Judges 1:10-15

CONQUEST OF HEBRON, AND EXPLOIT AND REWARD OF OTHNIEL, Judges 1:10-15.

This passage is nearly identical with Joshua 15:14-19. It may have been copied from the Book of Joshua, or from some older work. See the notes on the passage in Joshua. It is characteristic of the Hebrew historians to interweave such episodes as this and the following one about the Kenites into a narrative which touches persons or places with which they were associated.

The date of this conquest of Hebron and Debir is uncertain, but from Joshua 14:6-15; Joshua 15:13-19, it appears that it occurred during the lifetime of Joshua. Caleb was eighty-five years old at the time of the Conquest, or at its close, and some little time may have passed before he conquered Debir, but not probably many years. But whatever the date, the episodical character of this section, (Judges 1:10-16,) and the resumption of the narrative of Judah and Simeon’s exploits at Judges 1:17, show the futility of arguing from this passage that all the rest of the events of the chapter must have happened before the death of Joshua.