The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Failure to Complete the Conquest
Judges 1:27–36 — The Failure to Complete the Conquest. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
27At that time Manasseh failed to drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo, and their villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
mə·naš·šeh ’eṯ- wə·lō- hō·w·rîš bêṯ- šə·’ān wə·’eṯ- bə·nō·w·ṯe·hā wə·’eṯ- ta‘·naḵ wə·’eṯ- bə·nō·ṯe·hā wə·’eṯ- yō·šēḇ ḏō·wr wə·’eṯ- bə·nō·w·ṯe·hā wə·’eṯ- yō·wō·šə·ḇê yiḇ·lə·‘ām wə·’eṯ- bə·nō·ṯe·hā wə·’eṯ- yō·wō·šə·ḇê mə·ḡid·dōw wə·’eṯ- bə·nō·w·ṯe·hā hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî way·yō·w·’el lā·še·ḇeṯ haz·zōṯ bā·’ā·reṣ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-not did-dispossess Manasseh Beth-Shean and-her-daughters, and-Taanach and-her-daughters, and-the-dwellers-of Dor and-her-daughters, and-the-dwellers-of Ibleam and-her-daughters, and-the-dwellers-of Megiddo and-her-daughters; and-the-Canaanite undertook to-dwell in-this the-land.
Where the English smooths the original
The Canaanites would dwell in that land — i.e., the old inhabitants obstinately and successfully held their own
a chain of hostile fortresses, stretching westwards from Beth-shean in the E. to Dor on the sea-coast, rendered the occupation of the Great Plain impossible.Cambridge supplies the geography that turns a list of names into a strategy: an unbroken fortress line from the Jordan to the sea. It is a military explanation, and it sits in tension with Gill's moral one below.
This tribe seems to have been sluggish, and not to have exerted itself at all, or made any attempts to drive out these people
28When Israel became stronger, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor, but they never drove them out completely.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
way·hî kî- yiś·rā·’êl ḥā·zaq way·yā·śem ’eṯ- hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî lā·mas lō wə·hō·w·rêš hō·w·rî·šōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-it-came-to-pass when grew-strong Israel, that-he-set the-Canaanite to-forced-labour; and-dispossessing, he-did-not dispossess-him.
Where the English smooths the original
But it cost them less trouble, and brought them more profit, to make them tributaries, than to expel them; and therefore they preferred it, being influenced by sloth and covetousness.
The word mas properly denotes a body of men engaged upon forced labour; here it is used of the Canaanites when reduced to subjectionThis is the lexical correction that most changes the verse in English: Cambridge insists mas is not a tax but a work-gang, against the older versions Gill, Geneva and Pulpit are reading.
It was also owing to their covetousness: they were willing to let the Canaanites live among them, that they might make advantage of them.Henry's remarks here belong to a single block comment on Judges 1:21-36 rather than to this verse alone; the brief repeats it under every verse of the unit.
29Ephraim also failed to drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer; so the Canaanites continued to dwell among them in Gezer.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’ep̄·ra·yim lō hō·w·rîš ’eṯ- hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî hay·yō·wō·šêḇ bə·ḡā·zer hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî way·yê·šeḇ bə·qir·bōw bə·ḡā·zer
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-Ephraim did-not dispossess the-Canaanite the-one-dwelling in-Gezer; and-the-Canaanite dwelt in-his-midst in-Gezer.
Where the English smooths the original
So far from it, that it appears they did not so much as exact any tribute from them, but made a covenant of friendship with them, which was a still greater crime.Benson's "still greater crime" is inference from silence: the text records no maç for Ephraim, and he reads the omission as a treaty. It is a plausible reading of a gap, not a statement of the verse.
This town was not won from the Canaanites till its capture by Pharaoh, who gave it as a present to his daughter, the wife of Solomon
Ephraim did not root out the Canaanites in Gezer ( Judges 1:29 ), as has already been stated in Joshua 16:10
30Zebulun failed to drive out the inhabitants of Kitron and Nahalol; so the Canaanites lived among them and served as forced laborers.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
zə·ḇū·lun lō hō·w·rîš ’eṯ- yō·wō·šə·ḇê qiṭ·rō·wn wə·’eṯ- yō·wō·šə·ḇê na·hă·lōl hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî way·yê·šeḇ bə·qir·bōw way·yih·yū lā·mas
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Zebulun did-not dispossess the-dwellers-of Kitron and-the-dwellers-of Nahalol; and-the-Canaanite dwelt in-his-midst, and-they-became for-forced-labour.
