Judges 1:23

And the house of Joseph sent to descry Bethel. (Now the name of the city before was Luz.)

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) To descry Beth-el.—The word perhaps implies a regular siege, and it is so understood by the LXX. (Cod. Alex.) and the Vulgate.

Luz.—We are also told that this was the original name of the city in Genesis 28:19; but there seems to be in that verse a distinction between the city and the place of Jacob’s dream. (Comp. Joshua 16:2.) The name means either “hazel,” or “sinking,” i.e., a valley depression.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:21-36 The people of Israel were very careless of their duty and interest. Owing to slothfulness and cowardice, they would not be at the pains to complete their conquests. It was also owing to their covetousness: they were willing to let the Canaanites live among them, that they might make advantage of them. They had not the dread and detestation of idolatry they ought to have had. The same unbelief that kept their fathers forty years out of Canaan, kept them now out of the full possession of it. Distrust of the power and promise of God deprived them of advantages, and brought them into troubles. Thus many a believer who begins well is hindered. His graces languish, his lusts revive, Satan plies him with suitable temptations, the world recovers its hold; he brings guilt into his conscience, anguish into his heart, discredit on his character, and reproach on the gospel. Though he may have sharp rebukes, and be so recovered that he does not perish, yet he will have deeply to lament his folly through his remaining days; and upon his dying bed to mourn over the opportunities of glorifying God and serving the church he has lost. We can have no fellowship with the enemies of God within us or around us, but to our hurt; therefore our only wisdom is to maintain unceasing war against them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bethel was within the borders of Benjamin, but was captured, as we here learn, by the house of Joseph, who probably retained it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Jud 1:22-26. Some Canaanites Left.

22, 23. the house of Joseph—the tribe of Ephraim, as distinguished from Manasseh (Jud 1:27).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the house of Joseph sent to descry Bethel,.... To reconnoitre the place, to observe its passes and avenues, which were most accessible, and to examine the walls of it, where they were weakest and least defended:

now the name of the city before was Luz; which signifies a "nut"; perhaps it was so called from large numbers of nut trees which grew near it; the Jews suggest as if it was like a nut, no entrance into it but through a cave or some subterraneous passage, see Genesis 28:19.

Geneva Study Bible

And the house of Joseph sent to descry Bethel. (Now the name of the city before was Luz.)

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. sent to spy out Beth-el] lit. made a reconnaissance at B. Perhaps we should read ‘encamped against B.,’ as LXX and Vulgate imply.

Now the name … Luz] A gloss, as in Genesis 28:19; cf. ib. Genesis 35:6, Genesis 48:3, Joshua 18:13 P. In Joshua 16:2 JE the two places are distinguished, ‘from Beth-el to Luz’; but the text is uncertain, and in the LXX the two are usually identified. Luz is supposed to mean ‘almond-tree’; more suggestively Winckler proposes ‘asylum,’ from the Arab lâdha ‘to seek a refuge’ (Gesch. Isr. 2:65 f.). If the latter is right, Luz may have been a sanctuary before it became famous under the name of Beth-el. According to JE the place was called Beth-el because Jacob set up a stone there after his vision when he fled from Esau (Genesis 28:10-22); according to P, because God appeared to him there when he returned from Paddan-aram (Genesis 35:9-15).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - Bethel, now Beitin. The name (house of God) had been given by Jacob (Genesis 28:19), but obviously would not be likely to be adopted by the Canaanitish inhabitants, by whom it was called Luz. As soon, however, as the Ephraimites conquered it, they reimposed the name, in memory of their father Jacob. The Saxon charters exhibit an analogous change in such transitions of name, as that from Bedericksworth to Bury St. Edmunds, which took place after the transfer of St. Edmund's body to the church there, the old name continuing for a time along with the new one, but at last disappearing. Judges 1:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Like Judah, so also ("they also," referring back to Judges 1:2, Judges 1:3) did the house of Joseph (Ephraim and western Manasseh) renew the hostilities with the Canaanites who were left in their territory after the death of Joshua. The children of Joseph went up against Bethel, and Jehovah was with them, so that they were able to conquer the city. Bethel had indeed been assigned to the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18:22), but it was situated on the southern boundary of the tribe-land of Ephraim (Joshua 16:2; Joshua 18:13); so that the tribe of Joseph could not tolerate the Canaanites in this border town, if it would defend its own territory against them, and purge it entirely of them. This is a sufficient explanation of the fact that this one conquest is mentioned, and this only, without there being any necessity to seek for the reason, as Bertheau does, in the circumstance that the town of Bethel came into such significant prominence in the later history of Israel, and attained the same importance in many respects in relation to the northern tribes, as that which Jerusalem attained in relation to the southern. For the fact that nothing more is said about the other conquests of the children of Joseph, may be explained simply enough on the supposition that they did not succeed in rooting out the Canaanites from the other fortified towns in their possessions; and therefore there was nothing to record about any further conquests, as the result of their hostilities was merely this, that they did not drive the Canaanites out of the towns named in Judges 1:27, Judges 1:29, but simply made them tributary. יתירוּ, they had it explored, or spied out. תּוּר is construed with בּ here, because the spying laid hold, as it were, of its object. Bethel, formerly Luz, now Beitin: see at Genesis 28:19 and Joshua 7:2.