The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Drive out” it comes from the Hebrew Word “yarash” which means “to possess, to drive out, to dispossess.”
After Joshua’s death, Israel’s tribes each set out to finish taking their own land, with mixed results. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Judges 1.
After Joshua dies, Israel asks the Lord who should go up first against the Canaanites, and God appoints Judah, who joins with Simeon and defeats ten thousand men at Bezek, capturing their king Adonibezek, whose thumbs and big toes they cut off, matching the very cruelty he had inflicted on seventy other kings before him. Judah continues taking Jerusalem and various cities, and Caleb offers his daughter Achsah in marriage to whoever captures Kirjathsepher, which his nephew Othniel successfully takes, receiving both Achsah and, at her request, springs of water alongside her dry inheritance.
Other tribes meet varying degrees of success. The house of Joseph takes Bethel, while Benjamin fails to drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem, who continue dwelling there alongside them. The same pattern repeats across several tribes, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan each fail to fully drive out the Canaanites from various cities, instead putting them under tribute or living alongside them, a recurring refrain of incomplete obedience running throughout this entire opening chapter.
This chapter sets a sobering tone for the whole book, since it was God’s clear command that Israel completely possess, “yarash” in Hebrew, the land and drive out its previous inhabitants entirely. Each of these partial victories, seemingly reasonable compromises at the time, plants seeds that will grow into serious problems for Israel throughout the rest of Judges, as these remaining peoples and their gods become a persistent temptation and snare.
This opening chapter reads almost like a report card, and the grades are mixed at best. Tribe after tribe settles for partial obedience, driving out some inhabitants but leaving others under tribute rather than removing them completely. That pattern of incomplete follow-through becomes the root cause behind nearly everything that goes wrong for the rest of this book.
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