《Whedon’s Commentary on the Bible - Judges》(Daniel Whedon)
Commentator
Daniel Whedon was born in 1808 in Onondaga, N.Y. Dr. Whedon was well qualified as a commentator. He was professor of Ancient Languages in Wesleyan University, studied law and had some years of pastoral experience. He was editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review for more than twenty years. Besides many articles for religious papers he was also the author of the well-known and important work, Freedom of the Will. Dr. Whedon was noted for his incisive, vigorous style, both as preacher and writer. He died at Atlantic Highlands, N.J., June 8, 1885.
Whedon was a pivotal figure in the struggle between Calvinism and Arminianism in the nineteenth-centry America. As a result of his efforts, some historians have concluded that he was responsible for a new doctrine of man that was more dependent upon philosophical principles than scripture.
01 Chapter 1
Verse 1
PART FIRST.
INTRODUCTION. — CHAPTERS Judges 1:1 to Judges 3:6.
THE LEADERSHIP, Judges 1:1-2.
1. After the death of Joshua — Probably not long after. Till Joshua died the affairs of the nation were closely associated with one great master mind, upon which came the chief responsibility of government. Moses and Joshua were to Israel like the chief generals of a great army, and the great body of the people had little sense of a national responsibility. But as soon as these great leaders are gone there comes a dawning sense of national unity and responsibility, and now not one man, but the whole people, the children of Israel, ask counsel of Jehovah. The children of Israel are here to be understood as the tribes west of the Jordan, represented by their elders.
Asked the Lord — By means of the urim and thummim. See note on Joshua 1:1. The people and the elders had not forgotten the last counsels of Joshua. Joshua 23-24.
Who shall go up — Joshua died leaving no chosen successor. As he had himself been called of God to succeed Moses, (Joshua 1:2,) so he trusted God to select his successor in office. The divine commission did not resound in the ear nor stir the heart of any man. Hence the nation resorts to prayer to God in this season of suspense. The expression go up is to be taken in a military sense, not as implying an actual ascent, but an aggressive warfare: who shall take the lead in battle with our Canaanitish foes? The enemy is conceived as occupying higher ground than the aggressors, though sometimes the march to battle may not have been a literal going up.
Against the Canaanites — These enemies were not all exterminated in Joshua’s day, and when the great commander was dead the elders of Israel began to feel anxiety about the national safety. They feared their enemies might seize the moment when Israel was without a leader to recover their former possessions.
First — Or, at the beginning. The thought is, Who shall make the beginning of aggressive warfare? This form of words seems to imply that a personal leader was not sought, but rather what the Greeks called the hegemony, the precedence among the tribes: which tribe shall make a beginning?
Bishop Hervey, in the “Speaker’s” or “Bible Commentary,” maintains that the events of this chapter and the first five verses of chapter 2 must have occurred before Joshua’s death, and he suggests that the reading in this first verse should be, Now after the death of MOSES. But this whole argument rests mainly upon two assumptions, both of which may be rejected as unnecessary. He assumes, (1) That a war with the Canaanites for the possession of tribe territory is incompatible with the conquest of Canaan and the settlement of the tribes under Joshua’s leadership, and (2) That the narrative commencing at Judges 2:6, is a direct continuation of the verses preceding it. On this latter assumption see note at Judges 2:6. The former has been sufficiently refuted in our notes on Joshua 11:23; Joshua 21:44. Joshua, indeed, subdued the Canaanites on all sides, and the tribes received their portions during his lifetime, but the Canaanites were by no means all exterminated, and after the death of Israel’s great chieftain they would naturally rally to recover, as far as possible, their lost possessions; and subsequent history shows how long-continued were their conflicts with the Canaanitish nations that remained in the land.
The exact chronology of various events recorded in these opening chapters is very uncertain, and in view of the Hebrew historians’ well-known lack of precision in such matters, and the absence of sufficient data to construct a definite chronology of these events, it is altogether needless to suppose or assume that they occurred before Joshua’s death. The passage in Judges 1:10-15 is manifestly episodical, interrupting the direct narrative of the chapter, and therefore proves nothing in the case.
