Judges 1 King James Version (KJV)
1 Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?
2 And the Lord said, Judah shall go up: behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.
3 And Judah said unto Simeon his brother, Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with thee into thy lot. So Simeon went with him.
4 And Judah went up; and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand: and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men.
5 And they found Adonibezek in Bezek: and they fought against him, and they slew the Canaanites and the Perizzites.
6 But Adonibezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes.
7 And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.
8 Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.
9 And afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites, that dwelt in the mountain, and in the south, and in the valley.
10 And Judah went against the Canaanites that dwelt in Hebron: (now the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba:) and they slew Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai.
11 And from thence he went against the inhabitants of Debir: and the name of Debir before was Kirjathsepher:
12 And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjathsepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.
13 And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.
14 And it came to pass, when she came to him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted from off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou?
15 And she said unto him, Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.
16 And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ father in law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.
17 And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah.
18 Also Judah took Gaza with the coast thereof, and Askelon with the coast thereof, and Ekron with the coast thereof.
19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
20 And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak.
21 And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day.
22 And the house of Joseph, they also went up against Bethel: and the Lord was with them.
23 And the house of Joseph sent to descry Bethel. (Now the name of the city before was Luz.)
24 And the spies saw a man come forth out of the city, and they said unto him, Shew us, we pray thee, the entrance into the city, and we will shew thee mercy.
25 And when he shewed them the entrance into the city, they smote the city with the edge of the sword; but they let go the man and all his family.
26 And the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city, and called the name thereof Luz: which is the name thereof unto this day.
27 Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and her towns, nor Taanach and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and her towns: but the Canaanites would dwell in that land.
28 And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.
29 Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.
30 Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became tributaries.
31 Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob:
32 But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: for they did not drive them out.
33 Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bethshemesh, nor the inhabitants of Bethanath; but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land: nevertheless the inhabitants of Bethshemesh and of Bethanath became tributaries unto them.
34 And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain: for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley:
35 But the Amorites would dwell in mount Heres in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim: yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became tributaries.
36 And the coast of the Amorites was from the going up to Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward.
Commentary
The book of Judges deals with events in Israel during the two hundred years that followed Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. Israel under Joshua had won a great victory, but the people had not been fully obedient to God’s command to destroy all the Canaanites. As a result those Canaanites who were left in the land became a source of trouble to Israel, both religiously and politically.
During this period Israel’s history developed a pattern that is repeated many times in the book of Judges. Time and again Israel turned away from God, copied the religious practices of the Canaanites, became politically weak and finally fell under the power of neighbouring tribes or nations. But God, who used these enemies to punish his disobedient people, was long-suffering and merciful. In each case he gave them, in his time, a deliverer from among their own people who overthrew the enemy and led Israel back to himself.
These deliverers were called judges, because they carried out God’s judgment in defeating the enemy and delivering his people. Other judges, less warlike, carried out God’s judgment by guiding the everyday affairs of his people according to his law. From these leaders, military as well as civilian, the book takes its name.
Israel and its enemies
It appears that the various conquests by enemy nations, and the deliverances by the Israelite judges that followed, never involved the whole of Canaan. Usually the only tribes involved were those in the area of the enemy’s activity. Also, some of the conquests and deliverances may have occurred in different parts of the country at the same time. For example, the story of Jephthah and the Ammonites may belong to the same period as the stories of Samson and the Philistines (Judg 10:7-8; 11:5; 13:1). There was little unity in Israel, and each tribe (or group of tribes) looked after its own area without concern for the other tribes.
The main reason for this lack of unity was the people’s departure from God. If they had made him the centre of their national life, their loyalty to him would have bound them together. Their disunity was made worse by their failure to destroy the enemy among them. Canaanite strongholds in a number of key places kept the tribes apart. In Canaan itself (the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea) the tribes were broken into three main sections – northern, central and southern – while the eastern tribes were separated from the rest by the Jordan River.
This breaking up of Israel created not only political disunity but also religious disunity, for it meant that many of the tribes were cut off from Israel’s central place of worship at Shiloh (Josh 18:1; 22:9). In short, most of the nation’s troubles, material, political and spiritual, were a direct result of the people’s failure to obey God and wipe out the Canaanites (Judg 1:21,27-36; cf. Deut 7:2-4; 9:5; Josh 24:14-24).
The religion of the Canaanites
Canaanite gods were known as Baalim (plural of Baal; see Judg 2:11-12; 10:10; 1 Kings 16:31), and goddesses as Ashtaroth (plural of Ashtoreth, or Astarte; see Judg 2:13; 1 Sam. 7:3-4) and Asherim (plural of Asherah; see Judg 6:25-26; 2 Kings 23:4). These were gods of nature and fertility who, among other things, were believed to have the power to increase agricultural productivity. Since Israel knew Yahweh as the Creator of nature, the people easily fell to the temptation to combine Canaanite ideas with their own and so worship Yahweh as another Baal. The word baal was a common Hebrew word that meant master, husband or owner, and since the Israelites knew Yahweh as their master, husband and owner, they further linked the Canaanite Baals with him (Hosea 2:5-10).
The places where the Canaanites liked to carry out their Baal rituals were the sacred hilltop sites known as high places (Num 33:51-52; 2 Kings 23:13). Among the features of these high places were the sacred wooden or stone pillars known as Asherim (named after Asherah, the goddess whom they represented; Judg 6:25-26; 1 Kings 14:23). From the beginning Israelites had worshipped Yahweh at various places in the hills (e.g. Gen 22:2; Exod 17:8-15; 19:3), and again the people readily fell to the temptation to take over the high places of Baal and use them in their worship of Yahweh. All this was in spite of God’s command that the high places of Baal were to be destroyed (Num 33:52; Deut 12:2-3).
Prostitutes, male and female, were available at these high places for fertility rites. These were religious-sexual ceremonies that the people believed gave increase in crops, herds, flocks and family
(1 Kings 14:23-24; Hosea 2:5,8-9; 9:1-2,10-14). In following the Baals, the Israelites were also guilty of spiritual prostitution. The covenant bond between Israel and Yahweh was likened to the marriage bond; therefore, Israel’s association with Baal and other gods was spiritual adultery (Judg 2:12-13,17; Jer 2:20; 3:6-8; Hosea 2:13; 4:12).