Three Tales of Three Cities in the Book of Judges

Introduction

The anonymous author of the Book of Judges, who may be considered in the role of a storyteller-historian-theologian, uses the city as a theatrical panoramic background for the violent events that unfold. For some characters, the city in the Hebrew text of Judges is a safe refuge, for others, a place of violence and terror as they fall victim to predators.

Shechem (Judges 9) is a desirable city that is briefly acquired in an act of extreme violence by an ambitious and ruthless individual in his quest for status. A city-story unfolds with the theological theme of justice and retribution.

Liash (Judges 18) is also a desirable city for a homeless tribe. This city in the far north is seized by ruthless urban intruders and the inhabitants are slaughtered; however, there is no retribution or revenge for victims. The desperate tribe of Dan destroys the Liash and its inhabitants and builds another in its own name.

Gibeah (Judges 19-20) is at first assumed to be a safe refuge for travelers who arrive as night falls. This is not a story of city invasion but of visitors who are abused by the inhabitants, one of whom is raped, murdered, and dismembered. Thousands of Israelites are slaughtered in the three battles of the city of Gibeah that follow and the survival of one of Israel’s tribes is threatened.

All three city-urban-stories are glum, grim, and violent. The body count is high. Characters are ruthless. The stories are dark, violent, and claret-soaked; these are grown-up stories of real violence, which are presented raw on the page but are neither glorified nor trivialized.

The aim of this literary study is briefly to consider the shape and description of cities in order to discuss how events unfold and how characters interact with one another against three panoramic city backgrounds.

The Shape of the City in the Book of Judges

The city in Judges is עִיר, sometimes plural עָרִים (11:26; 20:24, 15, 42; 21:23). Cities are built and inhabited. There are no walled cities in Judges as mentioned in the conquest narratives even though Avraham Biran in his excavation account of Tel Dan describes ‘massive ramparts’, that were ‘a mammoth project’, were ‘impregnable’, and formed a ‘formidable defence system’ around a small inhabitable area like a crater surrounded with little possibility of expansion. ¹

Cities have citizens and inhabitants. Cities are places from which people may go in and out; characters enter and leave. There is an entrance with a gate or doors. Cities may be ruled over by a prince, a ruler, a governor, or elders. Cities have a house for gods. Cities have an open public space. There are fields around cities that are worked by the citizens.

Cities may be perceived as safe or unsafe, they may also be foreign and alien. Cities are areas that may be defended by its citizens from attack with places of refuge, retreat or final defence called מִגְדָּל such as that pulled down by Gideon at Peniel (8:17) and in which the survivors of Shechem take refuge (9:46, 47, 49), they may be towers and are described as strong or impregnable (מִגְדַּל־עזֹ) such as in the city of Thebez (9:51). The city also has an army or militia that may be called out in response to attack or crisis. Cities are attacked, besieged, captured, set ablaze, destroyed by assailants, rebuilt, and renamed. The inhabitants of defeated cities are ‘put to the sword’.

Shechem

The theme of the Abimelech story (chapter 9) is disclosed when Gideon’s youngest son—the traumatized lone survivor of an act of fratricide—appeals for retribution upon the murderers of his brothers demanding that the memory of their father, Israel’s judge-deliverer and war-hero, is not forgotten but remembered and honoured. In a long and complicated story, a noble character (Zebul) carries the theological theme forward towards a satisfying conclusion when an unnamed woman, armed with her domestic upper-millstone, inflicts the final act of retribution. Emotions run high; readers are to be horrified at Abimelech’s ruthless slaughter of his innocent half-brothers whom he views as rivals. Readers are invited to beam with delight as the retribution-act crushes the pretender with its brutal bruising edge.

Abimelech has the assumed name of a ruthless prince in waiting who is impatient for an inheritance. He is a pretender with ambitions to rule a desirable urban area: the city of Schechem and its surrounding fields. However, Abimelech has an inheritance problem; he has seventy half-brothers and he appears to be seventy-first. His claim is marginal.

