Judges 1:1

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.