Judges 1

Adoni-bezek might have been the ruler’s name. But “adoni” mean’s “lord” or “ruler.” So, the term might have meant “ruler of Bezek.”

The writer doesn’t say why the Israelite ancestors of today’s Jewish people did such a barbaric thing. Conquerors sometimes did this to defeated rulers to humiliate them and make it hard for them to do important things like hold a sword or pop a top on a wineskin. Who’s going to follow a king who can’t fight, fiddle, or dance a victory jig? The writer lets the defeated ruler offer his own insight into why he lost thumbs and toes: payback (1:7). Perhaps the Israelites knew about the king’s vicious treatment of others. So, they gave him a dose of his own medicine. That’s a wild guess.

It’s unclear who took him to Jerusalem. Maybe the Israelites took him in an attack on the fortress. Or maybe his people rescued him and took him to safety in this well-fortified city on the crest of a hill. There’s no indication the Israelites ever took possession of it and moved in until David’s men captured it centuries later and declared it the capital of his kingdom of Israel. Benjamin’s tribe couldn’t dislodge the Jebusites living there (1:21).

Apparently, survivors came back and rebuilt the city (1:21).

We’re left to wonder what the daughter thought about that. But this was a patriarchal age when men did the thinking, and sometimes the stinking. On the other hand, if a woman has to marry someone her father chooses, it might as well be a brave Israelite military hero. Although there’s no indication he was brave enough to ask his father-in-law for that extra land the new wife wanted (1:14).

This is speculation. It’s because she got off a donkey. It doesn’t literally say she went to see him. She might have gone out for a donkey ride, and when she got back her dad was there on a visit. But that seems less likely.

The Hebrew word for what the Israelites did to the city is herem. Some Bibles say they “devoted” it to destruction. Scholars describe herem as a “curse of war” or a “ban.” It means that when soldiers conquer a city, for example, they are banned from keeping anything for themselves—everything in the city is under the curse of war and must die. Joshua fought by those rules. His orders at the Battle of Jericho: “Keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it” (Joshua 6:18 English Standard Version).

In Hebrew, the name is Hormah, which seems to mean “destroyed.” And some say it was apparently intended also to sound at least a little like the word they used to describe the complete annihilation of everyone and everything that lived in a community: herem. See note above. Herem/Hormah, Killed/Stilled. That’s the idea.

Those later became Philistine cities. In about the 1200s BC, the Philistines, a fierce fighting people, settled in the area with migrating invaders known as Sea Peoples. They apparently came from islands or coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea, possibly from Crete.

Horse-drawn iron-plated chariots were the ancient equivalent of today’s armored tank. They terrified infantry because a fast-moving chariot drawn by a team of horses could plow a path right through a line of foot soldiers. Chariots didn’t have that advantage in the hill country, however. And many scholars say those hills are where Joshua and the Israelites initially concentrated their invasion efforts.

Ephraim is presumed. The Hebrew says the “family of Joseph.” Joseph’s family produced two tribes: Ephraim and Manasseh. But Ephraim was the tribe in charge of clearing out Canaanites in Bethel.

“Scorpion Pass” is Akrabbim in Hebrew. Some Bibles use that Hebrew name. Today, it runs along a steep and winding part of Route 227 in the eastern Negev desert of Israel. Sela’s location is unknown.