Where the English smooths the original
which perhaps was the reason of their sloth in driving them out; though it aggravated their sin not to take care to rid those cities of the Canaanites, which were given to religious personsGill's aggravating circumstance rests on his identification of Kitron and Nahalol with the Levitical towns of Joshua 19:15 and 21:34; Cambridge states plainly that the sites are unknown.
Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, were not strong enough to make any conquests; they could only settle among the older population; and the northern district remained, probably for centuries, only partially Israelite
In other cases, when the natives were vanquished, avarice led the Israelites to spare the idolaters, contrary to the express command of God; and their disobedience to His orders in this matter involved them in many troubles which this book describes.JFB's note is a single block comment covering Judges 1:27-36; the brief repeats it under each verse. Their claim that fleeing Canaanites became the first colonists of Greece and Italy is a nineteenth-century conjecture, and they present it as such.
31Asher failed to drive out the inhabitants of Acco, Sidon, Ahlab, Achzib, Helbah, Aphik, and Rehob.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’ā·šêr lō hō·w·rîš ’eṯ- yō·šə·ḇê ‘ak·kōw wə·’eṯ- yō·wō·šə·ḇê ṣî·ḏō·wn wə·’eṯ- ’aḥ·lāḇ wə·’eṯ- ’aḵ·zîḇ wə·’eṯ- ḥel·bāh wə·’eṯ- ’ă·p̄îq wə·’eṯ- rə·ḥōḇ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Asher did-not dispossess the-dwellers-of Acco and-the-dwellers-of Sidon, and-Ahlab and-Achzib and-Helbah and-Aphik and-Rehob.
Where the English smooths the original
As seven out of the twenty-two towns of Asher ( Joshua 19:30 ) remained in the hands of the Canaanites, including such important places as Acco and Sidon
Asher never succeeded in conquering Zidon, which was the capital of Phœnicia, though eclipsed by its neighbour Tyre.
they took no part in the combination against Sisera ( Jdg 5:17 ), and here it is implied that they could not hold their own against the older population.Cambridge reads Asher's weakness as historical incapacity rather than sin, and elsewhere floats the theory that the tribe was in Palestine before Moses. That is a reconstruction, offered by him as conjecture, not a claim of the text.
32So the Asherites lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, because they did not drive them out.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hā·’ā·šê·rî way·yê·šeḇ bə·qe·reḇ hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî yō·šə·ḇê hā·’ā·reṣ kî lō hō·w·rî·šōw
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-Asherite dwelt in-the-midst-of the-Canaanite, the-dwellers-of the-land, for he-did-not dispossess-him.
Where the English smooths the original
It is an evidence of the power of the Canaanite in this portion of the land that it is not said (compare Judges 1:30 ) that the Canaanites dwelt among the Asherites
This manner of speaking seems to imply that these Canaanites still remained the lords of the country, and that the Asherites were only permitted to dwell among the Canaanites
The best summary of the moral lesson involved in the narrative is in Psalm 106:34-36Ellicott's cross-reference to Psalm 106 is the recorded basis for the Psalter thread below; the Psalm supplies the verdict this chapter withholds.
which seems to imply that the Canaanites were the more numerous people of the two, yet the Israelites were able to keep them in subjection.Pulpit's closing clause, that the Israelites were still able to keep them in subjection, is in direct tension with Barnes and K&D, who note that this verse pointedly omits any mention of subjection or forced labour for Asher.
