Judges 1:16-21

The Extent of the Conquests of Judah and Benjamin Judges 1:16-21

16 And the children of the Kenite, Moses-' father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lieth in the south of Arad; and they went and dwelt among the people.
17 And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah.
18 Also Judah took Gaza with the coast thereof, and Askelon with the coast thereof, and Ekron with the coast thereof.
19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
20 And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak.
21 And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day.

10.

What city is called the city of the palm trees? Judges 1:16

This name was given to the city of Jericho (see Judges 3:13; Deuteronomy 34:3; 2 Chronicles 28:15). Strabo, Clericus, and others suppose that this is a reference to some other town in the desert of Arabia, but without substantial grounds. When Jesus went up from Jericho to Jerusalem, crowds followed Him; and on the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, they threw palm branches along the roadway (John 12:13).

11.

Who were the Kenites? Judges 1:16

The Kenites were descendants of Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses. They were probably a branch of the Kenites mentioned in Genesis 15:19 along with the other tribes of Canaan, which had separated from the other members of its own tribe before the time of Moses and removed to the land of Midian, where Moses met with a hospitable reception from their chief, Reuel, on his flight from Egypt. These people had gone along with the Israelites to Canaan at the request of Moses (Numbers 10:29 ff.). When the Israelites advanced into Canaan itself, they had probably remained as nomads in the neighborhood of the Jordan near Jericho, without taking any part in the wars of Joshua; but when the tribes of Judah had driven out the Canaanites from Hebron, Debir, and the neighborhood, after the death of Joshua, they went into the desert of Judah with the Judeans and settled on the border of the steppes of the Negeb.

12. Where were Arad and Hormah? Judges 1:16-17

Hormah was the chief town of a Canaanitish king in the south of Palestine (Joshua 12:14). Near here the Israelites were discomfited by the Amalekites when against the advice of Moses they attempted to enter Canaan by that route (Numbers 14:45; cf. Numbers 21:1-3; Deuteronomy 1:44). Hormah was afterward taken by Joshua and assigned to Judah (Joshua 15:30; but it finally fell to Simeon Judges 19:4; 1 Chronicles 4:30). Hormah has not been positively identified, though Tell-es-seba, about three miles east of Beersheba is a likely location (see Unger's Bible Dictionary, p. 449). Arad was a Canaanite city of the southern-most borders of Palestine, whose inhabitants drove back the Israelites while they were trying to enter Canaan from Kadesh (Numbers 21:2; Numbers 33:40), but were finally subdued by Joshua (Joshua 12:14; Judges 1:16). It lay twenty miles south of Hebron, and is now called Tell Arad (see Unger, op cit., p. 77). Considerable excavations have been undertaken at Tell Arad, and evidences of Canaanite civilization are extensive. Nearby is a large settlement of modern Israel which keeps alive the ancient Biblical name.

13, Was Jerusalem occupied by Israelites in the day of the ?Judges 1:21

After defeating Adoni-bezek, Judah and Simeon went against Jerusalem, conquered this city, and set the city on fire, Joshua had already slain the king of Jerusalem and his four allies after the battle of Gibeon (Joshua 10:3; Joshua 10:18-26), but had not conquered his capital. Even after Judah and Simeon smote the city, Jerusalem did not come into the sole and permanent possession of the Israelites until David made it his capital (2 Samuel 5:6 ff.). When this chapter of Judges was written, the site was occupied by that group of Canaanites known as Jebusites. The necessity for such repeated attempts to conquer a single site illustrates how the Canaanites infiltrated back into the midst of the Israelites whenever Israel did not exterminate these enemies or occupy immediately the citadels taken from them.