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The Judges In General
- Badass Israeli: The book covers a time period where, in lieu of kings, Israel was ruled by a series of badasses.
- Unlikely Hero: A interesting characteristic common among the titular judges is how they go against the norm of expected hero tropes.
Ehud
- Anti-Hero: Assassination isn't exactly what a white hat would do.
- Badass Israeli: The first example of Mossad-style infiltration and assassination. He is said to have invented the double-edged sword.
- Ninja: Ehud is probably the first known ninja in history.
- Southpaw Advantage: A critical part of Ehud's assassination of King Eglon is accomplished by the fact he was left-handed. That let him sneak a sword into the palace, since Ehud's guard felt only his left side for a sword.
King Eglon of Moab
- Adipose Rex / Fat Bastard: Seriously, he's so fat that Ehud's sword gets
sucked into his body fat! - Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ehud's sword stuck to Eglon's fat belly.
- Undignified Death: The servants thought he was relieving himself.
Deborah
"And I rose a mother in Israel".
- Action Girl: She got her job as judge/ruler by acting when the men would not.
- Animal Theme Naming: Her name means bee.
- Badass Israeli: Led Israel against the Canaanites.
- Brains and Brawn: Deborah is the brains to Barak's Brawn; Without her at his side guiding him every step of the way, he wouldn't have gone to war.
- The High Queen: Fourth Judge of Israel and Lady of War. So inspirational that her appointed military leader did not think he could win the impending battle without her.
- Iron Lady: She was nearly unstoppable in battle. With her general Barak, she led the Israelites against the Canaanites (Barak didn't trust his own judgment).
- Lady of War: Again, how she got her job. So inspirational that her appointed military leader didn't think he could win the impending battle without her.
- The Smurfette Principle: Certainly not intentional, but she IS the only female Judge.
- Team Mom: See the quote. She's the team mom for the entire Jewish nation.
- Token Girl: Deborah is the only female judge; she took the job when no men were willing or able.
- Warrior Poet: Her and Barak celebrate the victory over Sisera and his army by breaking into song.
Yael
"Come and I shall show you the man you are looking for"
- Animal Theme Naming: Her name means "ibex."
- Badass Israeli: Dispatched Sisera, the fleeing General of the Canaanite army, by inviting him into her tent, giving him with milk (instead of water as he requested) to tire him out, "covering" him in her bed until he fell asleep, before finally driving a tent stake through his head. This single-handedly won a war.
- Guile Heroine: Lures an enemy general into her tent, lulls him to sleep, and stabs him in the head with a tent peg. This is one of the few times when breaking Sacred Hospitality is presented as the heroic thing to do; the guy was THAT dangerous.
- Heroic Seductress: Some interpretations of the Hebrew word for "cover" portray Yael as one
; the more innocent interpretation assumes she "covered" Siserah with a blanket and tucked him in before assassinating him, but many scholars interpret the word to mean she covered him with her body. Read: she had sex with him (no less than seven times!) until he was exhausted, then finished him off in his sleep. - Improbable Weapon User: Tent pegs!
- More Deadly Than the Male: Tricks Sisera into trusting her, lulls him to sleep with warm milk, and then brutally drives a tent stake through his temples.
Barak
"If you will go with me, I also shall certainly go; but if you will not go with me, I shall not go."
- Badass Israeli: Double Subversion. He refused to go into battle against the Canaanites unless Deborah agreed to go with him, which she did. This only further cements Deborah's own badassery.
- Cowardly Lion: Fears going to war without God's prophetess at his side
- Supporting Leader: Takes second string to Deborah, but wins the battle.
- Warrior Poet: Sings with Deborah after the battle.
Gideon
"If You really intend to deliver Israel through me as You have said— here I place a fleece of wool on the threshing floor..."
- Badass Israeli: Especially considering the odds he and his band of underdogs were up against.
- Offered the Crown: After the big battle he won with only 300 men.
- Really Gets Around: This trope almost has to be accurate if you have 71 sons. And that's not counting any daughters.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: Is goaded by Zebah and Zalmunnah into him putting them to death himself when his son Jether refuses to do the honors since he was still a youth, with the two saying, "As the man is, so is his strength."
- Refusal of the Call: Initially was skeptical and wanted God to prove He is who He says He is by "putting out a fleece".
- Shaming the Mob: Gideon's father saved him when he destroyed an altar to Baal.
- Think Nothing of It: Refuses to be king.
Abimelech
- Bastard Bastard: The son of another woman, he kills almost all his other legitimate brothers and has himself be elevated to the position of king.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Tried to get his armor-bearer to stab him so no one would know he was fatally wounded by a woman who dropped a rock on him.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Owing to his father Gideon's many concubines, he had seventy half-brothers. Or, in his mind, seventy pretenders to his throne. He gets rid of (very nearly) all of them.
- Undignified Death: Is killed when a woman in Thebez drops a millstone on his head, and is also slain by one of his own soldiers to prevent anyone else from spreading the news that a woman killed him. Not that the latter helped.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: See Better to Die than Be Killed and Undignified Death above. Unfortunately for him, people still say that he was beaten by a girl.