33Naphtali failed to drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath. So the Naphtalites also lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, but the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath served them as forced laborers.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
nap̄·tā·lî lō- hō·w·rîš ’eṯ- yō·šə·ḇê ḇêṯ- še·meš wə·’eṯ- yō·šə·ḇê ḇêṯ- ‘ă·nāṯ way·yê·šeḇ bə·qe·reḇ hak·kə·na·‘ă·nî yō·šə·ḇê hā·’ā·reṣ wə·yō·šə·ḇê ḇêṯ- še·meš ū·ḇêṯ ‘ă·nāṯ hā·yū lā·hem lā·mas
Literal — word-for-word from the original
Naphtali did-not dispossess the-dwellers-of Beth-Shemesh and-the-dwellers-of Beth-Anath; and-he-dwelt in-the-midst-of the-Canaanite, the-dwellers-of the-land; and-the-dwellers-of Beth-Shemesh and-Beth-Anath became to-them for-forced-labour.
Where the English smooths the original
The tribe of Naphtali was in the same unhappy condition as that of Asher, living in the midst of a Canaanite population of superior strength to themselves.
It is curious that only two cities are named as having stood out against Naphtali; perhaps the list is not completeCambridge's suspicion that the list is incomplete is text-critical inference, not a claim of the verse; he supports it by pointing to Hazor in Judges 4:2, which this chapter never mentions.
these two cities did at length exert themselves, and got the mastery over the Canaanites, as to make them pay tribute to them; though they ought to have expelled them, and even destroyed them, according to the command of God, but avarice prevailed over them.Gill and K&D read this clause in flatly opposite directions: Gill has Naphtali finally mastering the two towns, while K&D states that this tribe dwelt among the Canaanites but did not make them tributary. The Hebrew of the final clause is on Gill's side.
34The Amorites forced the Danites into the hill country and did not allow them to come down into the plain.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hā·’ĕ·mō·rî ’eṯ- way·yil·ḥă·ṣū bə·nê- ḏān hā·hā·rāh kî- lō nə·ṯā·nōw lā·re·ḏeṯ lā·‘ê·meq
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-Amorite squeezed the-sons-of Dan to-the-hill-country, for he-did-not give-him to-come-down to-the-valley.
Where the English smooths the original
The condition of this tribe was, therefore, the worst of all. So far from reducing under tribute the Canaanites of its assigned possession, as the central tribes did, the Danites did not even succeed in establishing a tolerated neutrality among them, like the northern tribes, but were driven into a few mountain-strongholds.
Dan, we may infer, attempted to settle in the N.W. corner of Judah, on the rich land (‘the valley’) between the hills and the coast. But the native population forced them back into the hillsCambridge's reconstruction continues past this point into source-critical territory, proposing that vv. 34-36 originally read 'Canaanites' for 'Amorites' and that a corrected Joshua 19:47 once followed. Those are hypotheses about the document's history, not readings of the received text.
It was their great strength in this district, and their forcible detention of the territory of Dan, which led to the expedition of the Danites
35And the Amorites were determined to dwell in Mount Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim. But when the house of Joseph grew in strength, they pressed the Amorites into forced labor.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
hā·’ĕ·mō·rî way·yō·w·’el lā·še·ḇeṯ bə·har- ḥe·res bə·’ay·yā·lō·wn ū·ḇə·ša·‘al·ḇîm bêṯ- yō·w·sêp̄ wat·tiḵ·baḏ yaḏ way·yih·yū lā·mas
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-Amorite undertook to-dwell in-Mount-Heres, in-Aijalon and-in-Shaalbim; and-grew-heavy the-hand-of the-house-of Joseph, and-they-became for-forced-labour.
Where the English smooths the original
yet the {o} hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became tributaries. (o) Meaning, when he was stronger than they.Geneva's gloss ties the heavy hand to relative strength alone, which is exactly the logic Benson condemned at v. 28: strength is what made obedience possible and compromise culpable.
the Ephraimites being near to the tribe of Dan, and observing how they were pressed by the Amorites, took up arms in their favour, and obliged the Canaanites of the above places to become tributaries to the Danites.Gill has the towns made tributary to Dan. Ellicott, reading the same clause, states the opposite: tributaries not to Dan but to their conquerors the Ephraimites. The Hebrew names no beneficiary.
Of the house of Joseph, i.e. of the Ephraimites, who helped their brethren the Danites against the Amorites, and that with good success.
