Reawakening

So I find myself well into the beginning of my PhD program and needing to work through much more of the text of the Hebrew Bible. Thus, I'm intending to reawaken this blog and use it to post my rough translations of texts as I work through them. I'll try to append some level of basic commentary after each section I post, though I do not plan on making them particularly thoroughly researched. Still, further comment is always welcome.

Today: Judges 1

1 After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked YHWH, “Who will you raise up for us against the Canaanites in the beginning of the war with them?”

2 YHWH replied, “If Judah will raise up and then I will give the land into his hand.”

3 Judah said to Simeon his brother, “If you go up with me to my lot, then I will do battle with the Canaanites and I will go with you to your lot.” So Simeon went with him.

4 Judah went up and YHWH gave the Canaanites and the Perizites to them. They smote them in Bezeq: ten thousand men.

5 They found the lord of Bezeq in Bezeq and they fought with him. They smote the Canaanites and the Perizites.

6 The lord of Bezeq fled. They pursued after him. They seized him. Then they cut off the thumbs of his hands and his feet.

7 The lord of Bezeq said, “There were seventy kings who had the thumbs of their hands and their feet severed. They gleaned under my table. As I did, thus God has repaid to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem and there he died.

8 The Judahites did battle with Jerusalem. They seized it. They smote it via their sword. The commissioned the city with fire.

9 After the Judahites went down to do battle with the Canaanites, they settled the mountain, the Negev, and the Shephela.

10 Judah went against the Canaanites dwelling in Hebron (the name of Hebron had before been Qirat Arba). They smote Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai.

11 They went from there against the dwellers of Devir (the name of Devir had before been Qiryat Safer).

12 Caleb said, “Whoever smites Qiryat Safer and seizes it, I will give Aksah, my daughter as a wife.”

13 Athniel, son of Qenaz, the younger brother of Caleb, seized [it.] So he gave Aksah to him as a wife.

14 When she came, she incited him to ask her father for the field. She got down from the donkey and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?”

15 She replied to him, “Bring me a blessing as you have given me to the land of the Negev, give me also the Basins of Water.” Thus Caleb gave to her the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin.

16 The descendants of Keni, the father-in-law of Moses, went up from the City of Palms with the Judahites of the wilderness of Judah which is in the Negeb of Arad. They went and settled with the people.

17 Judah went with Simeon, his brother, and they smote the Canaanites dwelling in [the city of] Zepath. They decimated it, and thus they named the city Decimation.

18 Judah seized Aza and its territory, Ashkelon and its territory, and Eqron and its territory.

19 YHWH was with Judah. They inherited the mountain but could not dispossess the inhabitants of the valley as they had chariots of iron.

20 They gave to Caleb Hebron, as Moses had said. He drove from there the three sons of the Anaq.

21 The Bejaminites did not dispossess the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. The Jebusites dwell with the Benjaminites in Jerusalem until this day.

22 The house of Joseph went up also against Bethel, and YHWH with them.

23 The house of Joseph spied out Bethel (the name of the city had before been Luz).

24 The watch saw a man going out from the city. They said to him, “Show us the entrance to the city, and we will deal with you compassionately.”

25 So he showed them the entrance to the city. Thus, they smote the city with the sword, but they sent the man and his clan away.

26 The man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city. He called its name Luz. That is its name to this day.

27 Manesseh did not dispossess Beth Shan and its daughter [cities], Tanak and its daughter [cities], Yoseb-Dor and its daughter [cities], Yoshbeh Yivleam and its daughter [cities], or Yoshbeh Megido and its daughter [cities]. The Canaanites still wanted to live in that land.

28 Israel became stone. They set the Canaanites as laborers and did not dispossess them at all.

29 Ephraim did not dispossess the Canaanites who were dwelling in Gazir. The Canaanites dwelt among them in Gazir.

30 Zebulun did not dispossess those dwelling in Qitron or in Nahalol. The Canaanites dwelt among them; they were laborers.

31 Ashur did not dispossess those dwelling in Akko, in Zidon. in Ahlab, in Akzib, in Helbah, in Apiq, and in Rehob.

32 The Ashurites dwelt among the Canaanites dwelling in the land as they did not dispossess them.

33 Naphtali did not dispossess those dwelling in Bet-Shemesh or in Bet-Anat. They dwelt amont the Canaanites dwelling in the land. Those dwelling in Bet-Shemesh and in Bet-Anat were their laborers.

34 The Amorites pressed the Danites toward the mountains, they did not give them a way down to the vale.

35 The Amorites wanted to dwell on the Mt. Heres in Aiyalon and in Shaalbim. But the power of the house of Joseph was heavy and they were laborers.

36 The border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Aqrabim, from the Selah and upwards.

This chapter at first glance seems fairly repetitious and boring. Various tribes all take possession of various tracts of land, leaving various inhabitants in different states of servile existence. The language itself seemed relatively straightforward, working through it, save for large number of gentilics and other names in the text. Aspect and tense of several verbs have to be inferred (for example, Caleb's offer of his daughter could be rendered far more subjunctively, i.e. "should" rather than "will").

What I suspect will come of this is that the text is starting to setup the eventual goal of the text. There isn't quite enough text available to give us its eventual ideological goal, the text wants to be clear which tribes left which inhabitants in what state at the end of the conquest. A few small narratives are hidden within the litany of occupations, though they are so brief as to be difficult to gauge their purpose without more of Judges to consider.

From what we have thus far, Judges appears to be working to setup the land of Israel prior to the monarchy. Since this is a beginning point only, the trajectory taken from this point on in the text should tell us much more about its eventual goal.