The book doesn’t give a date
Judges opens with Israel seeking God’s direction after Joshua has died, then follows the nation through repeated cycles of compromise, oppression, rescue, and renewed failure (Judges 1:1). It records events from the time when Israel was settling in the land, before the reigns of Saul, David, or Solomon.
Yet Judges never says, “I was written in this year,” and it does not identify its writer. That means an exact answer would go beyond what Scripture tells us. We can learn a great deal from the book’s own clues, but we should hold any proposed date lightly.
Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?
It looks back on the time before kings
The clearest clue appears near the end. Twice, Judges explains that Israel had no king in those days, and the final line connects that situation with people doing what seemed right to them (Judges 17:6; Judges 21:25). Those comments sound like someone writing after Israel had become familiar with kingship.
That does not tell us precisely how long after. It may mean the writer lived during the early monarchy, when readers could look back and recognise how different the period of the judges had been. The point is not simply that Israel needed stronger political leadership. The book shows a deeper problem, hearts repeatedly turning away from the Lord.
In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Some details are harder to date
A few comments use phrases like “unto this day”, suggesting that some time had passed between an event and its recording (Judges 1:21). But that phrase does not provide a calendar date. It only tells us that the writer was speaking from a later perspective.
Judges also says that the tribe of Dan set up an idolatrous shrine until the time of the land’s captivity (Judges 18:30). Christians and scholars have understood that reference in different ways, so it should not be used as a simple, decisive date stamp. The Bible gives us real historical clues, but not every clue is as clear as we might wish.
Why the timing matters
Knowing that Judges describes the years between Joshua and Israel’s kings helps us follow its message. Joshua’s generation had seen God’s faithfulness, but later generations did not remain devoted to him in the same way (Judges 2:6-7). The result was not random chaos. It was the painful fruit of forgetting God and following other gods.
So, when was Judges written? We cannot say with certainty. It was written after at least some of the events it records, and its repeated references to there being no king suggest a later vantage point, likely after kingship had begun. Read it not merely to settle a date, but to see God’s patience with people who kept wandering, and their need for a faithful deliverer.
And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel.