A Land Not Yet Secured

"Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first?" "Judah shall go up." Judah and Simeon defeat the Canaanites at Bezek. Adoni-bezek flees; they catch him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. "Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me."

"Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it… and set the city on fire." Caleb takes Hebron from the sons of Anak; Othniel takes Debir and marries Achsah, who asks for "springs of water" and receives "the upper springs and the nether springs." The Kenites, descendants of Moses' father-in-law, settle with Judah near Arad.

Then the refrain of failure: Judah could not drive out the people of the plain, "because they had chariots of iron." "The children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem." Manasseh did not drive out Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam or Megiddo; Ephraim not Gezer; Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali lived among the Canaanites; "the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain."

Jerusalem taken, and not taken

One harmonization is that Judah raided and burned the city but did not hold it. Another reading sees independent local traditions or different editorial viewpoints. The texts are shown together, not forced into agreement. These are differences between passages, not between manuscripts.

Adoni-bezek's thumbs

Cutting off thumbs and big toes disabled a warrior from holding a weapon or running. Ancient sources describe mutilation of captives; Adoni-bezek's own words make it a story of just retribution. There is no record of him outside Judges.

Iron chariots

As in Joshua 17, "chariots of iron" likely means chariots with iron fittings, the elite weapon of lowland cities in the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages.