Othniel son of Kenaz עתניאל בן קנז
the first judge; forty years of rest after the first oppression
The book of Judges is built as a repeating cycle: the people turn away, fall under foreign rule, cry out — and a deliverer rises. Othniel opens the cycle.
The first oppressor named is Cushan-rishathaim, king of Aram-naharaim; they served him eight years. Then "the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and the LORD raised up a deliverer for the Israelites, and he delivered them: Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger kinsman." The spirit of the LORD came upon him, he judged Israel and went out to war; Cushan-rishathaim was given into his hand. "And the land had rest forty years."
He was already known before this: at the division of the land Caleb announced he would give his daughter to whoever took Kiriath-sepher — and Othniel took it. Achsah, having received a holding in the Negev, asked her father for springs of water as well: "give me a blessing; you have given me dry land — give me springs too." And she received the upper and the lower springs.
Othniel is the only one of the judges of whom nothing bad is said, and whose story fits into five verses.
The years here are computed by adding up the terms given in the book of Judges itself, counting from the death of Joshua; they are not stated as such in the source.
On the timeline
Sources
Tanakh
- Shoftim 3:8 — eight years under Cushan-rishatayim
- Shoftim 3:9–11 — the first deliverer and forty years of rest
- Yehoshua 15:16–19 — Kiryat-Sefer, Achsa, and the request for springs
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.