Bible Synapse
Was Jabin king of Hazor killed by Joshua, or still reigning in the days of Deborah?
Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Jabin king of Hazor called the northern kings together against Israel.
And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor had heard those things, that he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph,
Joshua took Hazor, struck its king with the sword and burned the city.
And Joshua at that time turned back, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword: for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe: and he burnt Hazor with fire.
Long after Joshua, the Lord sold Israel “into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor”, whose general was Sisera.
And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.
God subdued Jabin before Israel, and Israel prevailed against him “until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan”.
So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel. And the hand of the children of Israel prospered, and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.
The objection
Joshua 11 says that Joshua took Hazor, struck its king Jabin with the sword and burned the city. Yet Judges 4, set long after Joshua’s death, has “Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor” oppressing Israel for twenty years until Deborah and Barak defeated him. Critics ask how a king whom Joshua had killed could still be reigning.
The answer
Judges 4 is about a later king of the same name. Joshua’s victory over the first Jabin came early in the conquest. The oppression in Judges 4 comes after Joshua and the elders who outlived him had died (Judges 2:7–10), and after Othniel’s forty years and Ehud’s eighty years of rest (Judges 3:11, 30). Over that long time Hazor, which Joshua had burned, was rebuilt and its kingdom revived, and its king was again called Jabin. Keil and Delitzsch suggest that Jabin may have been a standing name or title of Hazor’s kings, as Abimelech seems to have been for the Philistine kings of Gerar (Genesis 20:2; 26:1). Even if it was not, royal names were often handed down to sons and grandsons.
The two accounts also differ in their details, which suits two different wars. In Joshua 11 Jabin himself gathers the northern kings, and he is killed in Hazor. In Judges 4 the army is led by his general Sisera, who lives at Harosheth, and this second Jabin is worn down over a longer struggle and destroyed at the end of it (4:24). Haley lists Hazor among the Canaanite cities that Israel had to conquer more than once: the Canaanites came back and rebuilt wherever the conquerors had moved on.
Other answers Christians give
A descendant of the first Jabin
The Pulpit Commentary says that, if the two wars are distinct, the second Jabin must have been a descendant of the first, who restored his family’s kingdom after Hazor was rebuilt, with Jabin as the hereditary name of its kings. This differs from the main answer only in saying how the two kings were related.
Still open
Some scholars think that Joshua 11 and Judges 4 are two tellings of one battle, and the Pulpit Commentary found it ‘impossible not to suspect’ this, though it went on to say how the two could be distinct. Most Christian commentators hold that the different leaders, places, times and outcomes point to two wars.
From the classic commentators
The king referred to here, who lived more than a century later, bore the same name. The name Jabin, "the discerning," may possibly have been a standing name or title of the Canaanitish kings of Hazor, as Abimelech was of the kings of the PhilistinesKeil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Judges 4