Judges 1:10

The conquest of Hebron (contrast Joshua 10:36-37 D) is here ascribed to Judah as part of the general operations against the Canaanites (Judges 1:9); later on, the Judahites, having taken the city, made it over to Caleb (Judges 1:20). In Joshua 15:14 J, however, Hebron is captured by Caleb; it was a victory over the Anâkim, not over Canaanites in general; and such was undoubtedly the original version of the story. The editor here has altered the original narrative to fit his scheme of Judah's victories; this has involved the removal of Judges 1:20 from its proper place before Judges 1:10. Fortunately the parallel passage in Joshua helps us to recover the original form of the text:

Joshua 15:13-15; Judges 1:20; Judges 1:10-11. And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave [Hebron] †[22]. And Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up thence against the inhabitants of Debir etc.

[22] The words which intervene come from P. And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses had spoken: and he drove out thence the three sons of Anak (20), Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai (10b). And he went thence against the inhabitants of Debir etc. (11). Thus the whole of Judges 1:10, except the names of the giants, is due to the editor. Arranging the text in this way we obtain a consistent narrative, a proper subject for the verb -and he went" in Judges 1:11, and the introduction of Caleb at a point which explains how he came to be speaking in Judges 1:12.

Hebron The modern el-Ḥalîl (the friend), so called from its association with Abraham the friendof God, is the highest point in the Judaean Highlands, 3040 ft. above the sea. Its position made it the metropolis of the Negeb, which began a little to the south.

now the name of Hebron beforetime was Kiriath-arba An archaeological gloss, cf. 11b. The ancient name of Hebron is frequently mentioned by P, e.g. Genesis 23:2; Joshua 15:54 etc.; in Genesis 23:19; Genesis 35:27 P it is given as Mamre. Kiriath-arba = lit. -city of four," i.e. Tetrapolis, perhaps because the city was divided into four quarters inhabited by different races; cf. Tripolis on the Phoenician coast, founded by Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus. The word arbais not a proper name, as a late Jewish tradition took it, Joshua 14:15; Joshua 15:13; Joshua 21:11; in all three places the LXX has preserved the original reading -Kiriath-arba the metropolis of Anak." Burney in Journ. Theol. Studies12:118 f. explains the name as -the city of (the god) Four"; he quotes Babyl. parallels for this usage; which, however, is questioned by some Assyriologists.

Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai Either -the three sons of the Anak" from Judges 1:20 (cf. Joshua 15:14) should precede; or we may place -the children of Anak" after the names, following the LXX here and Joshua 15:14. The names may refer to families rather than to individuals; they look as if they were Aramaic. Sheshai (Ezra 10:40) is connected by Sayce with the Shasu, i.e. -plunderers," or Bedouin of S. Canaan frequently alluded to on Egyptian monuments, though the forms are not philologically the same; cf. Sheshan in 1 Chronicles 2:31-35, a name bel onging to this region. Ahiman 1 Chronicles 9:17 probably = -brother of Měn î," the god of fortune, Isaiah 65:11. Talmai is found in N. Arabia, in Nabataean inscriptions (C.I.S. ii. 321, 344, 348), and as the name of kings of Lihyan, an Arabian tribe (Müller, Epigr. Denkmäler aus Arabiennos. 4, 9, 25 from el--Öla). The three giants are mentioned in connexion with the visit of the spies, one of whom was Caleb, to Hebron Numbers 13:22; Numbers 13:28 JE. The spies travelled northwards from Kadesh; and Caleb, when he attacked Hebron, most likely also advanced from the south. The two expeditions cannot have been separated by any long interval of time, according to the narrative of J.

Underlying the story there seems to be a dim recollection of the fact that the various clans which in time grew into the tribe of Judah, the Calebites, Kenites, Jerahmeelites, entered Canaan, not from the E. after crossing the Jordan, but from the S. by advancing from Kedesh.