God against Messiah | 111circles in the form of the monarchical book, which sought “rejection of a ‘roman-
t ic’ error.”^108
The thesis of the monarchical book of Judges is expressed in the slogan: “At
that time there was no king in Israel, and every man did what seemed right in his
own eyes.” This slogan attaches to two stories that portray Israel as unstable dur-
ing the period of the judges, consumed by its inner immorality and disorder and
its vulnerability to attack from without. The first story, in two chapters, tells of
Micah, a man who sets up an illicit ephod and altar site, recruiting his son and a
passing Levite to serve as priests for him. When some men from the tribe of Dan,
on a military expedition, pass Micah’s house, they steal the ephod and other altar
objects and hire away the Levite priest. Micah fails to resist and the Danites set up
their altar once they conquer their new land, where they live “until the land went
into exile” (Judges 18:30). The second story, contained in the final three chapters
of Judges, is much grander and more terrible. The brutal rape and murder of a
woman in Gibeah leads to a league of Israelite tribes seeking to punish the of-
fenders. When the tribe of Benjamin protects those accused, a civil war breaks
out and Benjamin is all but destroyed. Finally, after some debate, the remaining
men of Benjamin are allowed to marry and reproduce. Their wives are abducted
from Jabesh-Gilead, after the slaughter of the men there, and from Shiloh, and
carried off to live with the defeated remnant of Benjamin. For Buber, the pro-
monarchical intent of the author of this tale is transparent: “A people without a
king plunders; a people without a king is plundered—that is the opinion.”^109
Great claims had been made for the anarcho-theocracy: it maintained order,
it defeated kings of other nations, it served God according to His will, and allot-
ted power only to those with recognized qualifications, and to them only tem-
porarily. To this outlook, in Buber’s summary, the monarchical book responds:
“‘That which you pass off as theocracy has become anarchy [Das, was ihr für
Theokratie ausgebt, ist Anarchie gewesen],’ and: ‘Only since this people, as is fit-
ting for human beings, took unto itself a human being for a king, has it known
order and civilization.’”^110 Buber’s description of its style reflects his disdain for
this thesis: “One sees the shrugging of shoulders, hears the superior, regretful
tone: ‘At that time they simply didn’t have a king in Israel!’” Unimpressed by the
monarchical book’s tales of terror, he explains its inclusion in the final book of
Judges by the historical standpoint of the redactor.^111
Ultimately, Buber argues, neither the authors of the monarchical book nor
the final redactor of the book of Judges understood the nature of the judgeship.
A noninstitutional institution, relying wholly on divine call and charismatic
authority, it was well suited to the anarcho-theocracy. The futility of kingship
is proclaimed most strongly in the story that Buber regards as the counterpart
to the Gideon passage: the Jotham fable (Judges 9:7–21). If the Gideon speech is
the mind of the anarcho-theocratic antimonarchical book, the Jotham fable is