Judges שׁוֹפְטִים

Judges (Shofetim) spans the generations between Joshua's death and the rise of the monarchy — an age whose refrain is that 'there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.' Its twenty-one chapters turn on a repeated cycle: Israel forsakes Hashem, is given into the hand of its enemies, cries out, and is delivered by a judge whom Hashem raises up — Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and their fellows — until the closing chapters descend into the idolatry of Micah and the outrage at Gibeah. Tradition ascribes the book to the prophet Samuel. This volume presents the complete Hebrew text with English translation, a word-by-word interlinear layer with transliteration, roots, and gematria, and the classic commentaries of Rashi, Radak, Ralbag, Metzudat David, Metzudat Zion, Malbim, and Abarbanel, newly translated into English.