adoni-bezek Summary and Overview

(lord of Bezek), king of Bezek, a city of the Canaanites. [BEZEK] This chieftain was vanquished by the tribe of Judah, #Jud 1:3-7| who cut off his thumbs and great toes, and brought him prisoner to Jerusalem, where he died. He confessed that he had inflicted the same cruelty upon 70 petty kings whom he had conquered. (B.C. 1425).

ADON'I-BE'ZEK . Jud 1:5. Lord or king of Bezek, a city of the Canaanites. See Bezek. His name was a title, not a proper name. He fled from the armies of Judah, but was caught and his thumbs and great toes cut off, so that he could neither fight nor flee. He was then carried to Jerusalem, where he died. He seems to have regarded the maiming he suffered as a just requital of his own cruelty, he having mutilated seventy kings or chieftains in the same inhuman manner.

("Lord of Bezek", a city of Canaan.) Leading the confederated Canaanites and Perizzites, he was conquered by Judah and Simeon, who cut off his thumbs and great toes. Conscience struck, he confessed that 70 kings (petty princes) had gleaned (margin) their meat under his table, deprived of thumbs and great toes: "As I have done, so God hath requited me" (Judges 1:4-7). Brought a prisoner to Jerusalem, he died there. God pays sinners in their own coin (1 Samuel 15:33). Judah was not giving vent to his own cruelty, but executing God's lex talionis (Leviticus 24:19; Revelation 16:6; Proverbs 1:31). The barbarity of Canaanite war usage's appears in his conduct. The history shows that Canaan was then parceled out among a number of petty chiefs.