36And the border of the Amorites extended from the Ascent of Akrabbim to Sela and beyond.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḡə·ḇūl hā·’ĕ·mō·rî mim·ma·‘ă·lêh ‘aq·rab·bîm mê·has·se·la‘ wā·mā·‘ə·lāh
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And-the-border-of the-Amorite: from-the-ascent-of-Akrabbim, from-the-Rock and-upward.
Where the English smooths the original
It is, in fact, impossible to be sure where ‘the Rock’ was. It cannot be Petra (LXX etc.), the famous capital of the Nabataeans, for this is too far south. The verse is obviously out of connexion with its context.Cambridge's verdict is the honest one in this unit: the verse is a fragment, its subject may be corrupt, and its landmark cannot be located. His proposed emendation to 'the border of the Edomite' rests on Septuagint recensions and is conjecture.
was the sharply projecting line of cliffs which intersected the Ghor below the Dead Sea, and formed the southern boundary of the promised land
The whole name, put into English, is "the ascent, or going up, of Scorpions," a mountain pass so called from the abundance of scorpions found in the whole region.
Petra, the capital of Idumea, so called from the mass of precipitous rock which encloses the townBarnes then immediately complicates his own identification, noting that Selah is always used of the rock at Kadesh-Barnea; that observation is the seed of K&D's contrary argument.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
Five tribes, five times the same three words: לֹא הוֹרִישׁ, he did not dispossess. The Hiphil of yârash (H3423) does not mean to fail at settling; it means to leave the sitting tenant seated. K&D notes that in v. 27 the objects are towns while the sense requires their people, a metonymy the list keeps up until v. 30 makes the participle explicit. What is striking is what the narrator never says. There is no "and the anger of the LORD was kindled" in this passage, no prophet, no rebuke; the verdict has to wait for Judges 2:1-3. Cambridge presses a textual case that the Septuagint's was not able to drive out is the older reading at vv. 19, 32 and here, which would turn the whole litany from indictment into lament. The commentators divide accordingly. Gill judges Manasseh sluggish; Cambridge answers with a chain of hostile fortresses from Beth-shean to Dor that made the Great Plain unenterable; K&D splits the difference and points to the Canaanite chariotry that Israel could do nothing against in open ground. Ellicott gives the sentence that holds both: the old inhabitants obstinately and successfully held their own. ⚙ The text as it stands refuses to tell us whether this is guilt or weakness, and that refusal is itself the literary point: the verdict is deferred so that chapter 2 can deliver it.
Four times the failure resolves into an arrangement: לָמַס, for a work-gang. Cambridge's lexical correction is the single most important note in the unit and cuts against the older English versions that Gill, Geneva and Pulpit are reading: maç (H4522) is not tribute money but a body of men held to forced labour, the corvee, and Cambridge traces it forward to 2 Samuel 20:24 and Solomon's levies in 1 Kings 5:13 and 9:15. Benson states the logic the grammar forces: Israel was strong (ḥāzaq, v. 28) before Israel was accommodating, and whoever can conscript can expel; the choice for the gang was for less trouble and more profit. Henry names the motive covetousness outright, and JFB names it avarice. K&D contests only the date, arguing against Bertheau that the levies grew gradually through the era of the judges and were not Solomon's invention. ⚙ The reader who follows maç to the end of its life in Scripture finds that the institution Israel invented for the Canaanite is the institution laid on Israel at 1 Kings 12:4, and that it was over this word that the kingdom broke.
