Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
After Joshua, the tribe of Judah first enters war and takes the remaining cities of the Canaanites. Second, in verse 12, Caleb gives his daughter Achsah as wife to Othniel for having captured Kiriath-sepher, and when she asks, he gives her the upper and lower springs. Third, in verse 21 and following, the other tribes do not exterminate the Canaanites as God had commanded, but make them tributaries, and were therefore afflicted by them.
Vulgate Text: Judges 1:1-36
1. After the death of Joshua, the sons of Israel consulted the Lord, saying: Who shall go up before us against the Canaanite, and be our leader in war? 2. And the Lord said: Judah shall go up; behold, I have delivered the land into his hands. 3. And Judah said to his brother Simeon: Come up with me into my allotted territory, and fight against the Canaanite, that I also may go with you into your territory. And Simeon went with him. 4. And Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanite and the Perizzite into their hands; and they struck down ten thousand men at Bezek. 5. And they found Adoni-bezek at Bezek, and fought against him, and struck down the Canaanite and the Perizzite. 6. But Adoni-bezek fled, and they pursued and caught him, cutting off the tips of his hands and feet. 7. And Adoni-bezek said: Seventy kings, with the tips of their hands and feet cut off, used to gather scraps of food under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died. 8. And the sons of Judah, attacking Jerusalem, took it and struck it with the edge of the sword, delivering the whole city to fire. 9. And afterward they went down and fought against the Canaanite who dwelt in the hill country, and in the south, and in the lowlands. 10. And Judah marched against the Canaanite who dwelt in Hebron (whose name was formerly Kiriath-arba) and struck down Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai; 11. and from there he went to the inhabitants of Debir, whose ancient name was Kiriath-sepher, that is, the city of letters. 12. And Caleb said: Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and lays it waste, I will give him my daughter Achsah as wife. 13. And when Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it, he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife. 14. And as she was going on her way, her husband urged her to ask her father for a field. And when she sighed while sitting on a donkey, Caleb said to her: What is the matter? 15. And she answered: Give me a blessing, for you have given me dry land; give me also land watered with springs. So Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. 16. And the sons of the Kenite, the kinsman of Moses, went up from the city of palms with the sons of Judah into the desert of his allotted territory, which is south of Arad, and dwelt with him. 17. And Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they struck the Canaanite who dwelt in Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah, that is, "devoted to destruction." 18. And Judah took Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon, and Ekron with its borders. 19. And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country; but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had an abundance of iron chariots. 20. And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had said, and he drove out from it the three sons of Anak. 21. But the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusite inhabitant of Jerusalem; and the Jebusite dwelt with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. 22. The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23. For when they were besieging the city that was formerly called Luz, 24. they saw a man coming out of the city, and said to him: Show us the entrance to the city, and we will show you mercy. 25. And when he had shown it to them, they struck the city with the edge of the sword; but that man and all his kindred they released. 26. And he, being released, went to the land of the Hittites, and built a city there, and called it Luz — which is so called to this day. 27. Manasseh also did not destroy Beth-shean, and Taanach with its villages, and the inhabitants of Dor, and Ibleam, and Megiddo with its villages; and the Canaanite began to dwell among them. 28. But after Israel had grown strong, he made them tributaries, and would not destroy them. 29. Ephraim also did not slay the Canaanite who dwelt in Gezer, but dwelt with him. 30. Zebulun did not destroy the inhabitants of Kitron and Nahalol, but the Canaanite dwelt among them, and became a tributary. 31. Asher also did not destroy the inhabitants of Acco, and of Sidon, Ahlab, and Achzib, and Helbah, and Aphik, and Rehob; 32. and he dwelt among the Canaanite inhabitants of that land, and did not slay them. 33. Naphtali also did not destroy the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath, and dwelt among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land; and the people of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath became his tributaries. 34. And the Amorite pressed the sons of Dan into the hill country, and did not give them room to come down to the plains. 35. And the Amorite dwelt in Mount Heres, which means "of earthenware," in Aijalon and Shaalbim. And the hand of the house of Joseph bore down heavily, and the Amorite became his tributary. 36. And the border of the Amorite was from the Ascent of Scorpions, the Rock, and the higher places.
Verse 1: After the death of Joshua the sons of Israel consulted the Lord, etc. Who shall be the leader of war?
