“After the death of Y’hoshua, the people of Isra’el asked Adonai, ‘Who will go up for us first to fight against the Kena‘ani?’” –Judges 1:1
Verse 1 says the people of Israel asked Adonai which tribe should be the first one to launch an offensive against the Canaanites.
Does this mean the people like shouted up to the sky or something…and then a voice boomed from the heavens telling them what to do.
The answer is no.
This phrase “the people asked Adonai” or “the people inquired of Adonai” refers to the Urim and Thummim.
This method of seeking God’s will would only have been operative when the High Priest was active and of course when the tribal leaders respected the High Priest as possessing God’s authority.
In this case, God responded through the 2 mysterious stones saying that Judah should be the tribe to pick up where the battle had been left off and attack Canaan.
Let’s not forget that while the land had been subdued to a degree, there was a still a good portion of Canaan that had yet to be conquered.
It fell on the 12 tribes to completely drive the Canaanites out of the land (the only exception was the tribe of Levi who was set apart for priestly duties).
This was really something that drove Joshua nuts…because for the longest time, there were actually 7 tribes who literally declined their land inheritance because they didn’t want to do the hard work of driving out their enemies.
Now let’s not think that just because Judah was chosen to lead the attack, it meant they replaced Joshua’s leadership.
That wasn’t the case.
However, and we’ll see this moving forward, more often than not Judah would sacrifice and carry the brunt of responsibility that was supposed to be shared by all the tribes.
Being alone against a fierce enemy is not a good thing.
So the first step Judah took was to ask for Simeon’s help.
And understand when I say “Simeon”, I mean the whole tribe, not the person.
Next, notice verse 3 where it says…“Simeon and Judah were brothers”.
If you recall from the Book of Genesis, Simeon and Judah had the same mother who was Leah.
In fact, they were full brothers, not half or stepbrothers which was actually a rare thing.
Remember, in these days, one man normally had multiple wives including an array of concubines (legal prostitutes?).
Therefore, the existence of full brothers and sisters was actually more uncommon than not.
But I guess we could say it’s pretty much the same in our modern times with all of the divorces and remarriage going on.
Anyways, I just wanted to point out why it was totally natural for Judah to go to Simeon for assistance.
And later on, the territory Simeon received would be situated smack dab in the center of Judah territory.
This would never had happened if Simeon and Judah weren’t close brothers.
But having said that, after a couple of generations passed, it seems like the tribe of Simeon was swallowed up by Judah…almost to the point of complete disintegration.
Once King Solomon assumed his throne, you would have been hard pressed to find an original member from the tribe of Simeon.
They were as rare as hen’s teeth during Solomon’s time.
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