At v. 32 the preposition changes hands. Through vv. 29-30 the Canaanite dwells בְּקִרְבּוֹ, in Israel's inward part; at vv. 32-33 Israel dwells bᵉqereb the Canaanite. Barnes, Ellicott, Pulpit and K&D each mark the inversion independently, and K&D adds the confirming silence: for Asher alone no work-gang is recorded, because there was nothing to conscript. Benson concludes that the Canaanites remained lords of the country and Asher lived there on sufferance. Then Dan, and the last verb of pressure in the unit is not Israel's: וַיִּלְחֲצוּ (lâchats, H3905), which Ellicott renders literally as squeezed or pressed and Cambridge identifies as the same word translated oppress of Israel's enemies at Judges 4:3 and 10:12. Dan is pushed uphill and refused the valley where, as K&D observes, nearly the whole allotment lay. Ellicott calls this tribe's condition the worst of all: not conquest, not even a tolerated neutrality, but eviction from its own inheritance, and Barnes, Cambridge and K&D all read the northern migration of Judges 18 out of it. Relief comes, and it comes strangely: the hand of the house of Joseph grew heavy (kâbad, H3513), the exact idiom used of the LORD's hand on the Philistines at 1 Samuel 5:6. Gill and Poole read Ephraim as a brother's rescue; Ellicott replies that the towns became tributary not to Dan but to their rescuers, so that the help was at best somewhat selfish. The chapter then stops mid-sentence on a border and a rock it does not explain.
⚙ Read as one sentence, this passage is a map drawn by a people describing what it could not take. Its grammar does the theology. The verb yârash is negated five times and never once completed; the noun maç appears four times and completes everything, which is the whole problem: a settlement was available that was cheaper than obedience and looked, on any ledger, like success. Manasseh gained five city-districts of labour. Zebulun gained a workforce. Joseph's hand grew heavy and the Amorites paid. Only Asher and Naphtali and Dan, who gained nothing, are described in the language of exile, dwelling bᵉqereb another people, pressed up into hills. The bitter arithmetic of the chapter is that the tribes who failed most visibly are the ones whose condition the text names honestly, while the tribes who succeeded at compromise are left holding a profit whose name, maç, will one day be the word that tears their own kingdom in half. The commentators are right that covetousness explains the choice (Henry, JFB, Benson) and right that Canaanite iron and Canaanite fortresses explain the limit (Cambridge, K&D), and the text is wiser than either explanation because it declines to choose, and lets the reader carry an unfinished conquest into chapter 2 without yet knowing whether to call it sin or weakness. ⚙ What follows is this tool's own sentence, offered to be tested, and it is not Scripture:
A tribe that can tax what it was told to remove has already decided what the land is for.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Judges 1:27 is not an allusion to Joshua 17:11-13 but a second copy of it. Cambridge states plainly that Joshua 17:11-12 is the parallel text, adapted here and there to fit its present context, and observes that Taanach and Ibleam have changed places and that Dor sits out of geographical order, where 1 Chronicles 7:29, apparently copied from here, restores it to the end. K&D accounts for the same divergences differently, suggesting Endor dropped out of the Judges list by a copyist's error and that the reordering follows a triple grouping in Joshua. The Verifier's shared lexemes are exactly the town names that make the two lists one list, including some of the rarest proper nouns in the canon. ⚙ The doubling matters theologically: the failure is reported once in the book of the conquest and again in the book of the collapse, so that Judges opens by quoting Joshua's own fine print.
Joshua 17:11 · Joshua 17:13 · 1 Chronicles 7:29
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2991 Yiblᵉʻâm (in 3 vv, rare), H1756 Dôwr (in 6 vv), H4023 Mᵉgiddôwn (in 12 vv) with Joshua 17:11; H1052 Bêyth Shᵉʼân (in 8 vv) with 1 Chronicles 7:29; plus H3669 Kᵉnaʻanîy (71 vv), H3423 yârash (204 vv), H4522 maç (22 vv) with Joshua 17:13. The rare toponyms plus Cambridge's identification of Joshua 17:11-12 as the adapted parallel text make this a literary duplicate, not merely a shared motif; it is not a quotation formula, and no ancient source labels it one.
The work-gang formula of vv. 28, 30, 33 and 35 is shared verbatim with Joshua 16:10 and 17:13, where the same three lexemes co-occur: Canaanite, dispossess, work-gang. Cambridge follows the institution forward out of Judges: the corvee first appears as an Israelite institution at the end of David's reign (2 Samuel 20:24), is organised by Solomon (1 Kings 5:13; 9:15, 21), and becomes the grievance that breaks the kingdom when Israelites are levied for it (1 Kings 12:4, 18). The Verifier independently links Judges 1:28 to 1 Kings 9:15, where maç stands beside Megiddo and Gezer, two of the very towns this chapter says were not taken. ⚙ The trajectory is a single thread with one knot in it: the compromise that made Canaanites into a labour force ended by making Israelites into one.