That is to say: Since with Joshua our leader dead we have no one to succeed him in the leadership, but the princes of the tribes and the Sanhedrin council administer the commonwealth, and now all the tribes have grown sufficiently to conquer, inhabit, and cultivate the rest of Canaan — which previously they could not do because of their small numbers, according to the decree of the Lord in Exodus 23:29 — who shall be our leader of war, that is, which tribe shall first continue the war begun by Joshua against the Canaanites, so as to conquer those remaining in its allotted territory, and give the other tribes an example and a beginning for exterminating the Canaanites remaining in their own territories?
This is clear from the Hebrew. For they are not seeking a leader to command the whole army and all the tribes, but one to begin a partial war in his own tribe, whose victory, fame, and glory would dismay the remaining Canaanites, so that the other tribes, each waging their own partial war against the Canaanites still remaining in their land and allotted territory, might similarly attack and more easily overcome and drive them out.
THEY CONSULTED — the oracle and response of God through the High Priest, either Eleazar, or, if he had already died, through Phinehas, as Josephus says (Book 5, chapter 1), his son and successor, vested with the Rational and the Urim and Thummim, as God had commanded in Numbers 27:21. This was done at Shiloh, for the tabernacle with the ark still resided there. So says Josephus, who also adds that after Joshua, Israel was without a prince for eighteen years, after which, on account of the invasion of the king of Mesopotamia, God designated Othniel as prince. At that time, therefore, the elders — that is, the princes of the tribes — and the Sanhedrin council governed the commonwealth. The Hebrews hand down the same tradition in the Seder Olam. These eighteen years of interregnum, however, are included within the forty years of Othniel, as I shall show at chapter 4, verse 9. So say Salianus and others.
Tropologically, let princes and all others learn here not to undertake war, or anything else that is difficult, without first consulting God, as David, Jehoshaphat, Judas Maccabeus, and above all Moses and Joshua did, as I said at Joshua chapter 11, verses 2 and 9; for victory and the fortunate progress and outcome of any matter depends on God.
Verse 2: And the Lord said: Judah shall go up
"Judah" here is a proper name not of a man and leader, as some suppose, but of a tribe, meaning: The tribe of Judah shall begin to fight. For it was the strongest, most noble, most illustrious, and most famous of all, and held the front line in the camp of Israel. Hence Jacob had promised it the scepter and kingship (Genesis 49:10), and this because from it was to be born Christ, the leader, king, conqueror, and vanquisher of demons, sins, death, and hell. Moreover, the tribe of Judah created Caleb as its war leader, it seems, whose well-known qualities were courage, prudence, virtue, and authority.
Verse 3: And Judah said to his brother Simeon
That is, the Judahites said to the Simeonites, or the tribe of Judah said to the tribe of Simeon. They are called brothers here for a special reason: namely, because the tribe of Simeon had received its allotted territory within the tribe and bosom of Judah (Joshua 19:1); otherwise, all twelve tribes were brothers, since they descended from the twelve Patriarchs, the sons of Jacob, who were brothers among themselves.
Verse 5: Adoni-bezek
This is a different person from Adoni-zedek: for the latter was king of Jerusalem, the former was king of Bezek, a city in the tribe of Judah; the latter was slain by Joshua, the former by the Judahites; the latter's name in Hebrew means "lord of justice," the former's means "lord of lightning": for bezek means lightning, a flash. Fittingly, therefore, Adoni-bezek, like lightning, surpassed all others in his strength and cruelty, so much so that he had cut off the tips of the hands and feet of seventy kings. So the Poet says of the two Scipios: "The two thunderbolts of war, the Scipios." So too James and John are called by Christ "Boanerges," that is, sons of thunder, that is, thunderbolts; for these spring forth from thunder, as sons from a father, by being born.
Verse 6: Cutting off the tips of his hands and feet
For "tips" the Hebrew has behonoth, that is, "thumbs" (and big toes), as the Chaldean, Lyra, Vatablus, Pagninus, Cajetan, and our Vulgate render it in Exodus 29:20 and elsewhere throughout. Our Vulgate and the Septuagint here translate it as "tips," because the thumbs are the highest and most important digits of the hand. Hence the thumb (pollex) is named from pollendo ("excelling"), "because it excels in power among the other fingers," says Isidore. The Judahites therefore cut off the thumbs of Adoni-bezek's hands and feet, by God's just judgment and instigation, to render the punishment of retaliation for his pride and cruelty; for he himself had cut off the thumbs of seventy kings.
