Judges 2:16

raised up … saved Phrases of the compiler, cf. Judges 2:18; Judges 3:9; Judges 3:15; Judges 3:31; Judges 10:12-13.

judges not in the sense of magistrates, for there was no law or tribunal in our sense at a period when "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." The "judges" were champions and leaders, called out to meet a special emergency, who vindicated Israel's rights in battle, Judges 3:10. The suffetes(Heb. shôfětim) of Carthage and the Carthaginian colonies bore the same title, but they held a regular magistracy, entirely different from the extraordinary office characteristic of this age; see. NSI., p. 115 f.