Bible Commentaries
Judges 2

Verses 1-5

THE INVASION OF CANAAN AND THE SETTLEMENT

Judges 1:1 to Judges 2:5

This opening section of the Book of Judges provides a summary of the period of the conquest of Canaan. The divine oracle was consulted to discover the order in which the tribes should take the land. The indication, presumably by the method of sacred lot, was that Judah and Simeon should start the campaign.

The whole chapter reads like a parallel to the account in Joshua. If the latter represents more the point of view of the northern tribes, this chapter gives us an account of the Conquest from the standpoint of the southern, especially that of the tribe of Judah. It would appear that the account covers the period of conquest that begins in the Joshua record in Joshua 10. The Israelites, encamped at Gilgal, are there described as moving out in several tribal movements to possess the land. In the Judges account, which we are now considering, Joshua is not mentioned, and the editor, to provide some connection with the preceding Book of Joshua, provides the opening formula which stipulates that all this happens after Joshua’s death. If Joshua were the hero of the northern tribes, we can understand the reticence about him in a tradition emanating from the south.

Judah and Simeon proceeded southwestward and engaged Adoni-bezek. The road of invasion led to Jerusalem, and we are told that on the way they captured Adoni-bezek and treated him as he had once treated seventy captive kings. They apparently left him mutilated, and his followers brought him to Jerusalem where he died. There follows an account of the siege and sack of Jerusalem by the Judahites. This would seem to be in conflict with the repeated statements elsewhere that the Jebusites held that city in the midst of Israel until David’s time (Joshua 15:63; 2 Samuel 5:6-10). Adoni-bezek is probably to be identified with Adoni-zedek, the king of Jerusalem, whom Joshua fought according to the tradition preserved in Joshua 10:1-5. The Joshua account mentions the sack of other cities but not that of Jerusalem, thereby conforming to the references just given. There is, however, nothing to militate against a capture of Jerusalem which was earlier than David’s campaign and only temporary, from which the Jebusites recovered, managing to retain their independence.

Having subdued Jerusalem, the Judahites fought the Canaanites in the hill country south of Jerusalem, in the lowland or Shephelah to the west and southwest, and in the Negeb, the southern area bordering on the desert. They secured Hebron. This city was inhabited by the Anakites, as its former name, Kiriath-arba, indicates, since Arba was the father of Anak (Joshua 15:13). The military leaders who were defeated, Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, are described in Joshua 15:14 as descendants of Anak (compare Numbers 13:30-33, which describes them as giants). Joshua 15:13-19 provides an interesting parallel to the verses now under consideration. It attributes the defeat of these heroes and the capture of the city to Caleb, whose Kenizzite tribe was a constituent element of Judah (see Numbers 32:12; Numbers 34:19). Caleb is mentioned in the Judges account in connection with Debir. Having captured Hebron, the victorious Judahites advanced on Debir, which was captured by the brother or nephew of Caleb, Othniel, who by his prowess thus secured the hand of Achsah, Caleb’s daughter, who had been promised by her father to whoever conquered the city. Caleb also gave a source of water supply at the request of Achsah. The account here does not give sufficient details for identification of the site. Debir was to the southwest of Hebron, on the edge of the Negeb, and water supply was a problem on the fringe of the desert belt.

In verses 16-21 our attention is directed to a Kenite group, bound up with Moses by his marriage (see Exodus 2:21) and another constituent element of the tribe of Judah. They went from Jericho, the city of palms (cf. Judges 3:13; Deuteronomy 34:3), and settled near Arad, south of Hebron. Hormah was also secured. The hill country was possessed, but the Canaanites retained the fertile valleys, aided by their military strength and chariots of iron. The Israelites are thus seen as moving down from the hills into the valleys and slowly infiltrating the land, the very picture given by archaeology. We are reminded in verse 21 that Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Jebusites.

The interest now turns from the Judahites to the Josephite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. We are told that the house of Joseph went up from Gilgal (implied) to secure the important center of Bethel. They secured the city by a strategy, subverting one of the inhabitants. The account shows that pockets of Canaanites remained in this area, sometimes in fortified cities. The cities mentioned indicate that the Israelites were confined here to the central hill country, being cut off from the fertile Plain of Esdraelon to the north by the Canaanites of Megiddo, Taanach, Ibleam, and Beth-shean, and from the area occupied by the Judahites by the Canaanites in Gezer. Once more we have the picture of infiltration from the hill country to the valleys and a slow taking over of the land.

The tribes of the north were in similar strait; Zebulun, Naphtali, and Asher dwelt in the midst of the Canaanites, slowly subduing them. The tribe of Dan never established its position and the Book of Judges later records its migration (Judges 17-18). Aijalon was in the hill country northwest of Jerusalem. Thus Dan was originally in the center of Palestine, even though its final settlement was in the north. The section that refers to Dan (vss. 34-36) is the only one in this chapter that has the term "Amorites" instead of the usual "Canaanites."

