Judges: When Times of Peace or Judgment Reigned

The conquest of the Promised Land that began so promisingly with Y’hoshua (Joshua) is never really completed. After the initial conquest of key cities, such as Yericho (Jericho), the L nd is divided among Israel’s tribes, with each tribe responsible for conquering their own area. The book of Judges opens by describing how each tribe ＂did not drive out＂ (1:21) the inhabitants of the Land as God commanded. In time, these idol-worshipping nations became the downfall of God’s people. The period of the judges lasted more than four hundred years, from the death of Y’hoshua to the time of Sh’mu’el (Samuel; see Acts 13:20).

Walter C. Kaiser graduated from Wheaton College and Graduate School, obtaining his Ph.D. at Brandeis University. He then taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where he served as vice-president and academic-dean from 1980 to 1992. In 1993 he moved to Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, where he was a professor of Old Testament and spent many months of the year teaching internationally. He became president of Gordon-Conwell in 1997 and retired in 2006. He is currently President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Ethics and lives on a farm in Wisconsin with his wife, Nancy.