Abimelech has not achieved anything which would suggest his suitability as a candidate for kingship. He is not identified as a גִּבּוֹר הֶחָיִל like Gideon his father. He is not characterized as an imposing regal Saul-like figure. He has neither honour nor prestige. He is not called a judge or deliverer. He is not ‘raised up’ like Israel’s earlier judge-deliverers. Abimelech is not identified as anyone’s choice for anything. He is a malevolent opportunist who lacks qualities in his favour; a nasty man, a very nasty man indeed.

What Abimelech does possess is a Shechemite family connection which he exploits when the Canaanite inhabitants accept his proposal that he is a suitable choice to be their king and thus prevent messy sibling rivalry. Abimelech is financed with a contribution of ‘seventy pieces of silver’ culled from the house treasury of the local god, ‘Baal of the Covenant’, which he uses to pay individuals who are unprincipled and arrogant (רֵיק), lacking restraint and undisciplined (פחז), to slaughter his seventy rivals. Abimelech hires reckless layabouts who are men for hire and live on the edge; they are available to do anything for anyone, for a price.

Jotham, the youngest brother survives; he rages about the murder of his brothers when using a tree fable in order to expose Abimelech as a murderer, a bramble that will be his own ruin and the ruin of his Shechemite accomplices. The theme of the Abimelech story is disclosed when Jotham appeals for retribution upon the murderers of his brothers. He demands that the memory of his father Gideon—Israel’s deliverer and war-hero—be honoured. The theological theme of justice and retribution is relentlessly carried forward as characters are introduced. The action moves from city to city; beginning in Gideon’s city Ophrah, readers are taken to Shechem itself, then to Arumah (perhaps a city) and finally to Thebez (also a city, v. 51) a hard-hat area (literally) where the final act of retribution is carried out to the great satisfaction of readers.

Zebul (called the governor of Shechem) functions as God’s ‘troublesome spirit’ רוּחַ רָעָה, v. 23). The word ‘evil’ is probably too strong here for translation. Zebul acts as God’s agent who, as a human character, moves among the various parties in order to bring characters into conflict with one another leading them towards the author’s retributive conclusion. Bringing characters into conflict appears to be Zebul’s function each time he appears in the story. Zebul is placed between Abimelech and the Shechemites in order to pass on information that will lead to the destruction of first one party then another.

The mood of this city story darkens further when Gaal arrives in Shechem accompanied by his brothers. Gaal is carefully characterized as yet another pretender, a nasty piece of work who—with his ‘gang’—is just the sort of base character the Shechemites will look to for their treacherous purposes. Gaal’s name (גַּעַל)—which means dirty, loathsome, therefore repellant, and may be related to the Arabic ju’al, ‘dung-beetle’, ² is always accompanied by his patronym, ‘son of a slave’ (בֶּן־עֶבֶד, vv. 26, 28, 30, 31, 35). The construction of Gaal’s name signals readers that he and his accomplices will be up to no good. He celebrates his arrival by participating in an exuberant drunken binge during which he publicly mocks and curses Abimelech, the city’s absentee ruler (v. 28). He boasts that Shechemites will find in himself a more suitable leader; Shechemites have more sense than to serve a son of Jerubbaal. Gaal incites unrest in a bid to replace Abimelech as the city ruler when he issues a bold drunken challenge (v. 28): ‘who is Abimelech’ that he should be served? Gaal asks why he and the Shechemites are to be subject to the likes of Abimelech.

Zebul sends messengers to inform Abimelech that Gaal is turning the city against him (v. 31); he is not to be over troubled because the insurrection will be easily put down. Abimelech does exactly as Zebul says; he waits in the field until dawn when the ‘hung-over’ Gaal appears at the city gate (v. 35) unsure of who is emerging from the desert haze.

When the loathsome son of a slave is expelled from Shechem, Abimelech succumbs to the first part of Jotham’s curse as he attacks and slaughters the city inhabitants in their fields.

Why does Abimelech go to the trouble of casting salt into the rubble of the city? It may be his purpose to prevent this city from being inhabited by survivors or others. For example, Israel is cautioned by Moses to carefully keep the covenant, not to turn away, not to worship local gods, because if they do, disease and sickness will cover their land in the shape of salt and sulfur and nothing will sprout or grow (Deut. 29:23). In Psalm 107 God, who is able to water the desert, can also turn the fruitful land into a salt waste in response to the wickedness of the inhabitants (v. 34).