Verse 2
2. Judah — The tribe; the individual had long been dead.
Deuteronomy 1:35. This designation of Judah to the pre-eminence was in substance a repetition of the prophetic blessing of dying Jacob: “Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be upon the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.” Genesis 49:8. But although God thus clearly designated Judah for the leadership, the tribe failed to understand that from among its thousands a personal leader and national executive should be sought, and measures at once be taken to organize a strong central government, and realize as soon as possible the ideal presented in the book of the Law. Here was Judah’s divine call, but the tribe neglected it, entered into a league with Simeon, andthrough all the period of the Judges kept sinking into comparative insignificance. In Samson’s time this tribe seems to have been the most cowardly in Israel, and utterly afraid to resist the Philistine conquerors.
Compare Judges 15:11, note. Not until David attained the throne did Judah recover from the effects of the failure to improve fully this divine call.
I have delivered — It was the divine purpose that the ultimate and complete conquest of the Promised Land should be wrought by Judah’s sceptre, but it was not done till the days of David.
The land — Not only the lot of Judah, but the whole land of Canaan.
Verse 3
LEAGUE OF JUDAH AND SIMEON, Judges 1:3.
3. Simeon — This tribe was on the southern border of Judah, and occupied several cities within the bounds of that tribe. See on Joshua 19:1. They were natural allies, not only from their proximity, but because they were both the offspring of Leah.
My lot… thy lot — The portion of each was still infested with enemies. They unite to conquer them. This league of Judah and Simeon was clannish and sectional. Though it resulted in many victories, it would have been better had it been a league of all the tribes. The cowardly inactivity of the rest of the tribes, described in Judges 1:27-36, was doubtless largely owing to this sectional league. They were not included, and so lost sympathy with the work of conquest, and no central national government was formed. Hence the disorders and disasters that ensued. The league should have been not of Judah and Simeon, but of Judah and all the tribes, with Judah as leader.
Verse 4
DEFEAT OF ADONI-BEZEK, Judges 1:4-7.
4. Judah went up — That is, in the military sense, as in Judges 1:1. Judah proceeded to the war.
The Lord delivered — The devout Hebrew was remarkable for acknowledging the Divine hand in all his victories. The civilisation which laughs at all faith in the supernatural, and makes the strongest battalions the arbiters of battles, is very defective.
The Canaanites and the Perizzites — On these nations see note on Joshua 3:10. There seems to have been a gathering of these foes under Adoni-bezek for the purpose of conquering and oppressing Israel, and to crush the rising rebellion Judah led an army promptly against the gathering host, and fought the decisive battle in Bezek. This place is mentioned only once again, at 1 Samuel 11:8, where the context shows it to have been near the Jordan valley, and within a day’s journey of Jabesh-gilead. Its site has not been identified, but there is no good reason for maintaining that this Bezek must have been within the tribe of Judah. It may have been expedient for Judah to march beyond his borders, and attack the enemy on their own grounds.
Ten thousand men — Ancient battles were more destructive of human life, because there were generally no prisoners taken, or, if taken, their sufferings in slavery were worse than death on the field.
Verse 5
5. Found — Discovered and apprehended unexpectedly.
Adoni-bezek — The name means, lord of Bezek. He seems to have commanded these Canaanite and Perizzite forces in this war.
Verse 6
6. Cut off his thumbs and… great toes — This barbarous mutilation, unusual with the Jews, was designed to incapacitate for military service. The victim of this cruelty could neither march nor fight. In this instance the Israelites exercised this cruelty according to that barbaric style of justice called the lex talionis. In modern warfare it is usual to release prisoners “on parole,” that is, on their word of honour not to fight again; but among some barbarians such mutilation or disabling was the only security against their fighting again. And modern civilized states, when called to war with certain barbarous or half-civilized tribes, have sometimes been obliged to resort to some terrible form of the law of retaliation. See note on Joshua 10:26.
