by southwest 18 Replies latest watchtower bible
Talking about contradiction, Joshua 17;18 "for you shall drive out
the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots and are strong".
OK which is it all mighty one?? One minute you tell me we can defeat the
Canaanites and the next minute you tell us we will get our butts kicked.
The people that wrote the Bible were neurotic...
If i remember correctly, it is not saying God couldnt defeat them, it's saying Judah couldn't. They lost faith in the face of such an enemy and failed to drive them out.
This is referenced later in the bible as them failing to do as God directed and growing fearful of the inhabitants instead of driving them out.
Jonathan Drake: "They lost faith in the face of such an enemy and failed to drive them out."
Read the Scripture carefully:
19 The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron. Judges 1:19 New International Version
If the Lord was with them then that means that they had faith at that point in time, thus he should have accomplished the deed. There is nothing in this scripture that says they lost faith at that particular moment.
@Village
Oh oh I know, I see what you mean. However it's established that God was with them, he backed them up, but they had to fight their fight. I'm just saying regardless of how we feel about the scripture, the bible asserts the people had to fight with faith God was with them to succeed; if this wavered and they grew fearful then they lost faith in God and they failed.
This applies in all their battles. Moses is recorded as commenting on it when the spies return with an unfavorable report. He says because of their lack of faith they will not succeed. The loss of faith is implied by the loss of the battle, all through the biblical account of the Israelites this is the reason they lose, lack of faith. Joshua 17:16 addresses these same people and you can see in the context the people are trying to avoid conflict with these people and Joshua says in effect, "what's the problem? God is with you go take care of it." So the Israelites had a long standing fear of these chariots and that is what made them fail.
their failure to oust all the people as directed is later used against them, and God promises because of their failure that they will thus remain among them as a snare (Judges 2:2, 3; compare Numbers 33:55).
From Fraternizing to Idolatry
In taking possession of the Promised Land, the Israelites won early victories over its inhabitants. However, the sons of Israel failed to obey God’s commands fully. They did not drive out the enemy. (Judg. 1:1–2:10) - WT 2/15 2008
Because God’s orders were not fully carried out, many inhabitants of Canaan survived Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. (Judges 1:19-21) - WT 7/15 1997
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. - WT 8/15 1977
Thanks, Bloody Hotdogs!
This highlights something very tricky, in my opinion, with the WT Library CD. I usually just click on the verse number and it brings up the list of references. Well, clicking on this verse brings up no references. I usually don't proceed past there. But, this time, I went to both the scripture indexes (1930-1985 and 1986-2014) and again, no references. But, searching for the verse DOES bring up references, but only when searching for Judges 1:19 without quotes. With quotes, no references. And even with quotes around "Jg 1:19", no references, even though there are references to this specific verse, as you found.
