Content Overview Judges 1 narrates how the
Tribe of Judah, which would later establish the southern
Kingdom of Judah, took the initiative and was most successful in conquering lands from the Canaanites, while especially those tribes who later formed the northern
Kingdom of Israel experienced several failures, with the Canaanites repelling Israelite attacks on their cities.
Conquest of Jerusalem Another unusual feature is the conquest of Jerusalem as described in Judges 1:7–8: the Judahites capture Adoni-Bezek and take him to Jerusalem, everyone there was killed and the city burnt to the ground. In contrast, Judges 1:21 reports Jerusalem as having not been conquered and containing
Jebusites to this day (confirmed by Joshua 15:63). Judges 19:11–12 again claims it is a city of Jebusites, with no Israelites. Later on in
2 Samuel 5:6–10,
David even had to capture Jerusalem from the Jebusites in order to make it his capital.
Hebrew/Greek contradiction on Judges 1:18 's 1880 edition of the
Septuagint, with Judges 1:18 stating that Judah did not 'inherit' Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron nor Ashdod According to the Hebrew
Masoretic Text (MT) of Judges 1:18, "Also Judah took
Gaza with the coast thereof, and
Askelon with the coast thereof, and
Ekron with the coast thereof." (
King James Version). However, the Greek
Septuagint (LXX) renders Judges 1:18 as: "But Judas did not inherit Gaza nor her coasts, nor Ascalon nor her coasts, nor Accaron nor her coasts, nor Azotus nor the lands around it.' (
Brenton's Septuagint Translation). This contradiction has puzzled scholars, as not only does the Greek text add
Ashdod (Azotus) to the list of cities, but it specifically denies that the Judahites conquered (literally "inherited") these cities, while the Hebrew text asserts that they did. Although English Bible translations have generally followed the Masoretic Text in saying the Judahites took the three cities, some scholars claim that the Greek version should be regarded as superior if the inhabitants of these four coastal cities are to be equated with "the people of the plains" in the next verse, who repelled the Judahites thanks to their iron chariots. The Septuagint may therefore 'correct' the Hebrew text, as other textual evidence also seems to indicate the towns did not fall to the Israelites until much later.
Charles Ellicott noted that
Josephus had a different solution, claiming in
Antiquities of the Jews (volume 2, paragraph 4) that 'Askelon and Ashdod were taken in the war, but that Gaza and Ekron escaped, because their situation in the plains enabled them to use their chariots; yet in 3, § 1, he says that the Canaanites
re-conquered Askelon and Ekron.' While Joshua 10–11 portrayed Joshua's united Israelites as completely annihilating all Canaanites and capturing or destroying all their cities, Judges 1 shows many of these cities as still standing and being inhabited by Canaanites who often successfully repelled various Israelite tribes. Similarly, K. Lawson Younger (1995) made the case that the composition of Judges 1 was dependent on text taken from Joshua 13–19 and reused for the author's own purposes: 'Judges 1 recapitulates, recasts and extends the story of the process of Israel's taking possession of the land of Canaan. It utilizes materials from the book of Joshua (esp.
Joshua 13–
19) with some expansions to explicitly reflect the general success of Judah and the increasing failure of the other Israelite tribes, especially Dan.'
Potential pro-Judah bias Some scholars such as
Marc Zvi Brettler have concluded that Judges 1 is a pro-Judean redaction of
Joshua 13–
19, but K. Lawson Younger noted that even Judah is subtly criticised in Judges 1, and the rest of the Book of Judges portrays Judah in the same negative manner as all other tribes, and it looked to him like the first three chapters of Judges are integral parts of the book that were not added by later editors. == List of cities ==