Step 5 is focused on which group?

• A. Exile
• B. Restoration
• C. The Kingdom
• D. The Judges

Answer: (D)

The period covered here centers on the leaders known as the Judges. In the Old Testament, these were temporary, charismatic leaders raised up by God to deliver Israel from oppression and to govern during a time of decentralized authority, before the establishment of the monarchy. The material typically highlights the recurring pattern: the people turn away from God, oppression comes, they cry out, and God raises up a judge to deliver them, followed by a time of relative peace until the cycle repeats. This focus on the Judges helps explain the rise and fall of leadership in those years and how God used various deliverers—like Deborah, Gideon, and Samson—in different circumstances.

Exile, Restoration, and the Kingdom refer to later or different phases: exile speaks to the period when Israel or Judah were carried away from the land, restoration to the return and rebuilding after that exile, and the Kingdom to the era of the united and then divided monarchy under kings. Step 5 is not centered on those phases, but specifically on the group of leaders who administered Israel during the era before the monarchy.