Marius has divided the book of Judges along the theme of degeneracy, using different categories of perspective. Judges 1:1–2:5 is developed along a historical/military perspective. Judges 2:6–3:6 utilizes a religious perspective. The cycles section (3:7–16:31) uses the religious perspective traced in individual lives. The final section of the book (17:1–21:25) represents all three perspectives in terms of “the spheres of cultus, family, and nation.”17 Israel as a nation expresses, in the final chapters, its fullest point of degeneracy in its corporate actions. It may be that Samson is “the
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