© Charles Chandler

 

Judges 3 (Othniel)

 

^{3 (DH)} These are the nations: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath.

Judges 1:18 says, "Judah also captured Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory." So for there to still be five lords of the Philistines left to harrass the Israelites, this had to be from a different time. Since it's the continuing story of Otni'el, it's from an earlier period. This would have been in 1329 bce, when the priests at Amarna were exiled to Canaan. It's hard to tell whether they fought their way in, or just fell in with the Canaanites — it says they did both, but that's hard to do.

 

This is actually the pretext for Judges 1:11-15, in which Otni'el gets Aksah for taking Hebron. Judges 3:8 talks about Cushan-rishathaim ruling for 8 years, which might match Esau's tenure at Hebron during the reign of Tutannkhamun. Then Otni'el delivered the people from the Mitannian, which would have been Moses deposing Esau in Hebron in 1322 bce. And that's when Otni'el married Aksah.