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Judges 1 Bible study: Who goes up first?
Judges opens and nearly closes with the same question, who will go up for us first, and the same answer, Judah (1:1-2, 20:18). The only voice in this chapter that says "God" is Adoni-Bezek's, the enemy Judah defeated (1:7). And the list of cities turns from "the Canaanites lived among them" (1:30) to "the Asherites lived among the Canaanites" (1:32).
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“The LORD said, “Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.””
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In Judges 20, Israel asks again who should go up first, and the LORD again answers, Judah.”
Is that in Judges 1, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Judah first, at both ends of the book
The book opens with a question: "After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of the LORD, saying, Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?" (1:1) (tap asked and first). "The LORD said, Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand" (1:2). Near the end of the book the same question is asked again, but not against the Canaanites: "Who shall go up for us first to battle against the children of Benjamin?" "The LORD said, Judah first" (20:18). In Hebrew both questions are mi ya'aleh lanu… battechillah, who will go up for us… first (1:1 has "against the Canaanites" in between), and the answer both times begins with the name Judah. Joshua 15 has already set out how often Judah comes first in the books before this one, and pointed back to Jacob's words over Judah (Genesis 49:8-10). Genesis 49's line on the Prophecy Map runs from "Judah is a lion’s cub" (Genesis 49:9) to "the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah" (Revelation 5:5). This chapter points back to both and draws no second line.
Where it leads to Jesus
With whatever measure you measure
Judges 1:7leads toMatthew 7:2
Adoni-Bezek says, "As I have done, so God has done to me" (1:7). Jesus taught, "For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you" (Matthew 7:2). Jesus doesn't cite Judges 1, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared idea, not a shared word. Some see in Adoni-Bezek's words the same thing Jesus states: what a person deals out comes back to them in the same measure. Others read Matthew 7:2 within its own teaching, which begins, "Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged" (Matthew 7:1), and Judges 1:7 as a defeated enemy's account of his own fate, which the chapter records without comment, and they don't look from one to the other.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Judges 1
That was a taste
The rest of Judges 1 is waiting in Favor
- The only one who says "God"
- Told before, told again
- Among them, then among the Canaanites
- Thumbs and big toes, elsewhere in the Bible
- The Kenites, Moses' in-laws
- A deed and its return, again in Judges
- 20 questions as you read
- 11 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Judges 1 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
יָרַשׁyarashsay ya-RASH
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "take possession of, inherit, dispossess". Strong's: "to occupy (by driving out previous tenants, and possessing in their place)". It is the verb of the chapter's second half, 12 times from 1:19 to 1:33. "He could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley" (1:19), "he drove the three sons of Anak out of there" (1:20), and then, tribe by tribe, "didn’t drive out" (1:21, 1:27, 1:29, 1:30, 1:31, 1:33). In 1:28 the Hebrew uses it twice in a row, behind the WEB's "didn’t utterly drive them out". Judges uses the verb 27 times. Caleb had used it of Hebron's hill country: "It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as the LORD said" (Joshua 14:12).
For your group
Judges 1 Bible study questions
- 1The first thing Israel did after Joshua died was to ask the LORD who should go up first (1:1). When someone you leaned on is no longer there, what do you tend to do first?
- 2Adoni-Bezek looked at what happened to him and said, "As I have done, so God has done to me" (1:7). Have you ever seen your own way of treating others come back to you? What did you make of it?
- 3The chapter moves from "the Canaanites lived among them" (1:30) to "the Asherites lived among the Canaanites" (1:32). What helps you notice when something you've been living alongside has started to shape you?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Judges 1 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home