. The clans, as of old,
were impatient of all regular authority; each tribe tended towards an
isolated autonomy, a state of affairs which merited reprisals from the
natives and encouraged hatred of the intruders, and it was only when
the Canaanite oppression became unendurable that those who suffered most
from it united themselves to make a common effort, and rallied for
a moment round the chief who was ready to lead them. Many of these
liberators must have acquired an ephemeral popularity, and then have
sunk into oblivion together with the two or three generations who had
known them; those whose memory remained green among their kinsmen were
known by posterity as the judges of Israel.*

* The word "judges," which has been adopted to designate
these rulers, is somewhat misleading, as it suggests the
idea of an organized civil magistracy. The word "shophet,"
the same that we meet with in classical times under the form
_suffetes_, had indeed that sense, but its primary meaning
denotes a man invested with an absolute authority, regular
or otherwise; it would be better translated _chief, prince,
captain_.

These judges were not magistrates invested with official powers and
approved by the whole nation, or rulers of a highly organised republic,
chosen directly by God or by those inspired by Him. They were merely
local chiefs, heroes to their own immediate tribe, well known in their
particular surroundings, but often despised by those only at a short
distance from them. Some of them have left only a name behind them, such
as Shamgar, Ibzan, Tola, Elon, and Abdon; indeed, some scholars have
thrown doubts on the personality of a few of them, as, for instance,
Jair, whom they affirm to have personified a Gileadite clan, and
Othniel, who is said to represent one of the Kenite families associated
with the children of Israel.* Others, again, have come down to us
through an atmosphere of popular tradition, the elements of which modern
criticism has tried in vain to analyse. Of such unsettled and turbulent
times we cannot expect an uninterrupted history:** some salient episodes
alone remain, spread over a period of nearly two centuries, and from
these we can gather some idea of the progress made by the Israelites,
and observe their stages of transition from a cluster of semi-barbarous
hordes to a settled nation ripe for monarchy.

*