Includes bibliographical references and index.

I. Rhetorical Concerns of Judges' Tribal-Political and Deuteronomic Schemata -- II. Rhetorical Concerns of Judges as a Literary Form -- III. The Rhetorical Strategy of Judges -- IV. The Rhetorical Situation Implied by Judges -- Excursus I: Compilation, Redaction and the Rhetoric of Judges -- Excursus II: Scribal Developments and the Rhetoric of Judges -- Appendix A. Compilational Stratigraphy of the Text of Judges.

This volume describes how the rhetorical devices used in Judges inspire its readers to support a divinely appointed Judahite king who endorses the deuteronomic agenda to rid the land of foreigners, to maintain inter-tribal loyalty to YHWH's cult, and to uphold social justice.

Matters of rhetorical concern interpreted here include the superimposed cycle-motif and tribal-political schemata, concerns reflected in the plot-layers of each hero story, the force of narrative analogy for characterization, the strategy of entrapment which foreshadows portrayals of Saul and David in I Samuel, and the relation between Judges' implied situation of composition and its compiler's intention.

In addition to offering new insights into the rhetorical strategy of the Judges compiler, this book illustrates a new method for understanding how plot-layered stories work.