ABSTRACT
According to the traditional chronology, the period of the judges lasts about four hundred years, and it is a time of constant backsliding by the people. The people are lawless. Granted, despite the last verse in Judges, society had not reached a Hobbesian "time of war, where every man is enemy to every man", but Israel was a tribal society, and only the gravest threat or offense can get the tribes to act in unison. The most worthy of the judges is Gideon, for he rejects the kingship. The Israelites ask, "Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also". Gideon has seventy sons. After his death, the men of Shechem chose Abimelech, Gideon's son by a concubine. The Levite cuts his dead concubine into twelve pieces and sends her body parts throughout the territories of all of the Israelites. The distinction between calling the land Israel and calling it Palestine remains politically relevant.
