Judges Chapter 1

Welcome friends! We’ve made it Judges!!! Yay. This 1st chapter of Judges is about the Israelites fighting the rest of the Canaanites. After Joshua’s death, no one takes over. The Israelites are kinda leaderless. But they manage somehow.

After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked God who was gonna be the 1st to go & fight the Canaanites for them. God answers with, “Judah is going to go.”

The men of Judah went to the Simeonites & asked them to go fight with them against the Canaanites. Judah would return the favor. So the Simeonites went with Judah.

When Judah attacked, God gave the Canaanites & Perizzites into their hands. They struck down 10,000 men at Bezek. It was there that they found Mr. Adoni-Bezek & fought against him. Adoni-Bezek fled from them but they chased him. They ended up catching him & cutting off his thumbs & big toes! (Yes. You read that correctly. No thumbs, no big toes.)

Adoni-Bezek says, “70 kings with their thumbs & big toes cut off have picked up scraps from my table. Now God showed me some karma, straight up paid me back for what I’ve done.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem & took it. They killed everyone in the city & set it on fire. (Mind you this is well before Jerusalem became the holy city to the Israelites.)

After this, the men of Judah went to fight the Canaanites that were living in the hill country, in the Negev, the western foothills, & Hebron. They defeated Sheshai, Ahiman, & Talmai.

From there, they advanced against the people living in Debir. Caleb then says, “Look, boys! I’ll give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks & captures Debir.” Othniel, Caleb’s nephew, took the city. So Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to Othniel in marriage. (We’re not judging here. But you read that correctly.)

One day when Acsah came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her dad (Caleb) for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked, “What do you want?” (She was one of THOSE kids!) (Check out Joshua 15:18.) Acsah replied, “Do me a special favor. Because I’m your daughter. Since you’ve given me land in the Negev, give me some springs of water, too.” Caleb gave her more than 1 spring.

The descendants of Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenites, came from Jericho with the men of Judah. They lived among the “people of the Desert of Judah” in the Negev near Arad.

Then the men of Judah went with the Simeonites & attacked the Canaanites living in Zephath. They totally destroyed the city. It was called Hormah, meaning destruction. The men of Judah also took Gaza, Ashkelon, & Ekron.

God was with the men of Judah. They took over the hill country. But they couldn’t conquer the people of the plains because they had iron chariots. As Moses promised, Hebron was given to Caleb. Caleb drove the 3 sons of Anak off of the land.

The Benjamites didn’t conquer the Jebusites, who happened to be living in Jerusalem. “To this day, the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.”

Now the house of Joseph attacked Bethel, & God was with them. When they sent men to spy on Bethel, the spies saw a man coming out of the city. They said to him, “Hey buddy. Show us how to get into the city. We’ll see that you get treated really well. We got ya.” (Pretty much the same deal they made with Rahab.)

So this guy becomes an informant for the Israelite spies. He shows the Israelite spies how to get into the city. The Israelites take full advantage of this guy’s information. The whole city gets killed. Except for Mr. Nark & his whole family. This guy then goes to where the Hittites live & builds a freaking city!!! Which he in turn calls: Luz. Which is its name to this day. Because the town that was originally called Luz was changed by the Israelites to Bethel.

But the Manassehites didn’t conquer the people of Beth Shan, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, or Megiddo. Because the Canaanites were determined to live there. When the Israelites became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into “forced labor” (slavery) but never kicked them out completely. (We feel like this is the Israelites just being sore losers. Again, you’d think that they have a little more compassion for people & not put people into any kind of forced labor. Since they themselves used to be workers of forced labor.)

The Ephraimites didn’t conquer the Canaanites living in Gezer. The Canaanites continued to live there among them. The Zebulunites couldn’t conquer the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, they were subjected to the same forced labor that the Manassehites gave their unconquered neighbors.

The Asherites didn’t get those living in Acco, Sidon, Ahlab, Aczib, Helbah, Aphek, or Rehob. So the Asherites lived among the inhabitants. The Naphtalites couldn’t get the job done either in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath. The Naphtalites forced those people into forced laborers for them.

The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country. The Amorites didn’t let the Danites come down into the plains. The Amorites were determined to also hold out in Mount Heres, Aijalon, & Shaalbim. But when the power of the House of Joseph increased, they too were pressed into forced labor.

The border of the Amorites was from the Scorpion (In Hebrew, Akrabbim) Pass to Sela & beyond.