Judges 1:8

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.