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"And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee: thou shalt smite them,
and utterly destroy them" (Deut. 7: 2).
"Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an
inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth" (Deut. 20: 16).
These commands included Adoni-bezek, but, like Saul who spared Agag, Judah spares
Adoni-bezek from utter destruction. Doubtless there were some who questioned God's
command. Perhaps, with some glimmerings of His love, they argued, as some do to-day,
that utter destruction of any of His creatures would be a contradiction of this wonderful
attribute of love. There are some to-day who teach that there is no such thing as the
destruction of body and soul in Gehenna, and offer translations to prove the salvation of
Judas and the restoration of Satan. With all such reasoning we have nothing to do. What
God has said should settle the matter for us all.
Adoni-bezek was caught, and his thumbs and his great toes were cut off (Judges 1: 6).
This was a practice in those barbaric days calculated to render captives incapable of
further warfare. Adoni-bezek acknowledged that he had himself so treated seventy other
kings. At the time of their consecration, the thumb and great toe of Aaron and the
priests were touched with blood, so that the cutting off of these members in the case of
Adoni-bezek would seem to indicate incapacity for the Lord's service. It is interesting to
notice, in passing, that in Exod. 29: and Lev. 8: the right ear is mentioned first
indicating that, without obedient hearing, hand and foot could not be truly consecrated.
The name "Adoni-bezek" means "The Lord of lightning", and is a figure of Satan.
Satan disabled the nations of the earth, which were reckoned as seventy in number
(Deut. 32: 8 and Gen. 10:) and he himself is to be imprisoned for a thousand years. At
the end of that period he is found to be as bad as ever, and is cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone. Inasmuch as both Death and Hades are cast into this same fire, it is evident
that the intention is destruction.
Here, in this first chapter of Judges, we have the beginning of all the future troubles of
the people of God. Implicit, unquestioning obedience would have meant victory, peace
and prosperity. Instead, one compromise led to another, resulting eventually in failure
and defeat. It is scarcely necessary to point the moral. Each heart knows its own
bitterness, and its natural tendency to spare or only partially mutilate what God has said
must be destroyed.
Before we go into further detail, it will help us to see the general disposition of the
subject-matter in structural form.