Iron Chariots

This is Week Two of Giford's Bible Study Programme.

And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
Judges 1:19

Length: 1/5
Controversy: 0/5

I've chosen a bit of a skeptical favourite for my first reading (So well known, in fact, that it has given its name to an anti-apologetics Wiki). 

On the face of it, this verse is plain yet bizarre. It seems to be saying that God - the Omnipotent God who made the world - is powerless in the face of some fairly primitive technology.

Of course, the more accurate interpretation is easy to see - the Judeans were a superstitious people who ascribed all their successes to Divine favour. To them, it must have logically followed that their failures were either because their God had failed, or because their God had abandoned them. It is also possible that at this time, Yahweh was regarded as one God among many, the God of the Hebrews but not the only God in town. It was only later that they came to believe that He was the only God.

Christian / Jewish Responses

Some apologists have tried to claim that 'he' refers to Judah, and that some unspecified sin (the linked Blog suggests a lack of courage, others have suggested that God's covenant was broken due to an incomplete persecution of the Canaanites by the Hebrews) caused God not to allow Judah victory in the valley. It amazes me that someone could read 'because they had chariots of iron' and translate it as 'because he sinned'.

By Judges 4, the Hebrew God is able to overcome 900 iron chariots.