God appoints Judah to succeed Joshua. The Lord delivers his foes into his hands and
another 10,000 are slain. In the process, they capture Adonibezek and "cut off his thumbs and great toes." Nice guys.
1:2-6
The LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand: and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men."
1:4
Caleb offers to give his daughter to anyone who conquers the city of Debir. Caleb's nephew wins the contest and
is given his cousin for a prize. 1:12-13
"They slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it ... And the Lord was with Judah."
(You can tell by the number of innocent people he killed.) 1:17, 19
The Israelite spies killed everyone in Bethel, except for the man (and his family) who
showed them how to enter the city. 1:25
An angel drops by to rebuke the Israelites for being too tolerant of the religious
beliefs of the people they have been massacring. He tells them that since they didn't complete their
job (of killing everyone), God will not completely drive them out (like he promised to do). Instead
he'll keep some of them around so that the Israelites will be ensnared by their false gods.
2:1-3
God anger "was hot against Israel, and he sold them." 3:8
The spirit of the Lord comes upon Othniel and causes him to go to war. 3:10
"The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD: and
the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel ...
So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years." 3:12-14
God "delivers" more folks into the hands of his chosen people. "And they slew of Moab ... about 10,000 men
... and their escaped not a man." 3:28-29
God anger "was hot against Israel, and he sold them." Well, I hope he got a good price. 2:14,
4:2
"The Lord discomfited Sisera ... with the edge of the sword ... and there was not a man left."
4:15-16
Jael (our heroine) offers food and shelter to a traveler (Sisera, Jabin's captain), saying "turn in my Lord ...
fear not." Then after giving him a glass of milk and tucking him in, she drives a tent stake through his head. "So God
subdued on that day Jabin." 4:17-23
For murdering her guest while he slept, Jael is "blessed above women." (Hail Jael, full of grace, the Lord is
with thee. Blessed art thou among women....?) 5:24-26
"So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord." (Let them all have their temples pierced by blessed women.)
5:31
"The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and
the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years."
God forces the Israelites to be slaves to the Midianites for seven years. 6:1
"The LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man."
God promises to help Gideon kill all the Midianites. 6:16
Two princes are killed and their heads are brought to Gideon. 7:25
For refusing to feed him and his army, Gideon swears that he'll tear the flesh off the elders of Succoth.
(And he carries out his threat in verse 16.) 8:7
Gideon says he'll destroy the tower of Peneul when he "comes again in peace." 8:9
When Gideon and his water-lapping companions blow their trumpets, God forces all the enemy soldiers to kill
each other, killing 120,000. 7:22, 8:10
"He took the elders of the city, and thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth."
8:16
"He beat down the tower of Penuel, and slew the men of the city." 8:17
Gideon orders his son to kill two kings, but he refuses. So Gideon has to do it himself since his son isn't "man"
enough to do it. 8:20-21
God sends evil spirits that cause humans to deal treacherously with each other.
9:23-24
"Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his
father, in slaying his seventy brethren."
Abimelech's sin wasn't against the 70 brothers that he killed but against his father (Gideon,
already dead). 9:56
"And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads:
and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal."
God had one thousand men and women burned to death to punish them for supporting Abimelech rather than Jotham.
9:57
God was angry at Israel so he sold them to the Philistines. [He had previously sold them to the kings of
Mesopotamia (3:8) and Canaan (4:2).] 10:7
"God ... delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites."
11:21
"Whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we [the Israelites]
possess." 11:24
When "the spirit of the Lord" comes upon Jephthah, he makes a deal with God: If God will help him kill the
Ammonites, then he (Jephthah) will offer to God as a burnt offering whatever comes out of his house to greet him.
God keeps his end of the deal by providing Jephthah with "a very great slaughter." But when Jephthah returns, his
nameless daughter comes out to greet him (who'd he expect, his wife?). Well, a deal's a deal, so he delivers her to
God as a burnt offering -- after letting her spend a couple of months going up and down on the mountains bewailing
her virginity. 11:29-39
"The LORD delivered them into his hands ... And he smote them ... even twenty cities ... with a very great slaughter."
11:32-33
"Her father ... did with her according to his vow which he had vowed." 11:39
42,000 Ephraimites fail the "shibboleth" test and are killed by Jephthah's army. 12:6
"The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD;
and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years." 13:1
"And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men ...
and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle."
When the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, he killed 30 men at random and took their clothes and gave it to the guys at the
party as a prize for guessing his riddle.
(Samson might have been a decent person if he could have kept the spirit of the Lord off him.) 14:19
Samson's father-in-law gave Samson's wife away to a friend, since he thought Samson "hated" her. He suggests
that Samson take his younger daughter instead, saying the younger one's prettier anyway.
15:2
Samson decides to take revenge on the Philistines for -- what? Samson's father-in-law gave away his wife because he thought Samson "hated" her.
What did the Philistines have to do with that? 15:3
Samson catches 300 foxes, ties their tails together, and sets them on fire; the Philistines burn Samson's
ex-wife and father-in-law; and Samson smites them "hip and thigh with a great slaughter."
15:4-8
Samson, with God's help, kills himself and 3000 Philistine men and women by causing a roof to collapse,
setting an example for Bible-based terrorism. 16:27-30
After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine to a mob of
perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine and they
"abuse her all night." The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an
ass and takes her home. Then he chops her body up into twelve pieces and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of
Israel. 19:22-30
After the Benjamites refuse to turn over the men from Gibeah (the town that wanted to have sex with the Levite
but settled for his concubine instead), the Israelites asked God which tribe should go to war with them. God said the tribe
of Judah should go first. So Judah goes to war, but the Benjamites with their sharp shooting lefties kill 22,000 Israelites.
20:18-21
After 22,000 Israelites were killed by the Benjamites, they cry all day before the Lord. Then they ask God (again)
if they should go to war against Benjamin. God said yes, so they try it again, and another 18,000 Israelites are killed.
20:23-25
Once again all of the Israelites sit and weep before God, and ask again (for the third time) if they should attack the
Benjamites. God give them his usual answer: Attack. This time he promises (he was just kidding the last couple times) that
he "will deliver them into thine hand." 20:26-28
God helps the Israelites kill 25,100 Benjamites. 20:35
The Israelites killed everyone in the city with the edge of the sword.
20:37
Another 25,000 Benjamites are killed by the God-assisted Israelites.
20:44-46
The Israelites finish their massacre of the Benjamites by killing all the men, animals, and
everything they could find in every Benjamite city. Then they burned the cities to the ground.
(In this way God helped the Israelites make everything better after the rape and dismemberment of
the concubine.) 20:48
After the Israelites heard the Levite's story (about chopping up his dead concubine and sending her body parts to each
tribe of Israel) they vowed not to "give" their daughters to the Benjamites. So now they had a problem: they just finished
killing all the Benjamite women and children (Jg 20:48) so there were no women for the surviving Benjamite men to marry.
[There were 600 Benjamite men that survived the war with the Israelites. (Jg 20:47)]
21:1-7
But they find a great solution. They check their records and find that no one from Jabeshgilead came to the
rotting-concubine- body-part meeting. So they'll go and steal their women and give them to the 600 surviving Benjamites.
21:8
Here's what the Israelites decide to do. They will go and kill everyone in Jabeshgilead except for the virgin
women and give them to the 600 surviving Benjamites. 21:11
So the Israelites killed all the non-virgin women and children in Jabeshgilead, bringing back 400 virgin women
to give to the Benjamites. But they were still 200 short. Damn! 21:12-14
