Judges 1

Judges 1

The book of Joshua ended differently than some of the other books of the Bible so far. It ended on a positive note, with the Israelites dedicated to God, living in obedience to His commands. So the book of Judges starts off in a positive manner. Unlike their fathers, this generation of Israelites took God’s word seriously, and when He promised them something, they took Him for His word. They believed that the land was theirs to take, so they went into their battles with confidence, knowing that God would give it to them. Judges 1 outlines the continuing conquest focusing on the tribe of Judah. Joshua had allotted the land to the different tribes, telling them it was theirs for the taking, and Judges 1 goes into more detail of what Judah had to do to take their land. First they went in and defeated 10,000 men in the land of Bezek. Then, they defeated both the Canaanites and the Perizzites that lived in their land. Next, they went up to Jerusalem and captured it as well. God had promised them that He would reward their obedience with the possession of the land, and that is exactly what happened.


The chapter continues by outlining many of the other cities that Judah captured along the way. However, as was seen in Joshua, Israel never inherited the entire Promised Land. Certain tribes neglected to drive out all the inhabitants of the land. They may have had different reasons for not doing so, but the point was that by those acts, they were being disobedient to God’s commands. First, Benjamin neglected to drive out the Jebusites. Then Joseph made peace with a family of a city who moved away and started a new city. Manasseh failed in many cities, allowing the Canaanites to remain in their lands. They eventually put the Canaanites to work for them, but God had commanded the destruction of the Canaanites, not their enslavement. The same was true for the tribes of Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan. At least half of the tribes failed in completing their task.

Now one might argue that Israel had indeed conquered the land. All the tribes were settled in some area of the Promised Land, and none of the other nations had any control. Israel had successfully taken control over the land. The problem, however, was that in allowing the other nations to stay, Israel was also allowing their customs, religions, and gods to stay. The main reason God sought their destruction was because they had not worshipped Him. Instead, these other nations had created their own gods who they falsely worshipped. Furthermore, God knew that if these false religions were in the land, Israel would be tempted to follow them and turn away from Him. So although Israel had the upper hand in the land at the time, their partial obedience (which is actually disobedience) was going to lead to some severe problems. God gives us instructions for a reason. He does not create laws and commands just to give us some ridiculous standard to live by. He does it so that we can draw closer to Him and grow in Him. He does it so that we can be holy before Him. Although Israel had prospered so much and it seemed as if Israel was going to continue to prosper after Joshua’s death, these mistakes were going to have severe consequences.

Matt