Judges 1:34

And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain,.... Into the mountainous part of the tribe of Dan; the most noted mountains in it were Sear and Baalah, which lay on the border of

And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain: for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley: No JFB commentary on this verse.

Into the plain country; which was the occasion of that expedition for the getting of new quarters; of which we read Joshua 19 Jude 18.

(34) The Amorites.—They were the Highlanders of Palestine (Joshua 10:6; Numbers 13:29; Deuteronomy 1:44). Forced.—Literally “squeezed” or “pressed.” Forced the children of Dan into the mountain.—The condition of this tribe was, therefore, the worst of all. So far from reducing under tribute the Canaanites of its assigned possession, as the central tribes did, the Danites did not even succeed in establishing a tolerated neutrality among them, like the northern tribes, but were driven into a few mountain-strongholds. It was probably this failure, and the consequent pressure of space under which the tribe laboured, which induced them to undertake the successful northern expedition alluded to in Joshua 19:47 and described in Judges 18

Verse 34. The Amorites forced the children of Dan, c.] Just as the ancient Britons were driven into the mountains of Wales by the Romans and the native Indians driven back into the woods by the British settlers in America.

34, 35. The fortunes of Dan 34. Dan, we may infer, attempted to settle in the N.W. corner of Judah, on the rich land (‘the valley’) between the hills and the coast. But the native population forced them back into the hills; in chs. 13, 16, 18 we find Danite settlements at Zorah and Eshtaol in the Valley of Sorek (Wadi eṣ ?-Ṣ ?arâr), in Judges 1:34 the places which Dan tried to occupy are in the next valley to the N., that of Ayyâlôn (W. Selmân—Merj ibn ‘Umar); these quarters, however, proved too strait for them, and, probably not long after the present period, a part of the tribe was driven to seek a home in the north (18), where they are settled in the time of Deborah (Judges 5:17). It is possible that the migration was due to pressure from the Philistines. the Amorites] Elsewhere in this chap., as always in J, the pre-Israelite inhabitants are called Canaanites, while Amorites is the name used by E and D; the text of Jdg 1:34-36 no doubt originally had ‘Canaanites.’ There is no sufficient reason to suppose that these verses come from a different document (cf. 34 with 19 ‘hill country … valley,’ 35 with 27b, 23, 30, 33). forced] The same Hebr. word as in Judges 4:3, Judges 10:12 ‘oppress’; Amos 6:14 ‘afflict.’ After this verse it is probable that Joshua 19:47 (corrected), a verse which is clearly an insertion in its present context, followed in the original narrative of J: ‘and the border of their inheritance was too strait for them (cf. 2 Kings 6:1 in Hebr.), and the children of Dan went up and fought with Lesham (= Laish, Judges 18:29) and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it and dwelt in it; and they called Lesham, Dan, after the name of Dan their father.’ Perhaps this verse was struck out here, because the episode is narrated at length in the Appendix, ch. 18. At the beginning of Jos 19:47 the LXX seem to have translated a text which commenced with ‘And the sons of Dan did not dispossess the Amorites …’ If this sentence stood originally in the present document, it would conform Judges 1:34, which begins abruptly, with Judges 1:21; Judges 1:29 ff.

The Amorites are usually found in the mountain Numbers 13:29; Joshua 10:6. Here they dwell in the valley, of which the monuments of Rameses III show them to have been in possession when that monarch invaded Syria.

34. Amorites — Joshua 2:10, note. Forced the children of Dan into the mountain — Dan’s portion was chiefly that part of the Shephelah, or maritime plain, which lay to the west of Benjamin and northwest of Judah.