Verse 7
7. Threescore and ten kings — The chief of every petty village was styled a king. This accounts for the number of maimed wretches who scrambled or cravenly begged for the crumbs beneath this brutal conqueror’s table. We need not understand that all these seventy kings were under his table at one time, but during his reign. “Conceive,” says Kitto, “what must have been the state of the country and people among whom such a scene could exist. What wars had been waged, what cruel ravages committed! Those are certainly very much in the wrong who picture to themselves the Canaanites as ‘a happy family,’ disturbed in their peaceful homes by the Hebrew barbarians from the wilderness!”
God hath requited me — The guilty conscience, goaded to confession by signal retribution, quickly finds for its woe a moral cause. So the guilty sons of Jacob remembered their sin against Joseph when they found themselves involved in distress in Egypt. Genesis 42:21. So Herod was ready to see in the wonder-working Jesus the murdered John Baptist risen from the dead. Matthew 14:2.
They brought him to Jerusalem — That is, his own people brought him thither, for Jerusalem was yet in the hands of the Canaanites. The Israelites could have had no worthy object in carrying off with them the mutilated king, and the next sentence, commencing with the subject the children of Israel, indicates that the verb brought, in this verse has a different subject.
Accordingly, the next verse shows how Judah followed up his victory, and proceeded to attack Jerusalem, whither the defeated Canaanites had fled.
Verse 8
CAPTURE AND BURNING OF JERUSALEM, Judges 1:8.
8. Had fought — This pluperfect rendering of the verb has grown out of the notion that the Israelites brought Adoni-bezek to Jerusalem, and therefore the city must have been already in their possession. But much better is it to follow the more natural rendering of the Hebrew, and understand that this stronghold of the Jebusites was still held by its old possessors, (Joshua 15:63,) and that when these Canaanites and Perizzites were smitten at Bezek, they fled to this strong city, which had escaped even the all-conquering sword of Joshua. The rendering should therefore be, Then fought the children of Judah against Jerusalem, and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and sent it in the fire; that is committed it to the flames. After the forces of Judah passed on to the south, Jerusalem seems to have fallen again into the hands of the Jebusites, and then Benjamin was unable to expel them. Judges 1:21. The complete conquest was subsequently made by David. See notes on Joshua 15:63; 2 Samuel 5:6.
Set the city on fire — Not to purify symbolically, as some suppose, but to destroy, as in the case of other cities that were burned. Compare Judges 20:48. It is not said, however, that the city was entirely consumed, and, perhaps, the higher city, or fortress of the Jebusites, was not taken at all.
Verse 9
CONQUESTS IN THE TERRITORY OF JUDAH, Judges 1:9.
9. Afterward — After the burning of Jerusalem.
Went down — Proceeded southward. As went up (Judges 1:4) indicates a starting off to battle, so went down indicates a continuation of the war.
The mountain… the south… the valley — The three principal geographical divisions of the territory of Judah. See note on Joshua 15:19. Here the thread of the narrative is broken off to introduce the episode about Caleb and Othniel, and the notice of the Kenites.
Verses 10-15
CONQUEST OF HEBRON, AND EXPLOIT AND REWARD OF OTHNIEL, Judges 1:10-15.
This passage is nearly identical with Joshua 15:14-19. It may have been copied from the Book of Joshua, or from some older work. See the notes on the passage in Joshua. It is characteristic of the Hebrew historians to interweave such episodes as this and the following one about the Kenites into a narrative which touches persons or places with which they were associated.
The date of this conquest of Hebron and Debir is uncertain, but from Joshua 14:6-15; Joshua 15:13-19, it appears that it occurred during the lifetime of Joshua. Caleb was eighty-five years old at the time of the Conquest, or at its close, and some little time may have passed before he conquered Debir, but not probably many years. But whatever the date, the episodical character of this section, (Judges 1:10-16,) and the resumption of the narrative of Judah and Simeon’s exploits at Judges 1:17, show the futility of arguing from this passage that all the rest of the events of the chapter must have happened before the death of Joshua.
Verse 16
THE KENITES, Judges 1:16.
