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Judges 1

Judges 1 moves from God’s promise and Judah’s victories to a widening record of incomplete conquest across Israel’s tribes.

After Joshua’s death, Israel asks YHWH which tribe should lead the fighting against the Canaanites. God names Judah, and Simeon joins Judah in campaigns marked by victories and brutal warfare. The account includes Caleb’s family receiving land and springs, the Kenites settling with Judah, and the capture of Bethel. As attention shifts across the tribes, reports of inhabitants remaining in the land accumulate. Several tribes impose forced labor; Dan is pushed into the hills.

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1After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of the LORD, saying, “Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?”
2The LORD said, “Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.”
3Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your lot.” So Simeon went with him.
4Judah went up, and the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. They struck ten thousand men in Bezek.
7Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.
8The children of Judah fought against Jerusalem, took it, struck it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire.
9After that, the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, and in the South, and in the lowland.
10Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron. (The name of Hebron before that was Kiriath Arba.) They struck Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.
11From there he went against the inhabitants of Debir. (The name of Debir before that was Kiriath Sepher.)
12Caleb said, “I will give Achsah my daughter as wife to the man who strikes Kiriath Sepher, and takes it.”
13Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it, so he gave him Achsah his daughter as his wife.
14When she came, she got him to ask her father for a field. She got off her donkey; and Caleb said to her, “What would you like?”
15She said to him, “Give me a blessing; because you have set me in the land of the South, give me also springs of water.” Then Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
16The children of the Kenite, Moses’ brother-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which is in the south of Arad; and they went and lived with the people.
17Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. The name of the city was called Hormah.
18Also Judah took Gaza with its border, and Ashkelon with its border, and Ekron with its border.
19The LORD was with Judah, and drove out the inhabitants of the hill country; for he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
20They gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and he drove the three sons of Anak out of there.
21The children of Benjamin didn’t drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
22The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the LORD was with them.
23The house of Joseph sent to spy out Bethel. (The name of the city before that was Luz.)
24The watchers saw a man come out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the entrance into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.”
26The man went into the land of the Hittites, built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day.
27Manasseh didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shean and its towns, nor Taanach and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land.
28When Israel had grown strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t utterly drive them out.
29Ephraim didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, but the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.
30Zebulun didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites lived among them, and became subject to forced labor.
31Asher didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Acco, nor the inhabitants of Sidon, nor of Ahlab, nor of Achzib, nor of Helbah, nor of Aphik, nor of Rehob;
33Naphtali didn’t drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, nor the inhabitants of Beth Anath; but he lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and of Beth Anath became subject to forced labor.
34The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill country, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley;
35but 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 subject to forced labor.
36The border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Judges 1:7Adoni-Bezek interprets his mutilation as God’s repayment for the same cruelty he inflicted on seventy kings.
Judges 1:21Benjamin’s failure to drive out Jerusalem’s Jebusites begins the chapter’s repeated reports of peoples remaining in Israel’s allotted land.
Judges 1:16The Kenites’ settlement with Judah connects the account of Israel’s land to Moses’ family ties.
Where this chapter reaches

Joshua shares the accounts of Caleb’s inheritance, Othniel’s capture of Debir, and Achsah’s request for springs, linking these campaigns with the allocation of Israel’s land. Deuteronomy supplies the command to drive out the land’s inhabitants, against which Judges records repeated failures to do so.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

How does the repeated failure to drive out inhabitants change your reading of Judah’s opening victories?

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What questions does Adoni-Bezek’s account raise for you about cruelty and God’s judgment?

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Questions people ask about Judges 1

Why couldn’t Judah drive out people with iron chariots in Judges 1:19?

Verse 19 names the inhabitants’ iron chariots as the obstacle Judah could not overcome, while also stating that YHWH was with Judah. The verse reports a limit in Judah’s campaign without explaining why God allowed it. It does not say that iron chariots exceeded God’s power.

Why were Jebusites still in Jerusalem after Judah captured it?

Verse 8 records Judah taking Jerusalem and burning it; verse 21 says Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites living there. A successful attack does not establish lasting possession or the removal of every inhabitant. The chapter leaves the interval and details between these two reports unexplained.

Why did they cut off Adoni-Bezek’s thumbs and big toes?

After his capture, Adoni-Bezek says he had inflicted the same mutilation on seventy kings who scavenged under his table. He understands his punishment as God repaying his own cruelty. The narrator records the act and his explanation, without reporting a command from God to carry out that mutilation.

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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).