The Judges · c. 1380 BC
Chapter 1
After Joshua
Yahweh raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
For parents
The men of Judah and Simeon catch Adoni-Bezek and cut off his thumbs and big toes, as he says he did to seventy kings (Judges 1:6–7). Ten thousand men are struck down at Bezek, and three men at Hebron. Jerusalem, Zephath and Bethel are taken, and their people are struck down or destroyed (1:4–10, 17, 25). The Lord hands Israel over to raiders when they turn to other gods (2:14–15). It is all told plainly, without detail. Worshiping other gods is compared to acting like a prostitute (2:17).
After died, the asked the , “Who will go up first and fight the for us?”
The Lord said, “ is to go up. Look, I have handed the land over to him.”
The tribe of Judah said to its brother tribe, , “Come up with me into the land the gave me, so that we can fight the Canaanites. And I will go with you into the land the lot gave you, too.” So Simeon went with Judah.
Judah went up, and the Lord handed the Canaanites and the over to them. At they struck down ten thousand men. There they found , and they fought against him and beat the Canaanites and the Perizzites.
Adoni-Bezek ran away. They chased him and caught him, and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes.
“Seventy kings had their thumbs and big toes cut off, and they hunted for food under my table,” Adoni-Bezek said. “What I did to them, God has done to me.” They brought him to , and he died there.
The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem and took it. They struck down its people with the sword, and they set the city on fire.
After that, the men of Judah went down to fight the Canaanites of the hill country, and the lowland. Judah went against the Canaanites living in , which used to be called . They struck down , and .
From there Judah went against the people of , which used to be called . said, “To the man who attacks Kiriath Sepher and takes it, I will give my daughter as a wife.”
the son of , Caleb’s younger brother, took the city. So Caleb gave him his daughter Achsah as his wife.
When she came, she got Othniel to ask her father for a field. She got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What would you like?”
“Give me a gift,” she said. “You have set me in the land of the South, so give me springs of water too.” Then Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
The descendants of ’ brother-in-law, the , went up with the people of Judah out of the . They went into the wilderness of Judah, south of , and lived among the people.
Judah went with its brother Simeon, and they struck down the Canaanites who lived in Zephath and destroyed the town completely. The town was given the name .
Judah also took , and , along with the land around each.
The Lord was with Judah, and he drove out the people of the hill country. But he couldn’t drive out the people who lived in the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
They gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and Caleb drove the three out of it.
The men of didn’t drive out the who lived in Jerusalem. To this day the Jebusites live in Jerusalem alongside Benjamin’s people.
The , the tribes that came from Joseph, also went up against , and the Lord was with them. The house of Joseph sent men to spy out Bethel, which used to be called .
The men on watch saw a man come out of the city. “Please show us how to get into the city,” they said to him, “and we will be good to you.”
He showed them how to get in. They struck down the people of the city with the sword, but they let the man and his whole family go.
The man went into the land of the , built a city and called it Luz, which is still its name today.
didn’t drive out the people of , Taanach, Dor, Ibleam or , or of the towns around them. The Canaanites were set on living in that land. When Israel had grown strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, making them work for Israel, but they didn’t drive them all out.
didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in , and the Canaanites lived on in Gezer among them. didn’t drive out the people of Kitron or Nahalol. The Canaanites lived among them and were made to do forced labor.
didn’t drive out the people of Acco or , or of five other towns. The people of Asher lived among the Canaanites who lived in the land, because they didn’t drive them out.
didn’t drive out the people of Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath, but lived among the Canaanites of the land. Even so, the people of Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath were made to do forced labor.
The forced the tribe of back into the hill country and wouldn’t let them come down into the valley. The Amorites were set on staying at Mount Heres, and Shaalbim. But the house of Joseph overpowered them, and the Amorites were made to do forced labor.
The Amorites’ border ran from the Akrabbim Pass, from the rock, and on up.
The came up from to . He said, “I brought you out of , and I brought you into the land I swore to give your ancestors. I told you, ‘I will never break my with you. Don’t make any covenant with the people living in this land. Break down their .’ But you haven’t listened to my voice. Why have you done this?
“So I also said, ‘I won’t drive them out ahead of you. They will be in your sides. Their gods will become a trap for you.’”
When the angel of the Lord said these words to all the Israelites, the people wept out loud. They named that place Bochim, which means “weepers”, and they offered sacrifices there to the Lord.
Back in Joshua’s day, when he had sent the people away, each of the Israelites went to his own share of the land to take it as his own. The people served the Lord as long as Joshua lived, and as long as the who outlived him were alive. Those elders had seen all the great work the Lord had done for Israel.
Joshua the son of , the Lord’s servant, had died when he was a hundred and ten years old. They had buried him within the border of his own land, at in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount .
After that whole generation had died and joined their ancestors, the next generation grew up not knowing the Lord or what he had done for Israel.
The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s eyes. They served the . They abandoned the Lord, their ancestors’ God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods, gods of the peoples who were around them. They bowed down to those gods and made the Lord angry. They abandoned the Lord and served Baal and the .
The Lord’s anger burned against Israel. He handed them over to raiders, who robbed them, and he sold them to the enemies all around them. They couldn’t stand up to their enemies anymore. Wherever they went, the Lord’s hand was against them, to harm them, as the Lord had said, and as he had sworn to them. They were in deep trouble.
Then the Lord raised up , leaders who saved the Israelites from the raiders who were robbing them.
Even so, they didn’t listen to their judges. They chased after other gods like and bowed down to them. They were quick to turn away from the road their ancestors had walked. Their ancestors had obeyed the Lord’s commands, but they didn’t.
Each time the Lord raised up a judge for them, the Lord was with that judge. As long as the judge lived, the Lord saved the Israelites from their enemies. It grieved him to hear them groan under the people who were cruel to them and troubled them.
But whenever the judge died, they turned back and did worse things than their ancestors had done. They followed other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They didn’t stop what they were doing or give up their stubborn ways.
The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he said, “This nation has broken my covenant, the one I commanded their ancestors to keep, and they haven’t listened to my voice. So I, too, will no longer drive out any of the nations Joshua left when he died. Through those nations I will test Israel, to see whether they will follow the Lord’s way, as their ancestors did, or not.”
So the Lord left those nations where they were. He didn’t drive them out quickly, and he didn’t hand them over to Joshua.
These are the nations the Lord left, to test the Israelites who had never fought in Canaan’s wars. He left them only so each new generation would learn about war, at least those who had never known war before. They were the ’ five rulers, all the Canaanites, the people of Sidon, and the who lived on Mount , from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of .
They were left to test Israel, to find out whether the Israelites would listen to the commands the Lord had given their ancestors through Moses.
The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. They married the daughters of those peoples, gave their own daughters to those peoples’ sons, and served their gods.