Articles
Iron Chariots
“Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.” (Judg 1:19)
This single verse in the book of Judges appears to be a deliberate attempt to shock the readers. In a biblical history that consistently portrays God as the deciding force in every battle, are we really to believe that God was beaten by superior military technology? Was God too weak to win the battle for Judah in the valley? Were the iron chariots too strong? We are not reading the text correctly if we do not at least feel some sense of bewilderment and confusion upon reading this statement!
The bulk of Judges 1 is about Israel fighting battles to conquer various parts of the promised land of Canaan. However, this single statement in 1:19 surprises the reader by announcing that Judah was stopped from conquest… by iron chariots! This is the first in a sequence of failures described in Judges 1 to fully possess the land of promise. Benjamin (1:21), Manasseh (1:27-28), Ephraim (1:29), Zebulun (1:30), Asher (1:31-32), Naphtali (1:33), and Dan (1:34-35) all fail to drive out the Canaanite populaces of their respective allotted regions as well. One wonders what happened to Israel here! If God had so given them the land and given them rest (Josh 21:43-45), why does Israel find themselves not in possession of what was given to them?
The question of God’s ability may be invited here, but a thorough knowledge of the narrative of Joshua and Judges decisively answers the question. God’s ability is not what is at issue in this scene. In a previous story, we learned that the Canaanites employed horses and chariots against Israel at the battle of Hermon (Josh 11:4-5), but Israel defeated them anyways, and hamstrung the horses and burned the chariots according to the word of God (Josh 11:6-9).
Furthermore, we know that Ephraim and Manasseh had previously been concerned about iron chariots. “Joshua said to them, ‘If you are a numerous people, go up to the forest and clear a place for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.’ The sons of Joseph said, ‘The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the valley land have chariots of iron, both those who are in Beth-shean and its towns and those who are in the valley of Jezreel.’ Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, ‘You are a numerous people and have great power; you shall not have one lot only, but the hill country shall be yours. For those it is a forest, you shall clear it, and to its farthest borders it shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites; even though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong.’” (Josh 17:15-18)
But the most telling part of the story is the fact that the people of Israel eventually do defeat the iron chariots of the Canaanites—later on in the book of Judges! First, when the sons of Israel did evil, God sold them into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan, and his general Sisera, who had nine hundred iron chariots (Judg 4:2-3). They oppressed Israel for twenty years. However, when Yahweh raised up Deborah and Barak to lead Israel in battle, Sisera brought his nine hundred iron chariots against them (4:13), and Yahweh routed the iron chariots before them (4:15). The text is emphatic that it was not the ten thousand men of Tabor who defeated this chariots, but rather Yahweh himself how routed the chariots from before them and reduced Sisera to running on foot.
If we read Judges 1:19 in isolation and pretend it’s the only verse that matters, then it might look like Yahweh’s assistance to his people was bested by man’s technological prowess. However, when we understand the larger context of the story of the iron chariots, we learn that the issue was never really God’s ability at all, since the Lord of Battle is incapable of meeting a foe he is incapable of vanquishing. Nor is the issue the ability of the people either. The people are ultimately incapable of beating the iron chariots by themselves! The only other possibility is that Israel was defeated because of their lack of faithfulness. Judg 1:19 subtly hints at what the rest of the book makes explicit—the people forgot God (Judg 2:10), and did evil in God’s sight (2:11-13). They became their own worst enemy and their own biggest obstacle. When life is lived according to the preferences of humans, we ought not be surprised when challenges that are impossible for humans prove to be… impossible.
What about us? If we spend all our time worshipping the false gods of this world, of human solutions and human efforts, we too should not be surprised when we encounter “iron chariots” of our own. We ought not be surprised when we find ourselves deprived of the best God has to offer. If we do not trust in God with all our hearts and forsake our own understanding, we may even find ourselves faced up against the iron chariots of Satan himself. That’s not a battle we can even begin to fight without the Lamb of God beside us. Let us not waver in our trust in the Lord.