16. Children of the Kenite — These were a nomadic tribe camping in Midian in the days of Moses’ flight from Egypt. They were of Amalekite, or primitive Arabian, stock, and by virtue of their relation by marriage to Moses, this tribe became an ally, or a protege of the Hebrews, dwelling first in the vicinity of Jericho, the city of palm trees, and subsequently following the victorious arms of their protectors to the extreme south of Judah’s lot, to the edge of the Idumean desert. Here they dwelt undisturbed, taking no part in the wars of those days, and indifferent to political changes, until Saul warned them to separate from the Amalekites, whom God had directed him to destroy. 1 Samuel 15:6. The Rechabites, a tribe of staunch temperance men, descended from them. 1 Chronicles 2:55.
Arad — A Canaanite royal city in southern Palestine, twenty miles south of Hebron. Dr. Robinson identities it with Tell-Arad, a barren eminence rising above the surrounding country. The inhabitants of this city drove back the Israelites when they tried to enter Canaan from Kadesh-barnea. Numbers 21:1. They were subdued by Joshua forty years afterwards. Joshua 12:14.
Dwelt among the people — That is, the people of the tribe of Judah; though Heber, the Kenite, was found in Naphtali, Judges 4:17, having chosen to separate from his brethren and settle in the north of Palestine. It was proper that those who had befriended the Israelites in their weakness, when wandering through hostile lands, should enjoy their protection in the days of their triumph. “The sons of the Kenite adhered to Israel, not as Kenites, but as descendants of Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses. It is the constant aim of the historian of the conquest of Canaan by Israel to show that every promise was fulfilled, and that no one who at any time showed kindness failed of his promised reward. A reward had been promised to the sons of the Kenite, (Numbers 10:31,) and the fulfilment of the promise now takes place.” — Cassel.
Verse 17
CONQUEST OF ZEPHATH AND THREE CITIES OF PHILISTIA, Judges 1:17-19.
17. Judah went with Simeon — The narrative of their exploits is resumed after the episode about Caleb and Othniel.
Zephath — A Canaanitish city in the far south of Palestine, assigned first to Judah (Joshua 15:30) and afterwards to Simeon, Judges 19:4. Its inhabitants harassed Israel in their journey through the desert, and Israel vowed to place all their cities under ban.
Numbers 21:1-3. Joshua destroyed its king, but seems not to have destroyed the city. Joshua 12:14. So, too, he smote the king of Jerusalem, (Judges 12:10,) but did not capture and subjugate his stronghold among the hills. Now, after Joshua’s death, Judah and Simeon unite their forces and utterly destroy the city, and thereby execute the ancient vow of Israel against it. Hence the name Hormah, the place devoted to destruction. The previous use of this name in the Bible is to be understood proleptically. The city still exists in ruins under the scarcely altered name Sebaita, some twenty-five miles southwest of Beer-sheba, and three and one half miles south of the fort El Meshrifeh, which commands the only pass by which the plain of the ancient city can be approached. The ruins are extensive and imposing, about five hundred yards long and from two hundred to three hundred yards wide. Notwithstanding the fallen debris and rubbish, the streets are still plainly to be traced. In February, 1870, Prof. Palmer of the Palestine Exploration Party visited and carefully examined the site and all its surroundings. He remarks: “The name Sebaita is etymologically identical with the Zephath of the Bible. Zephath signifies a watch tower, and it is a noteworthy fact that the fortress El Mesh-rifeh, discovered by us in the same neighbourhood, exactly corresponds to this, both in its position and in the meaning of its name. I would make one more suggestion respecting this site: Zephath has always been considered as identical with Hormah; but may we not understand the word Zephath in its proper signification, and consider the city, after all, as separate from the tower or fortress that was attacked and destroyed? The city which was protected by so commanding a fort might well be spoken of as the City of the Watch Tower; and, as so important a position would certainly not be neglected by later inhabitants of the land, I think it not improbable that in El Meshrifeh we see the site of Zephath itself, and in Sebaita that of the city of the Zephath to which the Israelites, after their victory, gave the name of Hormah.”