[[WMG:[[center:[-''Literature/TheBible'' '''[[Characters/TheBible Main Character Index]]'''\\
[[Characters/BookOfGenesis Genesis]] | [[Characters/BookOfExodus Exodus through Deuteronomy]] | [[Characters/BookOfJoshua Joshua]] | '''Judges''' | [[Characters/BooksOfSamuel Samuel]] | [[Characters/BooksOfKings Kings]] | [[Characters/BookOfEsther Esther]] | [[Characters/BookOfJob Job]] | [[Characters/TheFourGospels Matthew through John]] | [[Characters/ActsOfTheApostles Acts]]]]-]]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:The Judges In General]]
* BadassIsraeli: The book covers a time period where, in lieu of kings, Israel was ruled by a series of badasses.
* UnlikelyHero: A interesting characteristic common among the titular judges is how they go against the norm of expected hero tropes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Ehud]]
-> [[PreMortemOneLiner "I have a message from God for you".]]
----
* AntiHero: Assassination isn't exactly what a white hat would do.
* BadassIsraeli: 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.
* SouthpawAdvantage: 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, [[FailedASpotCheck since Ehud's guard felt only his left side for a sword]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:King Eglon of Moab]]
* AdiposeRex / FatBastard: Seriously, he's so fat that Ehud's sword gets [[{{Squick}} sucked into his body fat]]!
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Ehud's sword stuck to Eglon's fat belly.
* UndignifiedDeath: The servants thought he was relieving himself.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Deborah]]
->''"And I rose a mother in Israel"''.
----
* ActionGirl: She got her job as judge/ruler by acting when the men would not.
* AnimalThemeNaming: Her name means bee.
* BadassIsraeli: Led Israel against the Canaanites.
* BrainsAndBrawn: 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.
* TheHighQueen: Fourth Judge of Israel and LadyOfWar. So inspirational that her appointed military leader did not think he could win the impending battle without her.
* IronLady: She was nearly unstoppable in battle. With her general Barak, she led the Israelites against the Canaanites (Barak didn't trust his own judgment).
* LadyOfWar: Again, how she got her job. So inspirational that her appointed military leader didn't think he could win the impending battle without her.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Certainly not intentional, but she IS the only female Judge.
* TeamMom: See the quote. She's the team mom for the entire Jewish nation.
* TokenGirl: Deborah is the only female judge; she took the job when no men were willing or able.
* WarriorPoet: Her and Barak celebrate the victory over Sisera and his army by breaking into song.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Yael]]
->''"Come and I shall show you the man you are looking for"''
----
* AnimalThemeNaming: Her name means "ibex."
* BadassIsraeli: 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, [[UnusualEuphemism "covering"]] him in her bed until he fell asleep, before finally ''driving a tent stake through his head.'' This single-handedly won a war.
* GuileHeroine: 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 SacredHospitality'' is presented as the heroic thing to do; the guy was THAT dangerous.
* HeroicSeductress: Some [[http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/jael-wife-of-heber-kenite-midrash-and-aggadah interpretations of the Hebrew word for "cover" portray Yael as one]]; the more innocent interpretation assumes she "covered" [[GeneralRipper Siserah]] [[{{Bowdlerise}} 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 ''[[SexGoddess (no less than seven times!)]]'' until he was exhausted, then finished him off in his sleep.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Tent pegs!
* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: Tricks Sisera into trusting her, lulls him to sleep with warm milk, and then brutally drives a tent stake through his temples.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is it spelled Jael or Yael?[[note]]They are alternate transliterations and are pronounced the same.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Barak]]
->''"If you will go with me, I also shall certainly go; but if you will not go with me, I shall not go."''
----
* BadassIsraeli: DoubleSubversion. 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.
%%* BrainsAndBrawn
* CowardlyLion: Fears going to war without God's prophetess at his side
* SupportingLeader: Takes second string to Deborah, but wins the battle.
* WarriorPoet: Sings with Deborah after the battle.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: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..."''
----
* BadassIsraeli: Especially considering the odds he and his band of underdogs were up against.
* OfferedTheCrown: After the big battle he won with only 300 men.
* ReallyGetsAround: This trope almost ''has'' to be accurate if you have 71 sons. And that's not counting any daughters.
* ARealManIsAKiller: Is goaded by Zebah and Zalmunnah into him putting them to death himself when his son Jether refuses to do the honors since [[JustAKid he was still a youth]], with the two saying, "As the man is, so is his strength."
* RefusalOfTheCall: Initially was skeptical and wanted God to prove He is who He says He is by "putting out a fleece".
* ShamingTheMob: Gideon's father saved him when he destroyed an altar to Baal.
* ThinkNothingOfIt: Refuses to be king.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Abimelech]]
* BastardBastard: The son of another woman, he kills almost all his other legitimate brothers and has himself be elevated to the position of king.
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: 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.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: Owing to his father Gideon's many [[{{Polyamory}} concubines]], he had '''''seventy''''' half-brothers. Or, in his mind, seventy pretenders to his throne. He gets rid of (very nearly) all of them.
* UndignifiedDeath: 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.