Moreover, in this punishment, besides pain, there were two things, says Serarius. First, that those so mutilated could neither handle weapons thereafter, nor flee on foot, as Suetonius shows regarding Augustus in chapter 24, when he reports: "A Roman knight had cut off the thumbs of his two young sons to avoid military service." Cicero, in Book 3 of On Duties, says that the Athenians cut off the thumbs of the Aeginetans: "So that," says Valerius Maximus, Book 9, chapter 11, "a powerful people could not descend into a contest of naval forces with them."
Second, so that there might be, as it were, a reproach for cowardice — that they had been idle with their hands and fugitives with their feet. Hence in Italian, French, and Belgian the word poltroni (cowards) is applied to vile, lazy, ignoble men, as if they were truncated in their thumbs.
The Talmudists note in Sotah, chapter 10, that five men were punished in the very thing in which they excelled: namely, first, Samson in his strength; second, Saul in his lofty neck; third, Absalom in his hair; fourth, King Zedekiah in his eyes; fifth, King Asa in his feet. So too the rich man in the parable burned in his tongue, which had burned with gluttony.
Verse 7: Seventy kings — as I have done, so God has repaid me
Seventy kings (petty kings, that is, princes; for each city had its own king, as we saw in Joshua 12:9 ff.) WITH THE TIPS OF THEIR HANDS AND FEET CUT OFF, USED TO GATHER SCRAPS OF FOOD UNDER MY TABLE. — That is, he had cut off their thumbs, so they could neither rebel nor escape; and out of arrogance he would throw food scraps under the table to them as if to dogs; and therefore the Hebrews inflicted the punishment of retaliation upon him. Thus the Emperor Valerian, while trampling upon the Christian sacred rites, was captured by Shapur the Persian, and every time he mounted his horse, he was trampled underfoot, as Eusebius attests (History, Book 7, chapter 9). The same happened to Bayezid, Emperor of the Turks, who became Tamerlane's footstool and pet.
AS I HAVE DONE, SO GOD HAS REPAID ME. — This is what is decreed in Wisdom 11:17: "By what things a man sins, by these also is he tormented." To the same point belongs that saying of Christ in Matthew 26:52: "All who take up the sword shall perish by the sword." And Revelation 13:10: "He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed by the sword." And Genesis 9: "Whoever sheds human blood, his blood shall be shed." Finally, the law of retaliation is found in Exodus 21:24: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."
Moreover, it seems that Adoni-bezek, humbled by this punishment, came to himself and changed his mind and heart; he confessed his punishment and his former cruelty, and proclaimed the equity of God. Repenting, therefore, he acknowledged the just vengeance of God upon himself, and for this reason calls Him Elohim, that is, the just judge and avenger, and Him alone and one, not many.
Symbolically, the devil, says Serarius, is truly Adoni-bezek, or lord of lightning: first, because the Savior says of him in Luke 10:18: "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven." Second, because lightning rightly signifies pride and vain glory, which spreads a little brightness, but in such a way that it suddenly passes, vanishes in a moment. And indeed "Satan is king over all the children of pride" (Job 41:25).
Verse 8: So the sons of Judah, attacking Jerusalem, took it
Previously Jerusalem had been taken by Joshua (chapter 10:1), who had also slain its king Adoni-zedek; but afterward the Jebusites, holding the citadel of Zion, recovered the city. Hence the Judahites here again captured it, except for the citadel of Zion, which David was the first to wrest from the Jebusites long afterward (2 Samuel 5:7).
Moreover, Jerusalem properly belonged to the tribe of Benjamin; yet here it is said to have been captured by the tribe of Judah, because Judah had a share in the city, and because the Benjaminites, not trusting their own strength, handed it over to the Judahites to be captured.
DELIVERING THE WHOLE CITY TO FIRE — because, having been subdued by Joshua and the Judahites, it had rebelled against them, and because God wished the city to be purged of idolatry and crimes by fire, and entirely renewed — the city in which He had determined to establish the temple and the capital of both the commonwealth and the Church.
Verse 10: Kiriath-arba
These passages and what follows up to verse 16 we heard at Joshua 14:12 and chapter 15, verse 13 ff., where I explained them.
