God’s Plans Exercised

Judges 1:11-26

¹¹ From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir was formerly Kiriath-sepher. ¹² And Caleb said, “He who attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter for a wife.” ¹³ And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter for a wife. ¹⁴ When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” ¹⁵ She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. ¹⁶ And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the city of palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the Negeb near Arad, and they went and settled with the people. ¹⁷ And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they defeated the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and devoted it to destruction. So the name of the city was called Hormah. ¹⁸ Judah also captured Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. 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 plain because they had chariots of iron. ²⁰ And Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had said. And he drove out from it the three sons of Anak. ²¹ But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. ²² The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. ²³ And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) ²⁴ And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” ²⁵ And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. ²⁶ And the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day.

Knowing our history is important. When we read through these names, places, battles, and conquests it is easy to breeze over them. But all of this detailed information gives weight to the story. These are real people who served a real God and their story is His story. When I dig into the information surrounding the text, I find historians who truly understand how all of these events are related and they help us see the big picture.

God’s people are moving forward with the plans that He has set before them. They are conquering the land, piece by piece. As we can see in the text, it isn’t always easy and sometimes they face their own fears without God, leading to defeat. The people of Judah are stymied by the fact that “the people of the plain” had iron chariots at their disposal which made them formidable enemies. In that one verse we see a disconnect from their all-powerful God. He is never intimidated by the strength of an army and they failed to remember that.

I also really enjoy the fact that a woman (Achsah) is given property by her father – water rights no less. This would have been a departure from what was culturally normative. Good for Caleb and his daughter and her new husband! These small details make these people live for us 4,000 years later.

As we move forward with God’s plans for us, we need to remember those ancient Hebrews who kept God’s will in their sights. As the story of the Judges moves along, we will find that they often forgot about God and everything turned to mud in their hands. But for this reading, they are working toward the goal of possessing the land that God gave them.