In Judges 2:1-5 we are told of the transfer of the religious center from Gilgal to Bochim, once the invasion was to some degree accomplished. We shall have occasion later to discuss the angel of the Lord. It suffices here to note that the phrase indicates the divine presence in a form perceptible to the senses. The word "angel" means "messenger." We have here a "theophany," a divine appearance in visible form. However the oracle came, the Covenant faithfulness of the Lord to Israel was reaffirmed. The Deuteronomic writers made much of the Covenant theme and also stressed God’s promise of the land. Israel’s disobedience in making a covenant with the Canaanites was now to be matched by the persistence of the Canaanites in their midst. Assimilation, not annihilation or armed expulsion, would now be the order of the day. The Canaanites would be adversaries whose very religion would be a perpetual temptation to the Israelites. In this way the Deuteronomic editors introduced their interpretation of the period of the judges. The place Bochim has not been identified. It may have been so called from the statement in Judges 2:4 that the people wept on hearing God’s message.

Verse 6

ISRAEL UNDER THE JUDGES

Judges 2:6 to Judges 16:31

The New Generation — Apostasy and Judgment (2:6-3:6)

We have in these verses a picture of the state of affairs that followed the Conquest. Actually verse 6 seems to connect with Joshua 24:28, where we likewise read that Joshua dismissed every man to his inheritance. Thus Judges 1:1 to Judges 2:6 seems to be an insertion that breaks up the continuity. Joshua’s burial is described and the details of Joshua 24:29-31 are repeated; Timnath-heres is evidently another name for Timnath-serah (Joshua 24:30). After Joshua’s generation — that is, his contemporaries — died off, a new generation arose which became enamored of the agricultural gods of Canaan, the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and did not know the Lord, who had brought Israel from Egypt. The implication is that the new generation did not know God by firsthand encounter in historical events, and thus found it easier to fall into apostasy.

We have already discussed this situation in the Introduction and shall not repeat it here. The Canaanite deities Baal and Astarte are given in their plural form, a reminder that every locality had its own peculiar form of the deities. Since the process of settlement was one of absorbing rather than exterminating the inhabitants, and since the way of life was increasingly agricultural, we can understand that the Israelites in any locality would tend to fall into the religious practices of their neighbors and forget the God of their wilderness experience. At least a generation away from their great deliverance, and with pressing agricultural rather than pastoral needs, they turned to deities who were supposed to protect and extend fertility.

The editor of Judges proceeds to outline the scheme we have already discussed in the Introduction — apostasy, judgment, repentance, and deliverance in successive cycles. Native oppressors and foreign invaders plundered Israel. We note that the divine judgment of Israel is not in some catastrophic intervention but rather through the normal processes of history — oppression and invasion. This is characteristic of the prophetic view of history and judgment, whereas later apocalyptic thought (represented in the Old Testament fully by Daniel and also in anticipation by Joel, Ezekiel 38-39, Zechariah 9-14, Isaiah 24-27) emphasized catastrophic intervention of a supernatural variety and heightened the effects in the description of such judgment in order to underline its supernatural aspect. Israel’s repentance under the judgment is a reminder that in Old Testament thought the divine wrath has an evangelizing motif. Judgment is God’s work to make men realize their sin and moral bankruptcy and so turn back to him. God’s forgiveness was given historical expression in the appearance of the judges or deliverers, endowed with special gifts of prowess and military skill because the Spirit of the Lord rested on them. We note that these deliverers or saviors can be described as saving Israel. This is a reminder that, in the early days, salvation was thought of in physical and material terms. It was a part of the divine education of Israel that the nation had to be led through the outward to the inward, and to learn that salvation ultimately means deliverance from the inward bondage of sin and not merely deliverance from the outward tyranny of military oppressors.

Judges gives a picture of Israel’s repeated infidelity. The nation persists in transgressing the Covenant. Here the reference is to the relation which God established with his people on Sinai. We shall discuss the idea of "covenant" as a mutual bond between persons later, when we come to the story of David and Jonathan. It was a significant aspect of Israel’s faith that the relation among men could, under the guidance of revelation, be used as an image to express God’s relation to the nation. Such an image debarred any idea of a relation of natural descent whereby God was ancestor of Israel. He was under no natural necessity to care for them. The bond between him and his people was a moral bond. At the human level, two parties entered into a covenant by the mutual imposition and acceptance of obligations, but at the divine level, it is God who initiates the Covenant and who decides the terms by which it must be regulated. He chooses Israel and demands moral obedience, laying upon the nation the moral obligations of the Decalogue. On his part, he promises to be faithful to his Covenant, and Israel, in accepting, does likewise. Hence, to break the Covenant by failing to fulfill its obligations and obey God’s will is equivalent to treachery. It is transgression of the Covenant, and God will not allow such defection to go unpunished. Persistent defection must lead to a state of affairs in which Israel is continually reminded of its sin. Hence, the continuance of the Canaanites in the midst of Israel and of the foreign nations in its borders was held to be a test of Israel’s faith. In judgment and in mercy, God was confronting Israel with his Covenant demands.

The closing verses of this section (Judges 3:1-6) list the nations with whom Israel dwelt in contention. The five "lords" of the Philistines were the five "tyrants" who, in the Aegean style, ruled in the five city centers of the southern Philistine coastal area. The "Hivites" is a reference to the Humans who penetrated like the Hittites (also mentioned) down into this area and left behind pockets of settlers. The "Sidonians" were the Phoenicians in the northern coastal area. The "Jebusites" survived as a separate people into David’s time. The ultimate fate of these peoples is indicated in verse 6.