- Young Conqueror: Fancied himself as Israel's first king, although God says otherwise. Ironic, given that his father, through whom he claimed his right to rule, was Offered the Crown and turned it down flat.
Jephthah
- Anti-Hero: Probably one of the least conventionally heroic of the judges (tied with Samson). Child sacrifice was as abhorrent to a pious monolatrous Israelite as it is to moderns.
- Break Them by Talking: While he is better known for his rash vow to God, he's also notably the only Judge who tries to talk down his enemies first. He contests their claims that Israel has stolen their land using legal justifications and appeals to their sense of religion to be happy with what their god has given them. It fails, but he remains the only Judge who even attempted diplomacy.
- Didn't Think This Through: He made a spur-of-the-moment oath to God that he'd sacrifice the first thing that exited his house if the Lord gave him a victory. He won, and the first thing that stepped out was his daughter.
- Hot-Blooded
- Human Sacrifice: Wooden literalist interpretations of the scripture contend that this is what he did to his daughter.
- Taking the Veil: The other prevailing interpretation is that the daughter was sent away to live as a virginal servant of God.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Led a band of outlaws.
- Son of a Whore: He was kicked out of town for it. His original band of soldiers were also various kinds of social outcasts, but prove remarkably effective against the invading Philistines because of God's favor.
- The Unfavorite: Being the son of a prostitute, his step-mother didn't like him.
Samson
"From this day I shall be blameless in what I do against the Philistines: For I will do you evils.
- '90s Anti-Hero: More or less the Ur-Example. His characterization mostly revolves around destroying things when pissed off and the occasional womanizing. Also an Unbuilt Trope as his womanizing led to his downfall.
- Achilles' Heel: Samson loses all of his strength upon the loss of his hair.
- Badass Israeli: He is the strongman of Jewish myth. He kills a thousand soldiers with the jawbone of a donkey...and follows up with a pun. He also lifted two-ton doors and took them for a hike, lifted a loom by his hair, tore a lion apart with his bare hands, and, imprisoned, blinded and chained to a wall for his enemies to laugh at, simply yanked the chain hard enough to pull down the building.
- Bond One-Liner: Upon killing one thousand men with a Donkey's jawbone, he made a pun on the fact that "donkey" and "heap" are homophones in Hebrew. Methods of translating this wordplay vary.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: The Philistines could've killed Samson easily after his hair was cut, but instead they blinded him, imprisoned him, and put him work grinding grain to humiliate him. They came to regret it.
- Breakout Character - He is the only Judge to have a widely released movie made for him, and the only one today known to most people who can name any Judge at all.
- Cherry Tapping: 1,000 kill count.....with a jawbone of an donkey.
- Downfall by Sex: Samson had a lust problem, and the Philistines he tormented used this against him by bribing a prostitute named Delilah to try to learn his secret. He eventually caves, and is captured and humiliated as a result.
- The Dreaded: Before David, Samson was considered the worst thing that's ever happened to the Philistines.
- Dreadlock Rasta: Specifically stated to wear his hair in dreadlocks in Judges 16:13. He's a sort of a proto-monk, which fits the "for religious purposes" connotations of the trope. As a Nazirite (sort of a proto-monk), he actually combines this trope with Dreadlock Warrior.
- Dreadlock Warrior: Samson, the inhumanly strong One-Man Army, is specifically stated to wear his hair in dreadlocks.
- Driven to Suicide: And God helps him.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: "And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead that he slew at his death were more than they that he slew in his life."
- Establishing Character Moment - Telling his parents he will marry a Philistine woman.
- Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Got a haircut out of it.
- Expy: The Israelite version of Hercules. Also shares the same Love Makes You Dumb weakness with his Greek counterpart.
- Eye Scream: The Philistines pull his eyeballs out.
- Fake Weakness: He made up several of these to tell Delilah, after she asked the secret of his strength. Somehow he never figured out why, whenever he told her one, some Philistines would always try to use it on him...
- Fatal Flaw:
- His lust for women. See Love Makes You Dumb.
- And his drunkenness, which God told him to avoid, gave Delilah the chance to cut his hair.
- Good Flaws, Bad Flaws: Despite his faults, the letter to the Hebrews still cite him a great hero for his faith in God, largely due to how he repents.
- Handicapped Badass: He is blinded by his enemies after being depowered, but he later kills them all for it.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Gave this treatment to a random lion.
- Horrible Judge of Character: One wonders if he was one, considering he ended up having two traitorous wives...
- Hot-Blooded: A World's Strongest Man who killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. After a deadly Humiliation Conga that involved a certain seductress, a Traumatic Haircut and Eye Scream, took down thousands more with him by breaking the pillars of a temple.
- Humiliation Conga: When the Philistines captured him, they blinded him, imprisoned him, and put him work grinding grain. They then brought him out to mock him, and have him perform for them. He gets the last laugh, though.
