To the unity of religious pragmatism in the main stock of the book of Judges corresponds a unity of chronological scheme. The "judges," in spite of the fact that most of them had clearly no more than a local influence, are all represented as successive rulers in Israel, and the history is dated by the years of each judgeship and those of the intervening periods of oppression. But it is impossible to reconcile the numbers with the statement elsewhere that the fourth year of Solomon was the 480th from the exodus (1 Kings vi. 1). See BIBLE: _Chronology_.
The general introduction (ii. 6-iii. 6) is a blend of Deuteronomic and other sources. The intimate relation between it and the separate narratives (Josh. xxiv. 1-27, a late [Ephraimite] record inserted by a second Deuteronomic hand, and xxiii., D) appears both from their contents and from the fact that Judg. ii. 6-10 is almost identical with the narrative appended to Joshua's address (Joshua xxiv. 28-31). Judg. i.-ii. 5, however, is not touched by D, and hence was probably inserted in its present position at a later date. According to the highly intricate introduction the Hebrews were oppressed: (a) to familiarize them with warfare--it is assumed that they had intermarried with the Canaanites and worshipped their gods (iii. 2, 6); (b) to test their loyalty to Yahweh (ii. 22; iii. 1); or (c) to punish them for their marriage with the heathen and their apostasy (D in ii. 12; cf. Josh. xxiii., and ibid. v. 12).
To this succeeds a noteworthy example of the Deuteronomic treatment of tradition in the achievement of Othniel (q.v.) the only Judaean "judge." The bareness of detail, not to speak of the improbability of the situation, renders its genuineness doubtful, and the passage is one of the indications of a secondary Deuteronomic redaction. The case, however, is exceptional; the stories of the other great "judges" were not rewritten or to any great extent revised by the Deuteronomic redactor, and his hand appears chiefly in the framework.[3] Thus, in the story of Ehud and the defeat of Moab only iii. 12-15, 29-30 are Deuteronomic. But the rest is not homogeneous, vv. 19 and 20 appear to be variants, and the mention of Israel (v. 27b) is characteristic of the tendency to treat local troubles as national oppressions, whereas other records represent little national unity at this period (i., v.). See further EHUD.