The wheels of retribution have a little further to turn and to gather momentum. Abimelech moves from one confrontation to another and for reasons that are not disclosed, he captures the city of Thebez where the inhabitants shut themselves inside a well-fortified tower (מִגְדָּל) and climb to the roof. At Thebez Abimelech attempts a similar strategy as at Shechem: to burn the tower and those who seek sanctuary within.

Retribution finally comes upon Abimelech when an unnamed woman throws a domestic upper millstone—the ancient equivalent of a rolling-pin—from the tower which crushes his skull. Readers may ask, what is the point of such a long rambling city tale?

The Abimelech story demonstrates what happens when God’s judge-deliverers (in this case, Gideon-Jerubbaal) and their families are dishonoured. Evil-doers (Abimelech and his Shechemite sponsors) will suffer much the same volume of evil which they inflict upon others, suggesting a correspondence of the initial act with the just consequences that follow.

The memories of judge-deliverers, whom God commissions to deliver Israel from oppressors, are not to be abused, they are to be highly honoured. God still participates in Israel’s life and neither the abuse of Gideon-Jerubbaal’s name nor the evil of Abimelech and the Shechemites is forgotten.

In ancient Hebrew storytelling, no one has to wait until the afterlife for justice. God remembers acts of injustice and will respond with retribution in his own time. Pretenders, who run amok (Abimelech), scheming city elders (Shechemites), and opportunists who are characterized as loathsome ‘dung-beetles’ and the sons of slaves (Gaal), will be the ruin of each other.

Judges 9, however, is an account of ancient story-world justice. Readers may wish that the modern world worked this way. It is to be acknowledged that fair-play and satisfying endings which exist in distant story-worlds are elusive in our own.

The excavations of Ernest Wright and others identify biblical Shechem with the ‘imposing mound of Tell Balatah’ near modern Nabulus. ³ Shechem is described as having the ‘grandeur and strength of a great western wall’ built with huge boulders, a ‘great fortification’ with the great structure of a gate. ⁴ However, these structures are only hinted at in the Hebrew text of Judges 9 such as Abimelech’s attack taking ‘all the day’ to secure the city (v. 45) and the elders retreating into what may be a great tower structure a מִגְדָּל and the defensive structure (צְרִיחַ, v. 46) of the temple and the strong מִגְדָּל of Thebez may indicate the substantial defenses of both cities. ⁵

The City of Liash and the Desperate Tribe of Dan

The story of the destruction of Liash—the lion city in Judges 18—is an account of how the Danites leave their temporary camp-dwelling on a hill near their own territory for a city in a safe and desirable location in the north which becomes the familiar geographical border phrase for the whole land, ‘from Dan to Beer-Sheba’. It is to be acknowledged that retribution is denied the peace-loving, unsuspecting inhabitants of this northern city. It is the Danites who live happily ever after and this is their story.

A tribe is looking for a home. Danites have been unable to remove the Amorite inhabitants from their inheritance in the land and are confined to a temporary camp in the hill country between Zorah and Eshtoal (cf. Judges 1:34 and 13:25).

Five able men of proven ability are sent to reconnoitre the land. The mission of the ‘Danite Five’ is to make a careful observation in order to discover the possibility of a permanent home for the tribe and to report back. The spies move on from the Ephramite hills with the blessing of Micah’s Levite-priest and in the north they happen upon a desirable independent city in a safe, remote location. The inhabitants are peaceful, they are not threatened (we assume them to be unwarlike), and they feel secure. Moreover, they are prosperous because the fertile hinterland gives them all they need. The mention of the Sidonians suggests that these were the only allies likely to come to the defence of the inhabitants of Liash, but Sidon is on the coast, far to the north-west. Liash, the sleeping lion city of the north, will be a push-over for the predatory Danite army.

An expeditionary force of 600 warriors retraces the steps of the ‘five’. They steal Micah’s idol, his ephod, and his teraphim and offer his Levite-priest a prestigious career move: to be the father and priest of a whole tribe rather than in the employment of a single family.

