themes of Deuteronomy, after the death of the hero of that book, Moses.
[T]he question in Joshua was not whether Israel under Joshua would occupy the land but how much or how little they would occupy; that they would indeed occupy the land had already been decided during Moses’ lifetime, as narrated in Deuteronomy 9–10. The Book of Judges goes a step further. Now the question is not how much or how little land Israel would occupy during the period of the judges, but why they had not been able completely to drive out the inhabitants of the land. The Book of Judges, like Joshua, briefly recapitulates the previous book before interpreting it further.71
One notices that the opening of Judges (1:1) resembles that of Joshua (1:1) and of 2 Samuel (1:1); in these cases, a leader dies and a new one takes over. But in the case of Judges, no new leader is on stage. This is concerning: What would happen to a rudderless nation? Rather than an individual, we see a tribe designated to lead: “Judah shall go up,” said Yahweh (Jdg 1:2). But down the road, it would be the same tribe that would lead in the tragic civil war (20:18). From the failures of the first chapter to the catastrophe of the last chapters, the nation is leaderless, faithless, and ultimately, godless!
This first pericope is carefully structured72:
Judah and Joseph73 (B, B') conduct parallel wars, around which are placed Yahweh’s promise to the “sons of Israel” regarding the war in 1:21—a prospective view (A), and, at the other end, Yahweh’s indictment of the “sons of Israel” (the only two occurrences of the label in this pericope)—a retrospective view (A', 2:4). The first time the “sons of Israel” are seekers of divine guidance; the second time they are subjects of divine grievance.
One also gets the sense of a geographic layout in the narration, a south-to-north arrangement commencing with Judah and concluding with Dan: Judah + Simeon, Benjamin, Joseph, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Napthali, Dan. While this pericope mostly focuses on a human perspective of the war—a socio-political decline—the next (Pericope 2: Jdg 2:6—3:11), takes a divine perspective, providing reasons for the general failure of Israel’s military effort—a religious decline.
One notices that Benjamin stands alone in 1:21 as an orphan in the “house of Joseph.” This may well be an allusion to Epilogue II (especially Pericope 14: Jdg 20:1—21:25) where, again, Benjamin’s isolation shows up—the victim of Israel’s civil war. The insularity here in 1:21 is underscored by an unusual word order: “And the Jebusites [inhabitants] . . . were not driven out [verb] by the sons of Benjamin [tribal name]”; this is unlike the descriptions in 1:27, 29, 30, 31, 33, where the order is verb-tribal name-inhabitants.74 Another reason for Benjamin’s isolation may also be its geographic location between the major tribes of the south and the north.
1. Judges 1:1—2:5
| THEOLOGICAL FOCUS 1 | ||
| 1 | Uncompromising faithfulness to God manifest in behavior distinct from that of unbelievers, maintenance of godly traditional values, and reliance on divine strategies for success results in the enjoyment of divine blessing (1:1—2:5). | |
| 1.1 | Failure of uncompromising obedience to divine commands precludes the enjoyment of divine blessing. | |
| 1.2 | Faithfulness to God involves behavior distinct from that of unbelievers, maintenance of godly traditional values, and abandonment of reliance on human strategies for success. |
NOTES 1
1.1 Failure of uncompromising obedience to divine commands precludes the enjoyment of divine blessing.
There is an adumbration of danger right at the start. A comparison of Josh 1:1 with Jdg 1:1 immediately strikes the reader: the passage of the prior leader (Moses) in Josh 1:1 is juxtaposed to the appointment of the leader of the next generation (“Joshua, Moses’s servant”). But in Jdg 1:1, there is no subsequent leader waiting in the wings when Joshua exits. Besides, in Josh 1:1, Yahweh took the initiative to give directives; in Jdg 1:1, he is strangely silent, until the Israelites take the initiative. Things do not look good!
The living arrangements between the Israelites and Canaanites as this pericope progresses are revealing. Initially, with the endeavors of the Judah-Simeon alliance, we are not told of Canaanites living among the Israelites; then from Benjamin to Zebulun, the Canaanites are found living with the Israelites; the situation worsens with Asher and Naphtali: here it is the Israelites who are living among the Canaanites; in the final phase, they are themselves displaced, unable to occupy the valley. Far from a conquest, this is an “anticonquest”75:
In sum, this pericope portrays a failed project to take over Canaan.
Unlike most ancient military reports, the aim of this document is not to celebrate the achievements of the generation of Israelites that survived Joshua but to lament their sorry response to the divine mandate to occupy the land and to eliminate the Canaanites. Although the author delays sermonizing on the subject (cf. 2:1–5; 2:6—3:6), the structure of the chapter declares that this military failure accounts for the disastrous history of the nation in the next two or three centuries, as it is reported in the remainder of the book.76
And so while there is a seeking of God at the beginning of this pericope (1:1–2), there is, unfortunately, a weeping before him at the end (2:4–5; see below).
The verb “go up” (hl[, ‘lh, in the militaristic sense of “go against”) is a key word in this pericope (1:1, 2, 3, 4, 16, 22; 2:1; it does not occur at all in the next pericope). Of all these uses of hl[, only those indicating the key movements of Judah, Joseph, and the angel of Yahweh (1:4, 22; 2:1) are emphasized by location at the head of the sentence, at the commencement of the appropriate section (1:4–20; 1:22–36; 2:1–5). Certainly some of this upward movement is related to geography (for there is a “going down,” dry, yrd, as well, in 1:9), but it also serves as a link: the consequence of all the (failed) “goings up” in 1:1–36 is the ominous “going up” of the angel of Yahweh from Gilgal to indict the Israelites (2:1).
One also notices that in these “goings up” in Judges 1, Yahweh is associated only with the movements of two tribes (1:4, 19, with the Judah and Simeon alliance; and 1:22, with the house of Joseph—a broad south-north division of the nation77); both these campaigns at least begin well. Judah’s war is initially successful, but later meets with failure (1:19, 21—with the failure of Benjamin against Jerusalem; also see 1:8). Joseph’s war, though gainful, is suspect from the very start: despite a victory at Bethel/Luz, the informant from Bethel is allowed to go free in exchange (1:24–26), and he promptly rebuilds the destroyed city. A litany of incomplete “successes” and outright failures then follows (1:27–36). All of these miscarriages in Judges 1 form the basis for Yahweh’s indictment of Israel in 2:1–5. The same “sons of Israel” who had sought Yahweh’s counsel in 1:1 are now rebuked by him, for they were disobedient, making covenants with foreigners and not destroying their altars (2:2). Therefore, Yahweh announced, he would not completely drive out the land’s inhabitants who would end up as thorns to the Israelites (and their gods as snares; 2:3).78 Of course, Yahweh would be faithful to keep his covenant and Israel would possess the land, as he had promised the “fathers” (2:1). The question is why they failed to possess it now.
There
