Aravnah Ornan

What does either of those things have to do with what the Lord could or couldn't do? By the way, if you appeal to the Bible while at the same time rewriting it on the fly, you're not helping your case.

malookiemaloo

Sorry but Judges 1:19 clearly says that 'they' were unable to drive the people from the plains..............

Why did Jesus not get down from the cross......was He unable to do so?.............it's the same general question in another form really.


m

Jamie_L

Not to fight for the other side, but this is an ambiguous passage with respect to the use of the pronoun "he". One could read it as:

"And the LORD was with Judah; and he [Judah] drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but [Judah] could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."

By this reading, the fault can lie with Judah's inability, and even though "the LORD was with" him, that doesn't mean that the LORD necessarily had to give him 100% support. Apologetics has all sorts of explanations for that type of behavior. You know, the same reason devout pastor's get cancer and all that.

You've been reading Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, haven't you?

But I think we might need more than a Jeep. An intention craft and a Subtle Knife. That would even the odds a bit.

Jamie

Aravnah Ornan

Sorry, but that isn't so clear. I checked the KJV, the NRSV, and the Jewish Publication Society translation, and none of them says any such thing. In fact, the JPS translation explicitly uses the pronoun "he."

I also checked this verse on Blue Letter, and it appears that in the original, "could not drive out" was in the infinitive, in which case the antecedent is "he" rather than "they." In my mind, that means that even if the translation you're using does say, "they could not drive out," that wording is not supported by the text, but was added by translators to avoid an obvious difficulty.

Wayne Delia

Fair enough. "He" is, at best, an ambiguous antecedent, so give the benefit of the doubt and say it refers to Judah.

In Matthew 19:26 (NIV) we read: "Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" A corresponding verse is Mark 10:27: "Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.'" The apologetic fails miserably when contrasted with these verses. If God was, in fact, "with Judah," then there should be nothing that Judah could not do. It's the same God, after all.

WMD

NonHomogenized

[QUOTE]Originally posted by malookiemaloo
[B]The Bible tells you why. The Israelites did not have chariots!!

Gee, too bad the LORD wasn't "with him" enough to get off his ass and teach them to use pikes, wasn't it?

Calzaer

Ok, so if it was Judah's fault... the outcome of the battle would have been the same whether God was with him or not. So what good does having God with you do?

haverbob

Now THAT'S funny. Well done !!!

diana

Well, I was going to move this down to ~Elsewhere~, since y'all were just having a nice time, but since you're rapping about a specific scripture in a somewhat enlightened manner, I'm moving it to BC&A instead.

d

YHWHtruth

(Judges 1:19) And Jehovah continued with Judah, so that he took possession of the mountainous region, but he could not dispossess the inhabitants of the low plain, because they had war chariots with iron scythes.

Under guidance of Jehovah’s angel prince, city after city fell before Joshua and the Israelites. (Josh., chaps. 6, 10, 11) God’s people were given solid basis for being zealous in pursuing to its completion the divine commission to dispossess the Canaanites. But did they obey to the extent of keeping their faith fully alive?

No, for the Bible later mentions another appearance of God’s angel, this time with a gloomy message. We read:

“Then Jehovah’s angel went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said: ‘I proceeded to bring you up out of Egypt and to bring you into the land about which I swore to your forefathers. Furthermore, I said, “Never shall I break my covenant with you. And for your part, you must not conclude a covenant with the inhabitants of this land. Their altars you should pull down.” But you have not listened to my voice. Why have you done this? So I, in turn, have said, “I shall not drive them away from before you, and they must become snares to you, and their gods will serve as a lure to you.”’” Judg. 2:1-3.

Showing how Israel had “not listened” to God, the Scriptures relate that the tribe of Judah neglected to dispossess the inhabitants of a certain area of southern Canaan “because [the inhabitants] had war chariots with iron scythes.” (Judg. 1:19) Apparently these scythed chariots frightened the tribe of Judah. Thereafter the tribes of Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali and Dan likewise failed to drive out the Canaanite inhabitants of numerous cities and dependent towns. Instead, they consented to dwell in among the Canaanites, setting some of them to “forced labor.” Judg. 1:21-36.

Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708) states:

We have here a further account of that glorious and successful campaign which Judah and Simeon made. 1. The lot of Judah was pretty well cleared of the Canaanites, yet not thoroughly. Those that dwelt in the mountain (the mountains that were round about Jerusalem) were driven out (v. 9, 19), but those in the valley kept their ground against them, having chariots of iron, such as we read of, Josh. xvii. 16. Here the men of Judah failed, and thereby spoiled the influence which otherwise their example hitherto might have had on the rest of the tribes, who followed them in this instance of their cowardice, rather than in all the other instances of their courage. They had iron chariots, and therefore it was thought not safe to attack them: but had not Israel God on their side, whose chariots are thousands of angels (Ps. lxviii. 17), before whom these iron chariots would be but as stubble to the fire? Had not God expressly promised by the oracle (v. 2) to give them success against the Canaanites in this very expedition, without excepting those that had iron chariots? Yet they suffered their fears to prevail against their faith, they could not trust God under any disadvantages, and therefore durst not face the iron chariots, but meanly withdrew their forces, when with one bold stroke they might have completed their victories; and it proved of pernicious consequence

Max