Joshua 16:10 · Joshua 17:13 · 1 Kings 9:15 · 1 Kings 4:12
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H4522 maç (in 22 vv), H3423 yârash (204 vv), H3669 Kᵉnaʻanîy (71 vv) with Joshua 16:10 and Joshua 17:13; H4522 maç with H4023 Mᵉgiddôwn (12 vv) and H1507 Gezer (14 vv) with 1 Kings 9:15; H4023, H1052 Bêyth Shᵉʼân (8 vv) and H8590 Taʻănâk (7 vv) with 1 Kings 4:12. Real verbal overlap, but formulaic rather than citational, and the extension to 1 Kings 12:4 is Cambridge's reading of the institution, not a shared-lexeme result; tiered structural for that reason.
Naphtali's two unconquered towns are Beth-shemesh, house of the sun, and Beth-anath, house of Anath. Cambridge says flatly that the names show them to be Canaanite sanctuaries; Ellicott adds that Beth-shemesh was probably a great centre of Baal-worship and points out the deliberate wordplay in Isaiah 19:18, where a city of the sun is renamed a city of overthrow. Two verses later the Amorites hold Har-heres, sun-mountain, and both Cambridge and K&D judge it the same site as Ir-shemesh, sun-city. The rare lexeme cheres occurs in only two verses in the Hebrew Bible, the other being Judges 8:13. ⚙ The tribal lists are also a shrine list: what Israel left standing was not merely a population but a working cult, which is precisely the danger Judges 2:11-13 goes on to report.
Joshua 19:38 · 1 Kings 4:9 · Judges 8:13
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H1043 Bêyth ʻĂnâth (in 2 vv, rare) and H1053 Bêyth Shemesh (19 vv) with Joshua 19:38; H1053 with H8169 Shaʻalbîym (in 3 vv, rare) with 1 Kings 4:9; H2776 Chereç (in 2 vv, rare) with Judges 8:13. Verbal on the strength of genuinely rare shared lexemes; this is a lexical and onomastic link, not a quotation, and the cultic interpretation of the names is Cambridge's and Ellicott's, not the Verifier's.
Cambridge draws the line himself: because Zebulun, Asher and Naphtali were not strong enough to make conquests and could only settle among the older population, the northern district remained, probably for centuries, only partially Israelite, and he attaches to that condition the phrase of Isaiah 9:1, Galilee of the Gentiles, the heathen territory. Matthew 4:13-16 then applies Isaiah 9:1-2 to the settlement of Jesus at Capernaum in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali. ⚙ The two tribes named in Matthew's citation are the two tribes named in Judges 1:30 and 1:33. This cannot be a shared-lexeme link, since the New Testament text is Greek and no Strong's number is held in common; the connection runs through geography and through the two tribal names, and the only explicit quotation in the chain is Matthew quoting Isaiah, not anyone quoting Judges.
Isaiah 9:1 · Matthew 4:13-16
basis: Cross-Testament, so no shared Strong's numbers are possible between Judges (Hebrew) and Matthew (Greek). Recorded basis: Cambridge's own attachment of Isaiah 9:1 'Galilee of the Gentiles' to the failure recorded in Judges 1:30-33, plus the shared tribal territories of Zebulun and Naphtali. Matthew 4:15-16 is an explicit citation of Isaiah 9:1-2, not of Judges; the Judges link is inferential and tiered structural for that reason.
Judges 1 reports the compromise and withholds judgement. Ellicott supplies the missing verdict from the Psalter, calling Psalm 106:34-36 the best summary of the moral lesson involved in the narrative: they did not destroy the nations concerning whom the LORD commanded them, but were mingled among the heathen and learned their works, and served their idols, which were a snare unto them. ⚙ The Psalm converts the geography of this chapter into a sequence: not destroying leads to mingling, mingling leads to learning, learning leads to serving. That is the argument Judges 2 and 3 will then narrate at length.