- Improbable Weapon User: Samson kicks ass with an ass's jawbone. (Animal jawbones with flaked flint chips wedged into their tooth-sockets were actually used as primitive cutting implements by many Neolithic cultures. Hey, it's easier than carving a saw from scratch out of wood.)
- Love Makes You Dumb: Delilah, you manipulative bitch, we read your book!
- MacGuffin: His hair. If his head is ever shaved, he loses his strength. This is perhaps a case of divine irony since not getting a haircut is the only Nazirite vow Samson has kept, the other two being not drinking and not touching a dead thing. He lost his strength not because he cut his hair but because he disobeyed God for the last time. He was also drunk when his hair was cut.
- Messianic Archetype: The subversion of the type. His birth is announced by an angel and raised a Nazirite (puritan Hebrew) yet broke its traditions simply because he was the Chosen One, his battles are more like the antics of a super powered college prankster and his motivation to finally beat the Philistines was personal revenge.
- Mr. Fanservice: Due to his strength, adaptations and art tend to portray him as well built.
- The Oathbreaker: As a Nazirite, he is not supposed to drink alcohol, touch a dead thing or cut his hair. By the end, none of these were kept.
- One-Man Army: In marked contrast to many of the other figures in Judges, who were military commanders.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Kinda. He did smash the two pillars of the Philistine temple, killing over 3000.
- The Plan: God blessing Samson was all part of the plan.
- Really Gets Around: His casual bedding of prostitutes is mentioned.
- Redemption Equals Death: After a Humiliation Conga with having his hair shaved off and losing his strength, his eyes are gouged out and he finds himself on the chain gang, working the grain grinder. During this time, his hair grows back and he recovers his strength. When the Philistines are having a victory party, an older and wiser Samson asks a youth to prop him up against the pillars of the temple of Dagon in Gaza, and he prays that God will strengthen him one last time as he pushes against the pillars of Dagon's temple, which collapses and kills Samson along with the Philistines of Gaza
- Red Herring: Delilah tries to find the reason for Samson's strength by asking him. He is less than helpful at first.
- Stellar Name: Means "Sun".
- Super-Strength: The Jewish Archetype, with his greatest display being demolishing the temple where he was held prisoner by pulling the pillars down.
- Taking You with Me: He prays to God to give him strength one last time and collapses the temple with all the rulers of the Philistines inside, and three thousand of their people on the roof.Those who were slain by him as he died outnumbered those who had been slain by him when he lived. (Judges 16:30)
- Too Dumb to Live: He eventually gives in to Delilah and tells her the secret of his strength, leading to his capture by the Philistines.
- Tragic Hero: Met the worst fate among the Judges.
- Touched by Vorlons: The reason for Samson's strength.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Got his Super-Strength from Nazirite rituals (not cutting your hair, taking alcohol, or touching the dead), and breaking them was his big weakness. He tried to mask this by making up a bunch of equally weaksauce fake weaknesses, only to kill anyone who actually tried them. He was still stupid enough to tell his true weakness to Delilah, despite her being the only one who knew of his "weaknesses" and therefore the only one who could have told them to his enemies. By the time he'd cut his hair he'd already violated other parts of the Nazirite rituals, such as drinking alcohol, and handling dead bodies. Cutting his hair was the last straw, so to speak.
Delilah
- Femme Fatale: Handily seduces Samson into revealing the truth about the source of his strength.
- Honey Trap: Not initially, but after Samson falls in love with her, the Philistines promise her 1100 silver coins each if she can figure out the way to defeat him.
- Hypocrite: At one point, after Samson had lied to her three times, she accuses him of saying he loves her despite not trusting her. But it's pretty obvious by this point that she does not love him, and that he had a good reason not to trust her. Otherwise, she would not have betrayed him.
- The Vamp: The classic Vamp in Abrahamic religions. The Biblical story clearly treats her as a villainess who tempts Samson away from his godly ways and thus brings about his downfall, emasculation, and captivity. She betrayed him very effectively, although her life was threatened. People weak in faith turning their backs on their powerful protector when threatened by the vast but easily avoidable powers of the wicked is a bit of a theme in the Bible, yes.
The other Judges (Othniel, Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon)
- Badass Israeli: Shamgar, mentioned only in one verse. All it says is he took an ox goad (which is essentially a stick with a pointy end, and a hooked end) and single-handedly slaughtered a group of 300 Philistines.
- The Cavalry: Jair and Abdon had sons and grandsons who rode donkeys, making them excellent cavalry in the hill country
- Chosen One: God picked them personally.
- Improbable Weapon User: Shamgar's weapon was an ox goad. Or a sharpened stick designed to poke livestock and get them moving. Given that he killed 600 men with it, he must have been absurdly strong in his own right.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Not perhaps to Gideon levels, but Ibzan is said to have had thirty sons and thirty daughters. It's also mentioned he found wives for each of his thirty sons, so his number of eventual grandchildren may have been very large indeed.
