The book of Judges bustles with colorful characters.

• Ehud, the left-handed political assassin who cleverly dispatches a corpulent king.
• Deborah, a bold prophet and matriarch of Israel who musters tribes to war.
• Samson, a Rambo-like warrior who dallies with women and annihilates Philistines in a temple of doom.

To Christian readers Judges is interesting, sometimes inspiring, but also puzzling. What message should we take from it? How are we to understand the ambiguous spirituality of the judges themselves? What was God doing during this wayward period between Joshua and Samuel?

With wit, insight and sensitivity to the narrator's art, Michael Wilcock answers these and other questions. God himself is the Judge, he argues, who transcends the uncertain record of human judges. He is the principle actor in this drama. Always ready to respond to those who call on him, he takes the initiative and uses raw human resources to preserve Israel from its enemies and shape the nation for his purpose.

In exposing the twists and turns and nuances of this story, Wilcock sends us back to Judges with a renewed quest, not only to rediscover the story of God and Israel, but to find fresh perspective on the ways of God and his church in a post-Christian world.