Judges 10 Chapter Introduction

Structure and Formatting

This chapter introduces the account of Jephthah, which continues in Chapters 11 and 12.

Literary devices that point to structure

Possessive forms

Within the list of people groups in 10:6, the author uses slightly different possessive forms to make a distinction that is significant for what happens as the book continues. He uses the name of a country or city to speak of the gods of Aram, Sidon, and Moab. But he describes the inhabitants of a country or cities when he speaks of the gods of “the sons of Ammon” and “the Philistines.” This is because, as the next verse indicates, it was the Ammonites and the Philistines who next conquered and oppressed the Israelites and whom the next two judges opposed. Jephthah defeated the Ammonites, as chapters 11 and 12 describe, and Samson fought against the Philistines, as chapters 13–16 describe. If possible, use slightly different possessive forms in your own translation to reflect this distinction. The UST models one way to do this.

Order of information

In 10:7, the author presents new information in a particular order for a specific reason. In the book, he relates the oppression by the Ammonites and the deliverance by Jephthah in chapters 10–12, before he describes the oppression by the Philistines and the resistance of Samson in chapters 13–16. But in this verse he is creating a special arrangement between the phrase “into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the sons of Ammon” and those next sections of the book. This arrangement is known as a chiasm. In it, the first and last parts match and the middle parts match. In other words, the author is creating this arrangement: Philistines—Ammonites (this phrase); Ammonites—Philistines (the next sections of the book). However, if it would better help your readers to recognize how this phrase introduces the following accounts of Jephthah and Samson, you could name these people groups in the order in which they feature in the narrative. You might say, in other words, “into the hand of the sons of Ammon and into the hand of the Philistines”