The Josephites Capture Bethel. This is the only exploit of Ephraim and Manasseh recorded here, the purpose of the writer being rather to emphasize the incompleteness of the conquest than to enumerate victories. Bethel is the modern Beitin, 10 m. N. of Jerusalem.
Judges 1:24. What the watchers, or scouts, wished to discover was not the gate, which they could see with their own eyes, but the point where the defences were weakest and an entrance could be most easily effected.
Judges 1:25. The citizen whom they questioned was put on the horns of a dilemma, having either to defy his enemies or to betray his friends. He chose the safe course, which meant death to all the inhabitants of the town except himself and his own family.
Judges 1:26. With no apparent qualms of conscience, or sense of dishonour, he went and founded a new Luz in the land of the Hittites, i.e. Northern Syria, as the Amarna tablets indicate. The exact site of the new Luz is unknown.