Judges 1:8

Now. — Rather, And.

Had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it. — Our version here most unwarrantably interpolates the word “had,” meaning it perhaps as a sort of explanatory gloss to imply that the conquest took place before the fact mentioned in the last verse. If we are right in supposing that these Chapter s refer in greater or less detail to events already touched upon in the Book of Joshua, we must then supplement this brief notice by Joshua 12:8; Joshua 15:63, from which it appears that though the people of Jerusalem were slaughtered, the king conquered, and the city burnt, yet the Jebusites either secured the citadel (as Josephus implies) or succeeded in recovering the city. In Judges 19:11, the city is called Jebus (with the remark, “which is Jerusalem”), and the Levite expressly refuses to enter it, because it is a “city of the Jebusites,” “the city of a stranger.”

With the edge of the sword. — Literally, with the mouth of the sword (Genesis 34:26; Joshua 8:24; Joshua 10:28. Comp. Judges 4:15; Judges 20:37). It seems to mean that no quarter was given.

Set the city on fire. — Literally, sent the city into fire, as in Judges 20:48; 2 Kings 8:12; Psalms 74:7. The phrase does not occur elsewhere. And at a later period Josephus tells us that the siege occupied a long time, from the strength of the position (2 Samuel 5:7).