Social: There is a subtle difference in the position of the “lower judges” and the promise that they would be “rulers over the people.” As judges, they are directly empowered to be in a position “above.” The relative authority to other people cannot be the only consideration that these lower judges were interested in. Their interests lay in the development of the hierarchies that would truly establish them as “over” the people. They are interesting in the social hierarchies that we saw Benjamin preach against so forcibly.