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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Judges 1:1 - 1:1
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With the words “Now, after the death of Joshua, it came to pass,” the book of Judges takes up the thread of the history where the book of Joshua had dropped it, to relate the further development of the covenant nation. A short time before his death, Joshua had gathered the elders and heads of the people around him, and set before them the entire destruction of the Canaanites through the omnipotent help of the Lord, if they would only adhere with fidelity to the Lord; whilst, at the same time, he also pointed out to them the dangers of apostasy from the Lord (Josh 23). Remembering this admonition and warning, the Israelites inquired, after Joshua's death, who should begin the war against the Canaanites who still remained to be destroyed; and the Lord answered, “Judah shall go up: behold, I have delivered the land into his hand” (Jdg 1:1, Jdg 1:2). בַּיהֹוָה שָׁאַל, to ask with Jehovah for the purpose of obtaining a declaration of the divine will, is substantially the same as הָאוּרִים בְּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁאַל (Num 27:21), to inquire the will of the Lord through the Urim and Thummim of the high priest. From this time forward inquiring of the Lord occurs with greater frequency (vid., Jdg 20:23, Jdg 20:27; 1Sa 10:22; 1Sa 22:10; 1Sa 23:2, etc.), as well as the synonymous expression “ask of Elohim” in Jdg 18:5; Jdg 20:18; 1Sa 14:37; 1Sa 22:13; 1Ch 14:10; whereas Moses and Joshua received direct revelations from God. The phrase אֶל־הַכְּנַעֲנִי יַעֲלֶה, “go up to the Canaanites,” is defined more precisely by the following words, “to fight against them;” so that עָלָה is used here also to denote the campaign against a nation (see at Jos 8:1), without there being any necessity, however, for us to take אֶל in the sense of עַל. בַתְּחִלָּה עָלָה signifies “to go up in the beginning,” i.e., to open or commence the war; not to hold the commandership in the war, as the Sept., Vulgate, and others render it (see Jdg 10:18, where לְהִלָּחֵם יָחֵל is expressly distinguished from being the chief or leader). Moreover, מִי does not mean who? i.e., what person, but, as the answer clearly shows, what tribe? Now a tribe could open the war, and take the lead at the head of the other tribes, but could not be the commander-in-chief. In the present instance, however, Judah did not even enter upon the war at the head of all the tribes, but simply joined with the tribe of Simeon to make a common attack upon the Canaanites in their inheritance. The promise in Jdg 1:2 is the same as that in Jos 6:2; Jos 8:1, etc. “The land” is not merely the land allotted to the tribe of Judah, or Judah's inheritance, as Bertheau supposes, for Judah conquered Jerusalem (Jdg 1:8), which had been allotted to the tribe of Benjamin (Jos 18:28), but the land of Canaan generally, so far as it was still in the possession of the Canaanites and was to be conquered by Judah. The reason why Judah was to commence the hostilities is not to be sought for in the fact that Judah was the most numerous of all the tribes (Rosenmüller), but rather in the fact that Judah had already been appointed by the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:8.) to be the champion of his brethren.