When Micah and his militia pursue and call after the Danites demanding the return of their sacred property, they are given a curt reply which may be paraphrased:

Shut up! There are cruel men in our company. They will attack you. You will lose your life as well as your property (v. 25).

Their warriors are described as bitter or savage or cruel, they are not ‘fierce’ or ‘strong’ or bitter in the sense of grief-stricken Naomi on her return home from Moab (Ruth 1:20). They are not described as גִּבּוֹר חַיִל (Jephthah-like or Boaz-like; cf. Judg. 11:1; Ruth 2:1). They are mean, merciless, and prepared to fight.

Readers are to note that the military ability of the so-called Danite ‘warriors’ is suspect; they are unable to defeat Amorites who occupy their territorial inheritance in the lowlands (Judges 1:34). Danites favour soft targets such as Micah and his neighbours, and the unsuspecting peaceful inhabitants of Liash.

Danites also avoid conflict. Deborah reprimands the tribe for fishing (Judge 5:17) instead of giving support to Barak when he and Israel’s loyal militia engage Sisera and his iron chariots. Moreover, they fail to support Samson the Danite their judge-deliverer who engages armed Philistines alone.

The peaceful inhabitants of the city of Liash who live at ease in the north have no reason to suspect that the slow advance of families and livestock conceals an intemperate Danite army. There are no negotiations for peaceful co-existence; Danites have slaughter in mind. The city is burnt, rebuilt and inhabited. The desperate tribe of Dan has a new home situated in a wide open plain far away from threat of attack or from reprisals in response to their slaughter of the peaceful inhabitants.

Was Liash, with its small crater-like interior, an enclosed defensive area provided for those who lived outside the city to retreat into should they be threatened by an invading army? May the city ramparts of Liash have been an enclosed area for retreat like the towers of Shechem and Thebez?

Avraham Biran describes biblical Tel Dan as a man-made mound rising 18m above the surrounding plain; excavations reveal massive, impregnable earthen defensive with embankments and circular ramparts. Biran estimates that it would have taken a thousand labourers three years to build. Why such a costly and elaborate construction that enclosed a small area for habitation with no room for expansion? The probable answer is that the first settlers built their city on an expansive plain that lacked natural defenses in the Early Bronze Age as Biran suggests. ⁶ The embankments were constructed later during ‘the Transitional Middle Bronze IIA to IIB period, around the middle of the 18th century BCE’ ⁷ as an artificial imprenetrable defensive advantage behind which the inhabitants would feel secure should threat arise, which seems to be similar to the defensive function of the מִגְדָּל in Shechem and Thebez.

I have visited the site of Tel Dan twice in 2000 and again in 2005 and I saw why this city in its remote location is so desirable and what made the area fertile. There is no mention in the text about the plentiful supply of water from Mount Hermon apart from the new city inhabitants, the Danites, who have reason to be content with their strategic situation, their independence, and consequently lack nothing.

Gibeah

Have you ever been led along by a storyteller with a quaint tale that includes no action of consequence and easy conversation in which characters say and do little of any significance only to become alarmed by what a turn of the page reveals? The third city-tale in our visit to the book of Judges begins with a long innocent preamble of gentle male conversation and generous hospitality.

In the closing chapters of Judges we are cleverly drawn into a storyteller’s shock-horror-fest accompanied by a unique appeal to respond to the bad behaviour of wayward city dwelling Israelites. Like the Danite quest for a new home, events take place before the monarchy, in and about a city.

A Levite from the hill country has recovered a wayward woman who has run home to her family. After three days he leaves the hospitality of her father with a good breakfast inside him. On the walk home the evening begins to draw in. The Levite, on one donkey (and we assume the woman rides the other) decides that he does not want to spend the night in a foreign city.

They travel on and pause in an open space in the city of Gibeah, which we are told four times is a Benjaminite city (Judges 19:14, 16; 20:4, 10). However, Benjaminites are inhospitable; no one offers the visitors accommodation until an old man—who happens to originate from the same area as the Levite—offers shelter accompanied by an ominous warning, ‘Do not sleep out in the open!’ (19:20).