Verse 16: The sons of the Kenite, the kinsman of Moses
"The sons of the Kenite," that is, the sons of Hobab, who was the son of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law. For Moses had taken Zipporah, Jethro's daughter, as his wife; and from there Hobab, Zipporah's brother (also called Cin and the Kenite, say Hugh of St. Victor and Serarius), and his descendants the Kenites, kinsmen — that is, relatives by marriage — of Moses, clung to Moses as to a kinsman, and having become proselytes, followed the camp of the Hebrews through the desert, and entered with them into the promised land.
But why did the Kenites, leaving Jericho, so pleasant and fertile, migrate from there into the barren desert of Judah? Serarius more probably believes, and Salianus from him, that they were divinely inspired with a desire for solitude, and laid certain crude foundations of monastic and anchoretic life, which was then in some way propagated in the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35). The Kenites therefore were pious and religious men, whose descendants were the Rechabites, so praised by Jeremiah in chapter 35, and then the Essenes, the first professors of monasticism, so greatly celebrated by Philo, Josephus, Eusebius, and St. Jerome. These men, therefore, despising the pleasures of the flesh in Jericho, and loving poverty, sought out desert and solitary places, where they might more freely and conveniently devote themselves to contemplation, the exercise of virtues, and divine things. They therefore foreshadowed Elijah, Elisha, and the sons of the Prophets before Christ; and the Anchorites and Monks after Christ, who in those same places led a solitary or cenobitic life, dwelling with God and the Angels, as earthly angels and heavenly men.
Verse 18: Judah took Gaza
AND JUDAH (the tribe of Judah) TOOK GAZA WITH ITS TERRITORY, AND ASHKELON AND EKRON. — So too have the Hebrew and the Septuagint. It is surprising that in the corrected Roman Septuagint the opposite is read: "And Judah did not take possession of Gaza, nor Ashkelon, nor Ekron." Even worse, Josephus (Antiquities, Book 5) says the Judahites captured Ashkelon and Azotus, but not Gaza and Ekron; but Scripture here asserts the opposite. Therefore the Judahites here captured these cities and satrapies of the Philistines, but the Philistines soon recovered them, and waged perpetual war with the Judahites, as we shall hear in chapter 3.
Verse 19: Iron chariots
Because they had an abundance of iron chariots — which, being armed with scythes, mowed down all who opposed them and everything in their path. Moreover, the Judahites did not sin by thus sparing these Canaanites, because they saw them so well armed that they despaired of being able to defeat them; but the other tribes did sin, because when they had defeated the Canaanites, they did not kill them as the Lord had commanded, but made them tributaries.
Verse 21: The Jebusite in Jerusalem
BUT THE SONS OF BENJAMIN DID NOT DRIVE OUT THE JEBUSITE INHABITANT OF JERUSALEM — meaning that the Benjaminites together with the Judahites, their allies and leaders, did indeed capture and burn the city of Jerusalem, as was said in verse 8, except for the citadel of Zion, which the Jebusites held until David (2 Samuel 5). But the Jebusites, descending from the citadel, began to inhabit the city together with the Benjaminites, who permitted it, once the war had subsided.
Tropologically, St. Bernard, Sermon 58 on the Song of Songs: "However much you may have progressed while remaining in this body," he says, "you err if you think your vices are dead and not merely suppressed. Whether you wish it or not, the Jebusite dwells within your borders; he can be subjugated, but not exterminated." Then he suggests a remedy: "The one counsel in so great a crisis," he says, "is to observe diligently, and as soon as the heads of re-emerging vices appear, to cut them down with ready severity. Virtue cannot grow equally with vices; therefore, in order for virtue to flourish, vices must not be allowed to grow. Remove the superfluous, and healthy things spring up; whatever you take from cupidity is added to usefulness. Let us devote ourselves to pruning. Let cupidity be pruned, so that virtue may be strengthened. For us, brothers, it is always the time for pruning, as there is always need of it."
Verse 22: The house of Joseph went up against Bethel
THE HOUSE OF JOSEPH ALSO (namely the tribe of Ephraim, who was the son of Joseph) WENT UP AGAINST BETHEL. — Adrichomius thinks there were two Bethels, one in the tribe of Ephraim, another in the tribe of Benjamin. But Masius and others better judge that there was one and the same Bethel, situated on the border of the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin. This, therefore, is the Bethel where Jacob saw God resting on the ladder, and where Jeroboam later placed the golden calf as an idol. Hence Bethel, that is, "house of God," was called Beth-aven, that is, "house of the idol." See what I said at Genesis 28:19.
