Unbelievers, both secular and within Christian
Biblical scholarship will insist that Judges like the books that precede and
follow it were written during the Babylonian Captivity thereby reducing the
Biblical narrative to the fantasy world of other religions whose holy books
describe events long after they happened and that made things up and introduced
things for political purposes. They reject the traditional view that it was
probably written around 1100 BC.
However,
there are several things that attest to its age. First, there is archaeological
evidence that validates claims made in the book. This keeps it from being
honestly thought of as a propaganda piece written much later with made-up
stories to make a point. As an example, I refer you to a Smithsonian Magazine
article dated July 13, 2021 revealing how a supposedly 3100 year old jug has
the name Jerubbaal, the nickname for Gideon, on it.[1]
Judges 7:1a Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon…
The
Associates for Biblical Research website quotes an earlier article about three
archaeological discoveries around Shechem that provide some measure of
validation for Judges 9.[2]
Internal
evidence suggests that the book was written during the monarchy but before
David conquered Jerusalem so perhaps in Saul’s reign or early in David’s.
Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel,
but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
While
the tribe of Judah sacked and burned Jerusalem…
Judges 1:8 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.
…the
Jebusites have not been driven out of Jerusalem by the writing of Judges.
Judges 1:21 ¶ 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.
The
Levite of Judges 19 does not want to lodge in Jerusalem because it is not of
the people of Israel.
Judges 19:11 And when they
were by Jebus, the day was far spent; and the servant said unto his master,
Come, I pray thee, and let us turn in into this city of the Jebusites, and
lodge in it.
12 And his master said unto
him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of
the children of Israel; we will pass over to Gibeah. 13 And he said unto his servant, Come, and let
us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night, in Gibeah, or in Ramah.
14 And they passed on and went their way; and
the sun went down upon them when they were by Gibeah, which belongeth to
Benjamin.
It was
written before David conquered Jerusalem.
2Samuel 5:6 ¶ And the king
and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land:
which spake unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame,
thou shalt not come in hither: thinking, David cannot come in hither. 7 Nevertheless David took the strong hold of
Zion: the same is the city of David.
1Chronicles 11:4 And David
and all Israel went to Jerusalem, which is Jebus; where the Jebusites were, the
inhabitants of the land. 5 And the
inhabitants of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not come hither. Nevertheless
David took the castle of Zion, which is the city of David. 6 And David said, Whosoever smiteth the
Jebusites first shall be chief and captain. So Joab the son of Zeruiah went
first up, and was chief. 7 And David
dwelt in the castle; therefore they called it the city of David. 8 And he built the city round about, even from
Millo round about: and Joab repaired the rest of the city. 9 So David waxed greater and greater: for the
LORD of hosts was with him.
So, without further ado let us begin to study the book of Judges.
Judges, chapter 1
Judges 1:1 ¶ 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.
Without the firm leadership of Joshua the Israelites are looking
for direction and guidance. God delivers that personally in ordering the tribe
of Judah to attack the Canaanites first. God tells them that the battle is
already won, as He has determined. We have such an assurance from God that He
has won the battle but He requires us to claim the victory that has been
prepared. How many times we feel defeated by our sin, whom Tyndale liked to the
Canaanites, when we are promised the triumph as a done deal, so to speak.
This passage is a wealth of information on life in the ancient
Near East. First, the tribes of Judah and Simeon unite. They kill ten thousand
of their enemy which lets us know that Canaan was much more heavily populated
than we imagine.
Scholars are not united on the population of ancient Palestine. In
a 1947 article for the Journal of Biblical Literature C.C. McCown of the
Pacific School of Religion makes the statement, “Many attempts have been made
to estimate the population of Ancient Palestine. It must be admitted at once
that no accurate calculation is possible.”[3] However,
he doesn’t believe the Biblical narrative just because, presumably, his
worldview didn’t allow for believing the Biblical narrative.
But, this passage reveals to us, assuming that people who had to
be able to count horses, asses, chickens, and goats to survive could also count
people that assuming this reference is only to men there must have been a
significant population indeed.
