Judges 1 Forced Labor

seekeroftruth

Well-Known Member
Judges 1:22 Now the tribes of Joseph attacked Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 When they sent men to spy out Bethel (formerly called Luz), 24 the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, “Show us how to get into the city and we will see that you are treated well.” 25 So he showed them, and they put the city to the sword but spared the man and his whole family. 26 He then went to the land of the Hittites, where he built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.

27 But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land. 28 When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely. 29 Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live there among them. 30 Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, so these Canaanites lived among them, but Zebulun did subject them to forced labor. 31 Nor did Asher drive out those living in Akko or Sidon or Ahlab or Akzib or Helbah or Aphek or Rehob. 32 The Asherites lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land because they did not drive them out. 33 Neither did Naphtali drive out those living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naphtalites too lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, and those living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became forced laborers for them. 34 The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. 35 And the Amorites were determined also to hold out in Mount Heres, Aijalon and Shaalbim, but when the power of the tribes of Joseph increased, they too were pressed into forced labor. 36 The boundary of the Amorites was from Scorpion Pass to Sela and beyond.

So the tables have turned a little. Instead of being slaves as they were in Egypt, the Israelites are now subjecting others to forced labor. These individual humans forcing others into labor wouldn't remember what it was like being subjected to forced labor themselves so I wouldn't suspect they would be very good at it. Look at where Asher’s tribe and Naphtali’s tribe lived. They just gave up and moved, leaving the Promised Land to the Canaanites.

This is from the easy English site.

'Joseph’s tribes’ means the tribes that grew from the families of Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Bethel means ‘the house of God’. (El is the name that people used for a god. This could be the true God. Or it could be a false god or an image.) Bethel was a very old place where people praised God. Abraham and Jacob went there. The stories about them refer to that place. When the people divided the kingdom after Solomon’s death, the people in the northern kingdom worshipped there. The spies saved the life of the man who gave them information. Something similar happened when Israel’s people conquered Jericho. Bethel and Ai were close to each other. In the book called Joshua, we do not read that Israel’s people captured Bethel. But we do read there how they conquered Ai. We do not know where the new Luz city was. The man that gave the information to them was probably a Hittite. The Hittites ruled many countries in Asia Minor and Syria between 1800-1200 B.C.

In the area where Manasseh’s tribe lived, the towns were important. They were important because these towns were on the trade routes. And their people controlled these routes. The Canaanites with their chariots controlled this area. The Israelites had to stay in the hills. The Canaanites lived between Joseph’s tribes and the northern tribes. The writer shows how things became worse. In verses 27-30 the Canaanites lived among the Israelites and they worked as the Israelites’ slaves. However, where Asher’s tribe and Naphtali’s tribe lived, Canaan’s people controlled those areas. But the Israelites still stayed there. Dan’s tribe did not remove the Canaanites, nor did they control the Canaanites. Later, as a result, the northern kingdom’s people copied the way in which Canaan’s people praised their own gods. Dan’s tribe could not even live in their area with the Canaanites. In chapter 18, the writer tells us that many people from Dan’s tribe went to live somewhere else. They went to live in the north. The cities where the Amorites lived (in verses 35‑36) were between Joseph’s sons’ tribes and Judah’s tribe. Judah’s tribe was in the south.​

Here's a map.

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Check out the current map.

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:coffee:
 
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