The account is brief. It is as if the author wanted the first story to present the model story as an illustration of his general pattern outlined in Judges 2:11–18, and so he excluded any unnecessary details. The Othniel narrative is very straightforward and simple, free of froufrou, with minimal background information or personal details. Unlike other stories, we are given no details of battle, no records of heroics, nothing…. Othniel does not make a shiny dagger and plunge it into a king like Ehud. He does not defeat an overwhelming number of foes with only a small band of men like Gideon. He does not tear apart a lion with his bare hands like Samson. Othniel barely does anything. But that is the point. Here, at the beginning of the account of all the judges, the author wants to show us that the judges did not have to do anything. It was the Lord who was at work.... Verse 10 tells us that ‘the Spirit of the Lord was on Othniel’ when he judged and delivered Israel. God may have used human menas [sic], but it was still God who was at work.¹