Joshua, the Judges and Ruth
From the Jordan crossing to Israel’s first king, the band of Israel breaks into a row of colored blocks, one for each judge. Read it block by block with the table on p. 59 beside you.
The numbered pins of this stretch, walked in order, are in the book (pp. 60–61). Here you can zoom and explore it freely.
When God Was Israel’s King
How long can a people keep a promise? On pp. 60–61 you can measure it. Adams sets one word in a frame of its own, THEOCRACY, and beside it the reason: by a solemn vote the people chose the Lord as their king. The vote was taken at Shechem, when an old Joshua asked Israel whom they would serve, and Adams dates the whole age from Sinai in 1491. Now slide your finger right along the band below it. Somewhere ahead the colors stop changing, and that is where the promise runs out.
The stretch begins at the Jordan. Adams marks the moment in small letters, “In 40 y’rs. enter Canaan, 1451 B.C.,” and just below it the man who leads the people across: Joshua, 110 years, of the tribe of Ephraim. His book is a book of battles and of land, and Adams fits it into a few marks, a trophy of shields and spears for the five kings of Canaan and six cities of refuge, three on each side of the river, where a man who had killed someone by accident could run and be safe. Below the note, a man is running toward a city gate.
Then comes the most restless stretch of the chart. The Book of Judges tells one story again and again: the people do evil, a foreign king oppresses them, they cry out, and God raises up a deliverer; when the deliverer dies, they turn back. Adams draws it with one rule, Key 3 · A new color is a new ruler. The band of Israel breaks into short blocks, each with its own shade and name: the Elders who outlived Joshua, then Othniel in red, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, and on through Samson to Eli and Samuel. Not every block is a full turn of the circle. Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon have no oppressor in Adams’ list.
Adams is honest about the arithmetic. His list of judges adds up to some 500 years, yet the band runs from Othniel in 1409 to Saul in 1095, about 314. He explains the gap himself: some periods overlapped, and some may belong to opposite sides of the Jordan at the same time. Deborah’s block reads 47 for a related reason: a block shows the span Adams drew, 1338 to 1291, while his list gives her forty years, as Judges does.
In the middle of these hard years sits a young woman in a red dress, in a field with an armful of grain. She is Ruth, from Moab, and Adams puts her marriage to Boaz in Gideon’s time, 1256 B.C., with a question mark of his own. Under the stream of time a thin line runs through Salmon, Boaz, Obed and Jesse and comes out at David.
Now you can finish the measurement you started. Samuel kneels in the night and answers, “Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth,” and becomes the last of the judges. When the people ask for a king like the nations, the colored blocks give way to one long band: “Saul, 40. First King.” Under it Adams writes that the Theocracy ends and the Jewish monarchy begins, 1095 B.C. On the far right a shepherd boy is already waiting.
“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”Judges 21:25 · KJV
Think it through
Keep your Bible open. There are no wrong answers here; the worksheet in the free Companion gives you room to write.
- Adams calls this whole stretch the Theocracy. Read what the people promised at Shechem: how long does that promise last on the chart?
- Count the blocks between Othniel and Samuel that have an oppressor in the table on p. 59. What does each of those turns say about the people, and about God?
- Adams admits the judges’ years add up to about 500, yet he draws 314. How does his own explanation change the way you read the numbers on the chart?
- Ruth was a Moabitess, yet her line runs to David. What does her place on the chart say about who belongs to God’s people?
- The people asked for a king “like all the nations.” Where does the chart show the answer, and what did the request cost them?
- Deborah’s block reads 47, while Judges 5:31 gives forty years of rest. What is a block’s number measuring, and why does that matter as you read the band?
Find the block marked ELI near the right end of the band on pp. 60–61. Which key tells you what its new color means, and whose block comes after it?
Show the answer
Key 3 · A new color is a new ruler. Eli the high priest judges from 1155 to 1115; Samuel’s block follows, 1115 to 1095.
The King They Already Had
Adams could have called this stretch the age of the judges. He chose another word and framed it on the chart: Theocracy, God himself as Israel’s king. He did not invent the idea. He hangs it on a verse, the day at Shechem when Joshua told the people they were witnesses against themselves that they had chosen the LORD, and they answered, “We are witnesses.” For Adams the whole row of colored blocks, from Sinai to Saul, is Israel with no human king because it already had one.
That changes how you read the judges. They are not a dynasty. Adams calls them temporary and special deliverers, raised up when the people cried out, and he gives each one a block of its own color. The cycle of Judges 2 runs through the great blocks of the band: the people turn away, they are oppressed, they groan, and the LORD raises up a judge. The colors keep changing because the people kept turning away. The judges keep coming because God did not.
Then the people ask for a king like all the nations, and God tells Samuel what they are really doing. They have not rejected Samuel; they have rejected him, that he should not reign over them. On p. 61 you can see the answer drawn. The row of colors stops, and one long band takes its place, Saul of Benjamin, forty years. Adams writes beneath it that the Theocracy ends.
Yet the chart does not leave it there, and neither does Scripture. Under the stream, through the same restless years, a thin line runs from Salmon to Boaz, and from Boaz, through Ruth of Moab, to Obed, Jesse and David. While Israel was asking for a king like the nations, God was already preparing a king of his own, and the line that carries him goes on toward Christ.
Read and reflect
“And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses.”
What does it mean to be a witness against yourself, and how long did Israel’s witness hold?
“… for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.”
Where in your own life might asking for something “like all the nations” be a way of refusing God’s rule?
“… and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.”
Why do you think Scripture ends Ruth’s gentle story with a king’s name?
Quiz: ten questions
Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why. Each explanation names the page of the book.
Read the whole chart, stretch by stretch
This site lets you wander; the book walks you through. All seventeen stretches on full spreads at 75% of the real chart, numbered pins explained in order, Adams' Six Keys on every page and a study page for every stretch. Large format, full color.