Book of Judges/Characters

Deborah

"And I rose a mother in Israel".

• Action Girl: She got her job as judge/ruler by acting when the men would not.
• Animal Theme Naming: Her name means bee.
  • Bees My God
• Brains and Brawn: 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.
• Iron Lady: She was nearly unstoppable in battle
• Lady of War: Again, how she got her job.
• The Smurfette Principle: Certainly not intentional, but she IS the only female Judge.
• Team Mom: See the quote. She's the team mom for the entire Jewish nation.
• Warrior Poet: Her and Barak celebrate the victory over Sisera and his army by breaking into song.

Yael

"Come and I shall show you the man you are looking for"

• Guile Heroine: See below.
• Improbable Weapon User: Tent pegs!
• More Deadly Than the Male: Tricks Sisera into trusting her, lulls him to sleep with warm milk, and then brutally drives a tent stake through his temples.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Is it Jael or Yael^[1]?

Barak

"If you will go with me, I also shall certainly go; but if you will not go with me, I shall not go."

• Awesome McCoolname: His name means "lightning".
• Brains and Brawn
• Cowardly Lion: Fears going to war without God's prophetess at his side
• The Aragorn: Takes second string to Deborah, but wins the battle.
• Warrior Poet: Sings with Deborah after the battle.

Gideon

"You say that you have decided to use me to rescue Israel. Well, I am putting some wool on the ground where we thresh the wheat..."

• Offered the Crown: After the big battle he won with only 300 men.
• Refusal of the Call: Initially was skeptical and wanted God to prove He is who He says he is by "putting out a fleece".
• Shaming the Mob: Gideon's father saved him when he destroyed an altar to Baal.
• Think Nothing of It: Refuses to be king.

Abimelech

• Better to Die Than Be Killed: 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.
• Evil Prince: Fancied himself as Israel's first king, although God says otherwise.

Jephthah

• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Led a band of outlaws.
• Son of a Whore: He was kicked out of town for it.
• The Unfavorite: Being the son of a prostitute, his step-mother didn't like him.

Samson

"From this day I shall be blameless in what I do against the Philistines: For I will do you evils.

• Achilles' Heel: His hair.
• Anti-Hero: Type V
• Badass
  • Badass Israeli to be more specific. He is the strongman of Jewish myth.
  • Badass Long Hair: In fact he needed his hair to be strong.
• Bond One-Liner: 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.
• Cherry Tapping: 1,000 kill count.....with a jawbone of an donkey.
• Driven to Suicide: And God helps him.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Got a haircut out of it.
• Eye Scream: The Philistines stab out his eyes.
• Fake Weakness: 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...
• Fatal Flaw:
  • See Love Makes You Dumb.
  • And his drunkenness, which he God told him to avoid, gave Delilah the chance to cut his hair.
• Good Flaws, Bad Flaws: 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.
• Handicapped Badass: He is blinded by his enemies after being depowered, but he later kills them all for it.
• Half the Man He Used To Be: Gave this treatment to a random lion.
• Horrible Judge of Character: One wonders if he was one, considering he ended up having two traitorous wives...
• Hot-Blooded: And HOW
• Humiliation Conga: 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.
• Improbable Weapon User: Donkey jawbone. Enough said.
• Love Makes You Dumb: 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. 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.
• Messianic Archetype: 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 Chosen One, his battles are more like the antics of a super powered college prankster and his motivation to finally beat the Philistines was personal revenge.
• Nineties Anti-Hero: Well, he sure wasn't The Cape (trope).
• One-Man Army
• Person of Mass Destruction: Kinda. He did smash the two pillars of the Philistine temple, killing over 3000.
• Redemption Equals Death
• Red Herring: Delilah tries to find the reason for Samson's strength by asking him. He is less than helpful at first.
• Stellar Name: Means "Sun".
• Super Strength: The Jewish Archetype
• Taking You with Me: How his Redemption Equals Death happens.
• Too Dumb to Live: He eventually gives in to Delilah and tells her the secret of his strength, leading to his capture by the Philistines.
• Touched by Vorlons: The reason for Samson's strength.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Everyone knows about his hair.
• Xanatos Gambit: God blessing Samson was all part of the plan.

Delilah

• Femme Fatale: see above
• The Dark Chick: And she doesn't Heel Face Turn later.
• The Vamp: This is how she is evil.

The other Judges (Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon and Abdon)

• Badass: It's a job requirement.
• Chosen One: God picked them personally.
• Improbable Weapon User: Shamgar's weapon was an ox goad.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Ehud. "I have a message from God for you".

1. ↑ They are alternate transliterations and are pronounced the same