We could spend a long time on a story that is featured among the Hebrew Bible’s ‘texts of terror’, but our subject is ‘the city’ which in this tale is viewed as a place of danger and a second city as a desirable place of safety for travelers. However, the ancient custom of desert hospitality is overlooked by the Benjaminite inhabitants and it is a resident from elsewhere who offers assistance. We assume the travelers are safe for the night; donkeys are fed, feet are washed, food is served. Then this Benjaminite city becomes a place of terror and dread, abuse and murder.

The abuse is committed by those who the author calls ‘sons of belial’ (בְנֵי־בְלִיַּעַל, 19:22; 20:13) who are negative characters lacking any ‘use’ or ‘profit’, suggesting that they make no worthwhile contribution to the city community. ‘Sons of belial’ is a Hebrew idiom referring, not to a character (Belial) and his ‘sons’ but, to worthless individuals who have withdrawn from Israel, who serve the gods of the land (cf. Deuteronomy 13:14). ⁸ They are feral, worthless spoilers like Eli’s sons (1 Samuel 2:12). ‘Sons of belial’ in chapter 19 are ungodly, wicked, evil men who lack honour, and will bring shame upon Israel and almost cause the extinction of their own tribe. They are the opposite of the thousands of courageous Benjaminites who are killed in their defence in the three battles of the city of Gibeah (Judges 20:44 and 46).

When the matter is brought to the Mizpah assembly, Israel’s tribes agree that nothing like the abuse of the Levite and the rape and murder of the woman has occurred since they entered the land. Israelites are dismayed and swords are drawn. The crime is described as ‘evil’, ‘wicked’, and ‘shameful’. The Benjaminites are to be brought to account. Abuse accompanied by murder is a capitol offence.

However, not only do the Benjaminites absent themselves from the assembly, they refuse to listen, and the abuser-murderers are shielded. Israel musters the tribal militia from their cities against the Benjaminite city. Benjaminites muster their warriors and three battles follow. The body count is high.

In the third battle, the Benjaminites are drawn out into the open followed by a frontal attack which indicates the city as a defensive area. May this imply walls or wagons arranged in a circle? Whatever the defenses, they are inadequate. The city inhabitants are slaughtered, as are the inhabitants and livestock of all Benjaminite cities which are burnt. In a repeated note of regret (20:44 and 46) the author informs us that the thousands of Benjaminite dead were all ‘valiant men’.

This third city story is troublesome and problematic. How may it be understood? We could consider the repeated negative phrase, ‘In those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes’. Might this be a key to understanding the book and the complexity of this tale? Such a view, even though widely accepted, may be challenged. The phrase, in my judgement, simply states that events take place before the monarchy when people made their own decisions independently of kings, who could be either good or evil.

The problem, in my view, lies with the storyteller-historian-theologian author who concludes the book simply with the Benjaminites rebuilding their cities and the tribes returning home. The author includes no negative evaluation of Israel’s conduct for the slaughter of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead. Are readers to assume that everyone lives happily ever after? Readers will recall that God has not been slow in the earlier chapters of Judges to reprimand wayward Israelites; but here, the storyteller-historian-theologian is silent. There is no reprimand from God for Israel’s outrageous conduct.

Summary

In these three tales from the book of Judges, three ancient cities are first presented as desirable places of shelter and security. They also become places of danger and violence. Pretenders run amok, unsuspecting city inhabitants are slaughtered, and dreadful things befall visitors with dire consequences. Cities are places in which groups of feral predatory opportunists lurk in the shadows.

In Shechem, a group of layabouts are available for hire to Abimelech, the would-be king, to murder his rival half-brothers; they are those who will do anything for anyone for a price, no questions asked.

A mean and merciless army marches on the north road to Liash (18:25). In the future the Danites will be found behind the secure defensive ramparts of a rebuilt and renamed city, the comfortable northern city of Dan.

Lurking among the inhabitants of Gibeah are malevolent ‘sons of belial’ (19:22; 20:13) to whom visitors become easy prey.

Readers, both ancient and modern, are cautioned about undesirable urban predators in three dark tales of three cities.

There is little redemption to be found in these tales and even less spirituality; just mean-spirited characters and a God who is silent, distant, and remote. Cities are dangerous places in the Hebrew text of the book of Judges. Readers have been warned.