I love this part of the Bible. Battles. I’ll admit, every time I read this portion of the God’s story there is a ‘Lord of the Rings’ soundtrack playing in my head and I start reading too fast in anticipation for the next victory, the next battle, the tension of action moves me (by the way, I’m a huge nerd). However, every time I get to Judges 1 I am always caught off guard. Pretty much every battle up to this point is victory, miracles, walls falling down, God stopping the sun in the air or taking people out with hail from the sky. But then you get to verse 19.

“19 The Lord was with Judah, and [the tribe of] Judah took possession of the hill country, but they could not dispossess and drive out those inhabiting the valley because they had iron chariots.” - Judges 1:19 AMP

Huh? Wait back up, the text says “The Lord was with Judah [okay yeah I read that right] . . . but they could not dispossess and drive out those inhabiting the valley. . . because they had iron chariots”? I’ll mimic Adam Clarke when he says in his commentary “Strange! Were the iron chariots too strong for Omnipotence?” Wouldn’t think a few chariots would be any problem for a people who’s Commander in Chief (God) could make Jericho’s walls fall at the sound of a horn blast or cause the sea to swallow up Egyptian armies. Must have just been a fluke or maybe . . . “oooh look Caleb took out the giants they were fighting earlier…” BATTLES.

But I move on only to discover . . .

Verse 21: “the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem.”
Verse 27: “Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; so the Canaanites remained in that land.”
Verse 29: “Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who were living in Gezer; so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.”

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, here comes verse 34 where we discover that not only were some tribes struggling with totally defeating the Canaanites, but the tribe of Dan actually loses ground that it had already taken to the Amorites. This is not turning out the way I thought it would.

I'm sure that’s what the Israelites were thinking too. We see a dramatic shift here from absolute and total victory to resistance and even God’s people taking an ‘L’. What gives? God is still with them and they are marching in obedience, so what has changed?

Nothing changed. Adam Clarke is being ironic in his earlier statement because of course Iron chariots are nothing compared to God’s Omnipotence. I’ve heard people blame the defeat and change of momentum on the disobedience or compromise of the Israelites. I see how some would say that this was a lack of faith or a failure on Israel’s part to follow through and I agree to a degree. There are two very important points to keep in mind.

The first is found in verse 27, “the Canaanites were determined to live in that land”(Judges 1:27 NIV). The inhabitants of the land were not going to simply pack up and leave just because some foreign people were coming in and claiming that an unfamiliar God said the land was theirs. Would you? Now keep in mind that God’s goal isn’t earthly imperialism. He isn’t seeking to wipe out other races and cultures to establish a people to dominate similar to how we in the US treated the Native Americans or British Imperialism. God’s end game is one of Heavenly Imperialism where the kingdom of heaven, with Himself on the throne, is the head of every nation and in the heart of every people. This was the original design and the inevitable conclusion of creation. So the Israelites were not acting as a superior people, just the servants tasked with the stewardship of a kingdom for The Superior One, God. This is why there were laws in the Old Testament for the foreigner and stranger. But only one nation, the Gibeonites, expressed a fear of the Lord and (with no lack of deception on their part) made a covenant of submission and peace with Israel. When the deception was discovered they were commissioned to be “woodcutters and water carriers for the assembly, to provide for the needs of the altar of the Lord” (Joshua 9:27 NIV). Their punishment for deception and reward for their fear of the Lord was that they got to serve Him.

Every other tribe lived in open rebellion and resistance to God’s earthly kingdom being established. “They were determined to live in that land” (Judges 1:27 NIV). In the same way that the flesh resists the spirits rule over the born again believer, the Canaanites were determined to keep their idol worship and self governance. Just as in our own sanctification, this was never going to be something that just magically happened over night. God knew this would be a fight and knew it was one the the tribes had to express ownership and consecration towards.

So the problem then lies not in the initial resistance but in the lack of action in later generations. Verse 28 tells us that later “When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely” (Judges 1:28 NIV).

When the Israelite tribes initially came in to take possession of the promise land they were not a small people but not yet grown enough to fully inhabit much less conquer all the land. The old arcade game Wack-A-Mole comes to mind, where just as soon as you wack one mole with the mallet, another rises up because you are simply limited in mallets to apply to mole-wacking. However when the people of God eventually grew and increased in number and finally did have the resource to truly and utterly inhabit and rule the land, instead of being led by conviction they became susceptible to compromise. When defeated, the Canaanites didn’t surrender in submission to God or seek for covenant with His people like the Gibeonites and instead of the holy obedience of completely driving out the idol worshiping nations the Israelites selfishly subdued them into forced labor so that they might seek to benefit. As we know this was the beginning of the end for the Israelites possession of the promise land.

There is a lesson in this that applies to our walk with Christ. When we are born again, we aren’t instantly transformed into the image and nature of Christ even though spiritually we are made new and seated firmly with and in Him. We then are to grow in Him and the things of God and as we do and go through life we are to drive out anything that will not submit to serve His kingdom rule. If we compromise here or there and think, “well I don’t want to totally kill this thing or that because it benefits me in some way, whats the harm” we will find ourselves like the Israelites will later on, allowing that choice to compromise inevitably influence us in ways we don’t intend and actually compromise our love for God and others.

Clarke, Adam "Clarke's Commentary: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments with a Commentary and Critical Notes" Volume 1 (Genesis-Deuteronomy) (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1826)