Verse 24: Show us the entrance to the city
The Rabbis hand down that Luz did not have a gate, but a certain hidden entrance, for it was closed on all sides like a nut: for luz in Hebrew means "nut." But these are the trifles of fable-tellers: for it was called Luz because it abounded in nuts, that is, in walnuts and almonds, says St. Jerome. By "entrance" here, therefore, understand not a gate, but an easy access into the city through walls that were lower or broken.
AND WE WILL SHOW YOU MERCY — that is, we will spare your life. The Hebrews could lawfully do this: for although God had commanded that all Canaanites be killed, yet for so great a benefit of revealing the entrance to the city, they could spare him, as they spared Rahab who received the spies (Joshua chapter 2).
Verse 25: They struck the city with the edge of the sword
This traitor sinned by showing the Hebrews the entrance to the city, because he betrayed his own homeland to them; for this is against natural duty. However, the fear of death threatened by the Hebrews diminished the crime of his treason. For this reason, the Emperor Aurelian, hearing that the man who had shown him a way to capture the city of Tyana had been killed along with the other inhabitants after the city was taken, was pleased and said: "For I could not love a traitor, and I gladly allowed my soldiers to kill him; for he who did not spare his homeland could not have kept faith with me." So Vopiscus in his Life of Aurelian.
Verse 26: He went to the land of the Hittites
HE WENT TO THE LAND OF THE HITTITES — that is, to Cyprus, says Procopius. For Cyprus is called in Hebrew Kittim (Isaiah 23:1). But in that case Kittim is written with a Kaph; here, however, it is written with a Heth, so the land of the Hittites is a different place from Kittim. What place it was, however, is unknown.
Verse 27: Manasseh did not destroy Beth-shean
MANASSEH ALSO DID NOT DESTROY BETH-SHEAN. — The Septuagint adds that it is a city of the Scythians; whence it was also called Scythopolis.
Verse 34: The Amorite pressed the sons of Dan
The Danites, more than the other tribes, were pressed by the Amorites, so that they occupied only the barren mountains of their allotted territory, but not the fruitful valleys. For this reason they were forced to seek other lands, as we shall hear in chapter 18.
Verse 35: Mount Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim
AND THE AMORITE DWELT (not Dan, but the Amorite, as is clear from the Hebrew and the Septuagint) IN MOUNT HERES, WHICH MEANS "OF EARTHENWARE," IN AIJALON AND SHAALBIM — meaning that the Amorite took from the Danites not only the cities of the valleys, but also three situated on the mountain, namely Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim.
"OF EARTHENWARE": For Heres in Hebrew means "a potsherd"; this mountain was therefore called "Testaceus" (of earthenware), either because earthenware vessels were formed there by potters, or because their broken fragments were thrown there, as we see was done at Rome on the hill near the Gate of St. Paul, which is therefore called Mons Testaceus.
The Septuagint translates: "On Mount Heres, where bears and foxes abound." Perhaps Samson, who was a Danite, from this place in his own tribe — namely Shaalbim, abounding in foxes — collected his three hundred foxes, to whose tails he tied torches and set fire to the Philistines' crops, as we shall hear in chapter 15, verse 4.
AND THE HAND OF THE HOUSE OF JOSEPH BORE DOWN HEAVILY, AND THE AMORITE BECAME HIS TRIBUTARY. — That is to say: the Ephraimites, descendants of Joseph, neighbors of the Danites, heavily oppressed the Amorites dwelling in the allotted territory of the tribe of Dan, and by right of war made them their tributaries. Therefore nearly all the tribes sinned in this: that they did not kill the Canaanites they had subjugated, as the Lord had commanded, but made them their tax-payers, as will be clear at the beginning of the following chapter.
Verse 36: The Ascent of Scorpions
FROM THE ASCENT OF SCORPIONS. — The Septuagint and others: "above Akrabbim," that is, above the place of scorpions. It is the name of a place so called because it abounded in scorpions, say Lyra, Abulensis, Dionysius, Arias, and others. From this Akrabbim was named the city of Akrabattene, and the region of Akrabattene, which was one of the eleven toparchies of Judea.
THE ROCK. — This is the name of a city situated on a rock on the border of Judea and Amalek. There was another Petra in Arabia, which is thence called "Petrea."