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Class-Book of Old Testament History

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<hr class="sect_35" /> <h3> CHAPTER <abbr title="1">I.</abbr> EVENTS SUBSEQUENT TO THE DEATH OF JOSHUA. <abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">I.</abbr>   B.C. <abbr title="circa">circ.</abbr> 1425.</h3> THE position of the Israelites at the death of Joshua was eminently favourable. A nation of freemen, entrusted at Sinai with the “Oracles of God,” they were now in possession of the Promised Land. Though their late leader had not appointed any successor to those extraordinary functions he had retained throughout his life, a complete form of government had always obtained amongst them ever since they became a nation in Egypt. This was mainly kept up by the chiefs of the several tribes, the heads of the great families or clans, and the heads of houses. (<abbr title="Compare">Comp.</abbr> <abbr title="Joshua">Josh.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 8">viii.</abbr> 33; <abbr title="chapter 23">xxiii.</abbr> 2; <abbr title="chapter 24">xxiv.</abbr> 1.) God Himself was their King, and in a sensible and living presence manifested Himself at the Tabernacle now set up at Shiloh, and revealed His will through the mediation of the High-priest. But though their position was one of great privileges and blessings, it was none the less one of trial and probation. The purposes for which the Vine of Israel had been called out of Egypt (<abbr title="Psalm 80">Ps. lxxx.</abbr> 8) and planted in this goodly land could not be fulfilled without trouble and exertion. There were enemies without and within their newly-acquired territory, ready at the first opportunity to attempt its recovery from their hands. If they were secure from their old oppressors the Egyptians, yet on the south and south-east the Midianites and Amalekites were only too likely to attack a people, whose late victories must have been a continual source of jealousy; while on the north-east were formidable chiefs, who might, as in the days of their forefather Abraham171, sweep down upon the country beyond the Jordan, and grievously harass the eastern tribes. Moreover, extensive as the conquests of Joshua had been, they had not achieved nor were they intended to achieve the entire extirpation of the Canaanites. The conquered population retained large tracts and important positions in the very heart of the country. The Philistines retained the fertile plain of the Shephelah in the south-west; the almost impregnable fortress of Jebus still remained unconquered on the very border of Judah; well nigh the entire sea-coast from Dor to Sidon was in the hands of the Phœnicians; the strong towns of Beth-shean, of Taanach, and Megiddo were still held by the Canaanites in the fertile plain of Jezreel; while on the north still lingered formidable remnants of the great confederacy under Jabin. These nations had not been driven out hastily, but had been left to test and prove the fidelity of the generation that had not known the wars of Canaan (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 2">ii.</abbr> 22), and the duty of subjugating them had been solemnly enforced by Joshua in his last address to the assembled tribes (<abbr title="Joshua">Josh.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 23">xxiii.</abbr> 5<abbr title="through">–</abbr>10). Accordingly we find that all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, the nation did not forget its vocation, but carried on the work to which it had been called (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 2">ii.</abbr> 7). 1. Thus Judah, whose conquest of Hebron and its vicinity has been already related, in alliance with the neighbouring tribe of Simeon, attacked Bezek, slew 10,000 of its Canaanite and Perizzite inhabitants, and captured its ferocious king Adoni-bezek, whose cruel mutilation of seventy vassal princes gives us an insight into the character of the native chiefs, whom Israel was commissioned to expel (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 6, 7). As he had done to others, so Judah did to him. They cut off his thumbs and his great toes, and carried him captive to Jerusalem, <abbr title="that is">i.e.</abbr> to the Lower City, which was taken, and set on fire. But the Upper City resisted all their efforts, as afterwards those of the tribe of Benjamin (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 21172). They were more successful, however, in other places, and reduced numerous cities of the Canaanites in the central mountains, the southern desert, and the low country of the west (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 17, 18). 2. The powerful house of Joseph was not behind-hand in following the example of the lion-tribe of Judah. They sent spies to descry the town of Luz, who seeing a man coming from thence, seized him, but consented to spare his life and that of his family on condition that he shewed them the entrance, on ascertaining which, they smote the place with the edge of the sword. Thus in addition to Shechem, the house of Joseph became possessed of another spot consecrated by the most sacred associations, even the town, near which was the stone Pillar their father Jacob had set up on his way to Padan-Aram, and called the place Beth-el, the House of God (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 22<abbr title="through">–</abbr>26). But they were not similarly successful in expelling the Canaanites from Gezer near lower Beth-horon (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 29), or from their strongholds in the plain of Jezreel, Taanach, Megiddo, and Beth-shean. Instead of utterly driving them out, they put them under tribute, as also the Amorites, who succeeded in thrusting the children of Dan from the fertile lowland of the sea-coast into the mountains, to be themselves dispossessed in turn by the Philistines (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 34, 35). 3. Similar declensions from the strict line of duty marked the conduct of other tribes. Zebulun contented itself with merely imposing tribute on the nations within its borders; Asher made no attempt to expel the powerful Phœnicians on the sea-coast from Accho to Zidon, or from their more inland settlements; and Naphtali spared the inhabitants of the fenced cities of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 1">i.</abbr> 30<abbr title="through">–</abbr>33). This neglect of an obvious duty soon led to worse results. Contrary to the express commands of the Law, and the repeated exhortations of Moses and Joshua, the Israelites began to make leagues with the heathen nations. Leagues with nations led to marriages with individuals, and these to their natural consequences. Their new relatives invited the Israelites to their idolatrous festivals, where the consecrated licentiousness gratified their sensual appetites, and before long there arose a generation, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel (<abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 2">ii.</abbr> 10). Forgetting Him who had done so great things for them, they bowed themselves to strange gods, and practised the worst abominations, even sacrificing their sons and their daughters to Baal and Ashtaroth (<abbr title="Psalm 106">Ps. cvi.</abbr> 37, 38; <abbr title="Judges">Judg.</abbr> <abbr title="chapter 2">ii.</abbr> 13). This gradual spread of idolatry, and as a natural consequence, of moral and social degeneracy, is strikingly illustrated by two incidents recorded in the last five chapters of the Book of Judges, which seem to have been inserted for this very purpose as a kind of appendix to that Book173. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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