“Y’hudah went up; and Adonai gave the Kena‘ani and the P’rizi into their hands; of those in Bezek they killed ten thousand men.”-Judges 1:4
Alrighty, let’s jump right into our text study, shall we?
We’ve got some awesome stuff here.
And by the way, for those who have followed me from the beginning, a word of congratulations is in order.
Because you can be 100% confident your level of Biblical literacy surpasses a good 99.9% of the population on this planet…and probably other planets as well.
Okay, without any further ado, let’s get started.
From verse 4, we find the 2-tribal alliance of Judah and Simeon in the heat of a battle against two enemy groups the Bible labels as the “Canaanites” and the “Perizzites”.
This is actually a bit misleading.
Because the word “Canaanites” is really a general term referring to all the different tribes and people groups living in Canaan EVEN IF they didn’t originally come from the line of Canaan.
In fact many scholars debate whether the Perizzites were actually a particular tribe or not.
The theory is they were instead a large grouping of villages strewn throughout the whole hill country.
Onward.
We’re told Judah and Simeon had a showdown with a king the Scripture refers to as ADONI-BEZEK.
Okay, let’s just pause right here for a second.
The first thing you need to know is that ADONI-BEZEK is not this person’s name.
It’s actually a royal title and means “Lord of Bezek”.
Bezek was most likely the family name of some dynasty going back centuries.
Therefore, each successive ruler would have carried the same title of ADONI-BEZEK.
It’s like saying the “President of the United States” or the “Prime Minister of Japan” with the logical question to follow being exactly “which President or which Prime Minister are we talking about?“.
So the truth is we have no idea of the real name of this ADONI-BEZEK…nor do we have any idea where BEZEK was on the map (geographically speaking).
As the battle progressed, Judah and Simeon got the upper hand causing this Lord of Bezek to flee to the hills.
Unfortunately for him, his escape efforts were to no avail.
Judah and Simeon soon caught up with him and sliced off his two thumbs and two big toes (ouch!).
The king’s somewhat wry response is interesting.
“Seventy kings,
with their thumbs and their big toes cut off,
gathered food under my table;
God has paid me back in
accordance with what I did.”
Apparently in a past scuffle, this Lord of Bezek had defeated 70 kings and did to them (cut off their thumbs and toes) exactly what had now just been done to him.
Of course, we’re seeing the Scriptural principle of an “Eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” being fleshed out here.
The scholarly term used to refer to this practice that was well known in every Middle Eastern culture is LEX TALIONIS (a Latin word).
Finally notice this Lord of Bezek says “God” is paying me back for my past deeds.
Is this pagan Canaanite actually referring to the God of Israel?
Actually no.
The original Hebrew being used here is the word ELOHIM.
Remember that was the general term all Middle Eastern cultures used to refer to any deity.
This Lord of Bezek was basically saying his god, or possibly the god of his enemies was paying him back for what he had done to others.
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