Psalm 106:34-36
basis: No Verifier lexeme link: Psalm 106 is not among the computed thread candidates for this unit, and no shared Strong's basis is claimed. The recorded basis is Ellicott's explicit citation of Psalm 106:34-36 at Judges 1:32 as the summary of the narrative, together with the shared motif of not dispossessing and consequent mingling.
The closing verse reuses the southern boundary formula of Numbers 34:4 and Joshua 15:3: the ascent of Akrabbim, the Scorpions' Pass. The lexeme is rare, and the verbal link is secure. Everything else about v. 36 is contested. Cambridge argues there was no boundary between Israelites and Amorites at all, since both occupied the same territory, and reports that some recensions of the Septuagint read the border of the Edomite, which would make this a note on Judah's southern frontier; he calls the verse a mutilated fragment, obviously out of connexion with its context. On has-sela the authorities split three ways: Ellicott, Barnes, Gill and Geneva read Petra in Idumea; K&D argues at length that Petra is impossible if the following and upward means northward, and identifies the rock at Meribah in the desert of Zin instead; Cambridge rejects both and says it is in fact impossible to be sure where the Rock was. ⚙ The verbal link stands; the referent does not.
Numbers 34:4 · Joshua 15:3
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H4610 Maʻălêh ʻAqrabbîym (in 3 vv, rare) with both Numbers 34:4 and Joshua 15:3, plus H1366 gᵉbûwl (196 vv) with Numbers 34:4. The lexeme link is confirmed; the flag is on the verse itself, whose subject ('Amorite' vs Septuagint 'Edomite'), whose placement in the chapter, and whose referent for H5554 Çelaʻ are all disputed among Cambridge, K&D, Ellicott and Barnes.
The Verifier reports that H843, the gentilic Asherite of v. 32, occurs in only two verses in the Hebrew Bible, the second being Ezekiel 27:6, inside the shipwright's catalogue of Tyre. ⚙ By the arithmetic of rarity this looks like the strongest verbal link in the unit, and it is almost certainly an illusion: in Ezekiel the consonants belong to a description of a deck inlaid for a Phoenician vessel, not to the tribe of Asher, and there is no thematic content shared with Judges beyond the accident of spelling. It is recorded here rather than suppressed because a tool that only reports the matches it likes cannot be checked. The one honest observation that survives is a coincidence of subject matter and not of language: Asher's unconquered coast in v. 31 runs from Acco to Sidon, the Phoenician seaboard whose shipping Ezekiel 27 is describing, and Cambridge notes that Tyre itself, lying between those two points, is pointedly missing from the Judges list.
Ezekiel 27:6
basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H843 ʼÂshêrîy (in 2 vv) with Ezekiel 27:6. Flagged because the shared Strong's number is very probably a homograph rather than a real lexical link: the Ezekiel context is Tyrian shipbuilding, not the tribe of Asher, and no commentary in this unit's sources connects the two verses. The rarity is real; the link is not claimed.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Zebulun could not dispossess Kitron and Nahalol; Naphtali could not dispossess the house of the sun and the house of Anath; and Cambridge's conclusion is that the north therefore remained, probably for centuries, only partially Israelite, which is what Isaiah 9:1 means by Galilee of the Gentiles. Matthew 4:13-16 takes Isaiah's oracle and plants it at Capernaum, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali, and says that there the people sitting in darkness saw a great light. ⚙ The territory is the same territory. The two tribes the evangelist names are the two tribes this chapter names as unable to clear their ground, and the cult-shrines they left standing, sun and Anath, are the darkness Isaiah's word answers. The apostolic reading of Isaiah 9 as fulfilled in Christ is ancient and universal; the further step, reading Judges 1:30-33 as the concrete history that made Galilee mixed in the first place, rests on Cambridge's geography and is offered as a fallible connection, not a proof.