Verses 6 and 7 inform us as to a custom of war in the Ancient Near
East, cutting off the thumbs and toes of kings and princes who were captured. Mutilation
of not only criminals and lower-class offenders but of political rivals and
captured kings and princes has been fairly common in history.
For instance, in the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire castration,
cutting off one’s nose, or limbs was regularly practiced against political
rivals. We have here in Judges evidence of just how warfare could be conducted
in the Ancient Near East with captive kings being made unable to ever fight
again. Later, we will see the blinding of a leader. See Jeremiah, chapter 39.
Here we see that Judah sacked Jerusalem but later in the same
chapter we see that it was not taken and held with the Jebusites driven off. Cities
in history were sacked and burned and yet not held permanently. Rome was sacked
by the Gauls, Visigoths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, the Normans, and the Holy Roman
Empire (German) according to the History.com website but Rome continued.[4]
Judges 1:9 ¶ 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.
For verse 10 see; Genesis 23:2
And Sarah died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan:
and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
For verses 11-15 see Joshua, chapter 15.
For verse 16 Jericho is referred to as the city of palm trees.
Deuteronomy 34:3 And the
south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto
Zoar.
2Chronicles 28:15 And the
men which were expressed by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the
spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them,
and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the
feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm trees,
to their brethren: then they returned to Samaria.
The Kenites, remember, were the tribe of Moses’ father-in-law.
Judges 4:11 Now Heber the
Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab the father in law of Moses, had
severed himself from the Kenites, and pitched his tent unto the plain of
Zaanaim, which is by Kedesh.
Moses’ father-in-law is worthy of a special mention here to get
past the confusion his names often present. In Exodus 2:18 Moses’ father-in-law
is called Reuel. In Exodus 3:1 he is called Jethro. It is not uncommon for
people to have two names, especially if one is a title, as in priest. It is
possible that Jethro like Abimelech and Phichol in Genesis 21 and 26 and
Pharaoh, which we know is the case, were titles rather than given names.
Here, during Abraham’s time;
Genesis 21:22 And it came
to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol the chief captain of his host
spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest:
Genesis 21:32 Thus they
made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief
captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.
And here during Isaac’s time;
Genesis 26:26 Then
Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and Ahuzzath one of his friends, and Phichol
the chief captain of his army.
Numbers speaks of Hobab as Raguel’s, a variant spelling of Reuel,
son.
Numbers 10:29 And Moses
said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses’ father in law, We are
journeying unto the place of which the LORD said, I will give it you: come thou
with us, and we will do thee good: for the LORD hath spoken good concerning
Israel.
So, by cross-referencing Numbers 10:29 with Judges 4:11 we know
that Hobab is Jethro aka Reuel or Raguel’s son.
In verse 19 what is the significance of the Canaanites in the
valley having chariots of iron? Ages of technology such as Stone Age, Bronze
Age, and Iron Age are not exactly defined eras of a beginning and ending as
there would have been people using stone tools well into the Bronze Age and
people using Bronze well into the Iron Age. However, those using Bronze Age
technology would have had an advantage over those using stone and those using
Iron would have had an advantage over those using Bronze.
Bronze weapons, made of an alloy of copper and tin, were
expensive, due to the limited availability of the ingredients, and the
availability of iron and the mass production of it gave an advantage to iron
users. Iron was inferior to bronze in hardness but could be mass-produced and
the process over time produced a better-quality iron product than the iron that
was most certainly known in the so-called Bronze Age.
The chariot was a mobile fighting platform that could deliver an
armed fighter using spears or arrows quickly to a part of any battle although
the vulnerability of its horses was a weakness as the infantry would have
killed them first to render the chariot useless. The number of chariots an army
fighting with bronze technology versus one with iron is significant.
