Judges 1:4

And Judah went up,.... Simeon being along with him, from the southern parts of the land, where they dwelt, and went more northward towards Jerusalem, and which therefore is called a going up: and the

And Judah went up; and the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand: and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men. Bezek. This place lay within the allotted domain of Judah.

Not in the city, for that was not yet taken, , but in the territory of it, or near to it; as in Hor is taken, ; and in Jericho, .

4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Ver. 4. For there are certain men] Not worthy to be named, as that rich glutton, Luke 16:19. Crept in unawares] παρεισεδυσαν, stealing their passage, and making as if they minded nothing less. Thus Socrates (the writer of the Ecclesiastical History) was a close Novatian, as the learned Jacobus Billius observeth; he favoureth that heresy all along his history, sed ita oblique, ut minus perspicaci Lectori non tam dolori suo atque irae obsequi quam veritatis rationem habere videatur, but he doth it so cunningly, that a man would think he did it out of pure regard to the truth. (Observat. Sacrar. i. 26.) So Spondanus, the epitomizer of Baronius, drinks to his readers the pernicious poison of Hildebrand’ s heresies, quasi aliud agens, as if he intended no such matter. Ordained to this] Gr. προγεγραμμενοι, written down, enrolled, set down in the black bill. Turning the grace of our God] Gr. μετατιθεμενοι, translating it from its proper end, perverting it, by arguing from mercy to liberty, which is the devil’ s logic. Corruptio optimi est pessima. The corruption of the best is the worst. Learned men have conceived, saith Plutarch, that as of oxen, being dead and rotten, there breed bees, of horses wasps, of asses beetles; so men’ s bodies, when the marrow melteth and gathereth together, do bring forth serpents. The grace of God, if turned into wantonness, becometh the "savour of death unto death."

(4) And Judah went up.—Under the leadership of Caleb (Joshua 14:6). The Canaanites and the Perizzites.—See Genesis 13:7; Genesis 34:30. The former seem to have been lowlanders—“by the sea and by the coast of Jordan” (Numbers 13:29), “on the east and on the west” (Joshua 11:3; Joshua 17:16). The Perizzites were the mountain and forest tribes (Joshua 11:3; Joshua 17:15). Their antiquity and importance appear from the allusions to them in Genesis 13:7; Genesis 34:30; 1 Kings 9:20; 2Es 1:21. The name itself seems to imply “open villages” (1 Samuel 6:18; Deuteronomy 3:5), and may imply that they were agriculturists. The name does not occur in the genealogy of nations in Genesis 10 In Bezek.—The name means “lightning.” There seems to be no adequate reason to distinguish this town from the one mentioned in 1 Samuel 11:8. Saul numbered the people there before his expedition to deliver Jabesh Gilead. At first sight the mention of this town is surprising, for we have no information of any Bezek except the two villages of that name referred to by Eusebius and Jerome, which were seventeen miles from Shechem, and therefore in the lot of Ephraim. It is, however, needless to conjecture that there was another Bezek in the lot of Judah. We must suppose that the two warlike tribes began their conquest by marching into the centre of Palestine to strike a blow at the main stronghold of Canaanitish power. Ewald conjectures that in this expedition they took Shiloh, and refers Genesis 49:8-12 to this fact, rendering “till he come to Shiloh” (Hist. Isr. i. 284, E. Tr.). If this chapter does not refer retrospectively to events which occurred before the death of Joshua, it might well be considered strange that this powerful king is not mentioned among those attacked by the Israelites in Joshua’s lifetime. It is, however, possible, as Ewald suggests, that a new power may have sprung up.

4. This verse is made up of general phrases borrowed from Judges 1:5-7, with the addition of the 10,000—a common round number, Judges 3:29, Judges 4:6, Judges 7:3. The story of Adoni-bezek which follows has evidently been abridged; the editor has substituted a verse of his own for the omitted clauses. Note that the verb went up is singular; Judah alone is mentioned, as in the other editorial Judges 1:8-10; Judges 1:18.

The Canaanites and the Perizzites - See Genesis 12:6, note; Genesis 13:7, note. Bezek may be the name of a district. It has not yet been identified.

DEFEAT OF ADONI-BEZEK, Judges 1:4-7. 4. Judah went up — That is, in the military sense, as in Judges 1:1. Judah proceeded to the war.