Isaiah 9:1-2 · Matthew 4:13-16
The unit's controlling verb is yârash negated five times: possession that was granted and never completed. Hebrews 4:8 states the same shortfall in the plainest terms, that if Joshua had given them rest, God would not afterward have spoken of another day. ⚙ Judges 1:27-36 is the ground-level evidence for that sentence: the allotment was real, the deeds were signed, and the tenants stayed. Henry turns the failure inward and applies it to the believer whose graces languish while his lusts revive, concluding that we can have no fellowship with the enemies of God within us or around us but to our hurt; JFB and Benson read the same compromise as avarice and sloth. The redemptive-historical reading follows the same logic outward: the pattern of a conquest begun by a leader named Yehoshua and left unfinished is the pattern the New Testament resolves in the one who bears that name and finishes it. This typology of the two Joshuas is ancient and widely held; what is not claimed here is any shared Strong's basis, since the link is Greek to Hebrew and rests on the argument of Hebrews, not on vocabulary.
Hebrews 4:8-9 · Joshua 17:13
Ephraim did not dispossess the Canaanite dwelling in Gezer, and Ellicott and Cambridge agree that the town stayed Canaanite for centuries until Pharaoh took it and handed it over as a present to his daughter, Solomon's wife, whereupon Solomon rebuilt it (1 Kings 9:15-17). ⚙ The city that could not be won by war arrived as a wedding gift, and the reader who has watched Israel settle for a labour-gang is shown an entirely different mode of acquisition: not seizure but marriage. Taken figurally, the one stronghold in this chapter that Israel never took is the one the canon finally reports as bridal property, which reads forward to the church as the bride whose inheritance is given rather than earned (Ephesians 5:25-27). This is a novel figural reading. None of the commentators in this unit's sources draws it; it rests on a real sequence of texts but the typological weight is the tool's own, and it should be weighed accordingly.
1 Kings 9:16 · Ephesians 5:25-27
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
Text. Scripture is the Berean Study Bible (CC0); the interlinear surfaces, transliterations, Strong's numbers and parses come from the Berean interlinear as supplied in the brief. The word order of the supplied interlinear is not always the order of the Hebrew line (in 1:27 the object marker is listed before the negative particle); the literal renderings above follow the Hebrew word order, not the index order, while the note keys follow the index order as given.
Disputed readings. Cambridge argues on the authority of the Septuagint that the formula at 1:27 and 1:32 originally read was not able to drive out rather than did not drive out, which would materially change the moral weight of the entire unit; the Masoretic text reads as translated. At 1:36 some Septuagint recensions read the border of the Edomite for the border of the Amorite, and Cambridge judges the verse a displaced and mutilated fragment. On has-sela in 1:36 the sources split irreconcilably: Ellicott, Barnes, Gill and Geneva read Petra; K&D argues for the rock at Meribah in the desert of Zin; Cambridge declines to identify it at all. Nothing here is settled, and the flagged thread above says so.
Sources. Henry and JFB have no verse-level comment in this unit at all: each is a single block note on Judges 1:21-36, which the brief repeats under every verse. Barnes's supplied entries for 1:27 through 1:30 are not about those verses; they carry over his note on the new Luz of 1:26, and no voice is cited from him there for that reason. Poole's entries for 1:28, 1:30, 1:31 and 1:32 are empty in the source. Ellicott's entry at 1:28 is capped in the brief and was not read in full.
Corrections observable in the printed sources. Ellicott at 1:28 cites "Deuteronomy 22:16" for the command that nothing that breatheth be saved alive; that command stands at Deuteronomy 20:16. Benson at 1:29 cites 1 Kings 9:6 for Gezer, where Ellicott and Cambridge give 1 Kings 9:16. Gill at 1:31 refers to Helkath at "Judges 1:25" where Joshua 19:25 is meant. Ellicott at 1:35 cites Psalm 32:6 for the heavy hand and K&D cites Psalm 32:4; the idiom is at v. 4. These are reported, not silently repaired, and the quoted excerpts above are reproduced exactly as the sources print them.
Machine layer. Every etymology and parse above is taken from the brief. The reversal of the preposition bᵉqereb between vv. 29-30 and vv. 32-33, the observation that maç appears four times against five negations of yârash, and the whole sola reading are ⚙ synthesis and carry no authority beyond the argument they make. The Ezekiel 27:6 candidate is reported and rejected in the open rather than dropped.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)