The Pharaoh chasing Moses had 600 chariots as per Exodus 14:7. In
2Chronicles 12:3 Pharaoh Shishak represented an Egypt so powerful that it
possessed twice that number with which to invade Israel. This may be evidence
of how the world’s superpower of the time converted from bronze to iron.
Sisera, Jabin king of Canaan’s captain, in chapter 4 will field 900 chariots. In
2Chronicles 14, though, the Ethiopians could only muster 300 chariots though
they came with a million soldiers. Now, if I can just be permitted to draw some
conclusion from these numbers. Solomon could field 4,000 chariots and teams it
is suggested by 2Chronicles 9:25. Consider the possibility that this increase
in numbers represented a cheaper military technology and a more fabulously
wealthy kingdom. It is possible they started out with bronze chariots and then
as iron became more prevalent some would have bronze chariots, fewer in number,
and at the height of chariot warfare some would have many more, less expensive
iron chariots. Just a thought. Cheaper iron means a revolution in military
technology as evidenced by the Philistines fielding 30,000 chariots in 1Samuel
13:5.
Of course, in considering verse 19 we have no evidence from the
text that the Israelites even used chariots until the people were united under
a king so just possessing chariots may have been the only significance in the
text that raised concern.
Judges 1:21 ¶ 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.
Verse 21 is another piece of internal evidence I mentioned that
shows that Judges was written before the era of David and Solomon’s kingdom.
The verse 23 reference to the house of Joseph is linked to
Manasseh as the definition of it in verse 27 and Ephraim in 29. They were the
two sons of Joseph.
Bethel/Luz had a significance in Jacob’s spiritual journey.
Genesis 28:10 ¶ And Jacob
went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. 11 And he lighted upon a certain place, and
tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and
he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows,
and lay down in that place to sleep. 12
And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of
it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on
it. 13 And, behold, the LORD stood above
it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac:
the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; 14 And thy seed shall be as the dust of the
earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the
north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of
the earth be blessed. 15 And, behold, I
am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will
bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done
that which I have spoken to thee of.
16 ¶ And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he
said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is
this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of
heaven. 18 And Jacob rose up early in
the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up
for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Bethel:
but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. 20 And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be
with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat,
and raiment to put on, 21 So that I come
again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: 22 And this stone, which I have set for a
pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely
give the tenth unto thee.
Genesis 35:6 So Jacob came
to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Bethel, he and all the people
that were with him.
We see in verse 26 how a man built another city and named it Luz. Bethel
however will play a significant part in future events as outlined in books from
here in Judges through the prophet, Amos.
The Israelites clearly failed to drive out all of the Canaanites
and their behavior precluded God driving them out as He had promised if they
had obeyed. Their intimacy with the Canaanites was tragic and resulted in their
ultimate downfall.
Joshua 17:13 Yet it came to
pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the
Canaanites to tribute; but did not utterly drive them out.
God had promised to drive out the Canaanites as a conditional
promise based on the Israelites’ obedience.
Although in passages such as Exodus, chapter 23, God had promised
to drive out the Canaanites with hornets there was a warning also given.
Exodus 23:32 Thou shalt
make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they
make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a
snare unto thee.
And after similar sentiments are expressed in Deuteronomy, chapter
7, this warning is stated in the first verse of chapter 8.
[1] Livia
Gershon, “This 3,100-Year-Old Inscription May Be Linked to a
Biblical Judge,” Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/3000-year-old-jug-holds-name-biblical-judge-180978159/ (accessed 5.18.2022).
[2] “The Shiloh Excavations,” Associates
for Biblical Research, https://biblearchaeology.org/research/judges-united-monarchy/4042-abimelech-at-shechem (accessed 5.19.22).
[3] C. C. McCown, “The Density of
Population in Ancient Palestine.” Journal of Biblical Literature 66, no.
4 (1947): 425–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/3262683. (accessed on 5.25.2022).
[4] Evan Andrews, “6 Infamous Sacks of
Rome,” History, https://www.history.com/news/6-infamous-sacks-of-rome (accessed on 5.31.2022)l
No comments:
Post a Comment