Judges 1:17-19
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
17 (A)Then Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they defeated the Canaanites who lived in Zephath. They put the city under the ban and renamed it Hormah.[a](B) 18 Judah captured Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, Ekron with its territory, and Ashdod[b] with its territory.(C) 19 The Lord was with Judah, so they gained possession of the mountain region. But they could not dispossess those who lived on the plain, because they had iron chariots.
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- 1:17 The ban…Hormah: the narrator relates the city-name “Hormah” to “the ban” (Hebrew herem), which commanded the Israelites to devote to the Lord—and thus to destroy—whatever was captured within the land (cf. Dt 20:10–18).
- 1:18 Gaza…Ashkelon…Ekron…Ashdod: four of the five major cities of the Philistines (see note on 3:3). Since these cities were on the coastal plain, the statement that Judah captured them is contrary to v. 19, which notes Judah’s failure to drive out the inhabitants of the lowlands. In the Septuagint the problem is removed by changing the beginning of this verse to read “Judah did not dispossess….”
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