* WrongGenreSavvy: See BetterToDieThanBeKilled and UndignifiedDeath above. Unfortunately for him, people still say that [[IWasBeatenByAGirl he was beaten by a girl]].
* YoungConqueror: 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 OfferedTheCrown and turned it down flat.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jephthah]]
* AntiHero: 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.
* BreakThemByTalking: 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.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: 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.
* HotBlooded
* HumanSacrifice: Wooden literalist interpretations of the scripture contend that this is what he did to his daughter.
** TakingTheVeil: The other prevailing interpretation is that the daughter was sent away to live as a virginal servant of God.
* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Led a band of outlaws.
* SonOfAWhore: 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.
* TheUnfavorite: Being the son of a prostitute, his step-mother didn't like him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Samson]]
->''"From this day I shall be blameless in what I do against the Philistines: [[PayEvilUntoEvil For I will do you evils]].''
----
* NinetiesAntiHero: More or less the UrExample. His characterization mostly revolves around destroying things when pissed off and the occasional womanizing. Also an UnbuiltTrope as his womanizing led to his downfall.
* AchillesHeel: Samson loses all of his strength upon the loss of his hair.
* BadassIsraeli: He is ''the'' strongman of Jewish myth. He kills a thousand soldiers with the ''jawbone of a donkey''...and [[BondOneLiner 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.
* BondOneLiner: 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.
* BondVillainStupidity: 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.
* BreakoutCharacter - 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.
* CherryTapping: 1,000 kill count.....with a jawbone of an donkey.
* DownfallBySex: 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.
* TheDreaded: Before David, Samson was considered the ''worst'' thing that's ever happened to the Philistines.
* DreadlockRasta: 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 DreadlockWarrior.
* DreadlockWarrior: Samson, the [[SuperStrength inhumanly strong]] OneManArmy, is specifically stated to wear his hair in dreadlocks.
* DrivenToSuicide: And God helps him.
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: "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."
* EstablishingCharacterMoment - Telling his parents he will marry a Philistine woman.
* ExplainingYourPowerToTheEnemy: Got a haircut out of it.
* {{Expy}}: The Israelite version of [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hercules]]. Also shares the same LoveMakesYouDumb weakness with his Greek counterpart.
* EyeScream: The Philistines pull his eyeballs out.
* FakeWeakness: 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...
* FatalFlaw:
** His lust for women. See LoveMakesYouDumb.
** And his drunkenness, which God told him to avoid, gave Delilah the chance to cut his hair.
* GoodFlawsBadFlaws: 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.
* HandicappedBadass: He is blinded by his enemies after being depowered, but he later kills them all for it.
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Gave this treatment to a random lion.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation One wonders]] if he was one, considering he ended up having ''two'' traitorous wives...
* HotBlooded: A WorldsStrongestMan who killed a ''thousand'' Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. After a deadly HumiliationConga that involved a certain [[TheVamp seductress]], a TraumaticHaircut ''and'' EyeScream, [[TakingYouWithMe took down thousands more]] with him by breaking the pillars of a temple.
* HumiliationConga: 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.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: 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.)
* LoveMakesYouDumb: 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. [[FridgeBrilliance 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.]]
* MessianicArchetype: 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 ChosenOne, his battles are more like the antics of a super powered college prankster and his motivation to finally beat the Philistines was personal revenge.
* MrFanservice: Due to his strength, adaptations and art tend to portray him as well built.
* TheOathbreaker: 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.
* OneManArmy: In marked contrast to many of the other figures in Judges, who were military commanders.
* PersonOfMassDestruction: Kinda. He did smash the two pillars of the Philistine temple, killing over 3000.
* ThePlan: God blessing Samson was all part of the plan.
* ReallyGetsAround: His casual bedding of prostitutes is mentioned.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: After a HumiliationConga 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
* RedHerring: Delilah tries to find the reason for Samson's strength by asking him. He is less than helpful at first.
* StellarName: Means "Sun".
* SuperStrength: The Jewish Archetype, with his greatest display being demolishing the temple where he was held prisoner by ''pulling the pillars down''.
* TakingYouWithMe: 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)
* TooDumbToLive: He eventually gives in to Delilah and tells her the secret of his strength, leading to his capture by the Philistines.
* TragicHero: Met the worst fate among the Judges.
* TouchedByVorlons: The reason for Samson's strength.
* WeaksauceWeakness: Got his SuperStrength from [[ConditionalPowers 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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Delilah]]
* FemmeFatale: Handily seduces Samson into revealing the truth about the source of his strength.
* HoneyTrap: 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.
* TheVamp: 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.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The other Judges (Othniel, Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon)]]
* BadassIsraeli: Shamgar, mentioned only in one verse. All it says is he took an [[ImprobableWeaponUser ox goad]] (which is essentially a stick with a pointy end, and a hooked end) and single-handedly slaughtered a group of 300 Philistines.
* TheCavalry: Jair and Abdon had sons and grandsons who rode donkeys, making them excellent cavalry in the hill country
* ChosenOne: God picked them personally.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: 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.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: 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.
[[/folder]]
----