1. Thus _Judah_, whose conquest of Hebron and its vicinity has been already related, in alliance with the neighbouring tribe of Simeon, attacked Bezek, slew 10,000 of its Canaanite and Perizzite inhabitants, and captured its ferocious king Adoni-bezek, whose cruel mutilation of seventy vassal princes gives us an insight into the character of the native chiefs, whom Israel was commissioned to expel (Judg. i. 6, 7). As he had done to others, so Judah did to him. They _cut off his thumbs and his great toes_, and carried him captive to Jerusalem, _i.e._ to the Lower City, which was taken, and set on fire. But the Upper City resisted all their efforts, as afterwards those of the tribe of Benjamin (Judg. i. 21[172]). They were more successful, however, in other places, and reduced numerous cities of the Canaanites in the central mountains, the southern desert, and the low country of the west (Judg. i. 17, 18). 2. The powerful house of _Joseph_ was not behind-hand in following the example of the lion-tribe of Judah. They sent spies to descry the town of Luz, who seeing a man coming from thence, seized him, but consented to spare his life and that of his family on condition that he shewed them the entrance, on ascertaining which, they smote the place with the edge of the sword. Thus in addition to Shechem, the house of Joseph became possessed of another spot consecrated by the most sacred associations, even the town, near which was the stone Pillar their father Jacob had set up on his way to Padan-Aram, and called the place Beth-el, _the House of God_ (Judg. i. 22–26). But they were not similarly successful in expelling the Canaanites from Gezer near lower Beth-horon (Judg. i. 29), or from their strongholds in the plain of Jezreel, Taanach, Megiddo, and Beth-shean. Instead of utterly driving them out, they put them under tribute, as also the Amorites, who succeeded in thrusting the children of Dan from the fertile lowland of the sea-coast into the mountains, to be themselves dispossessed in turn by the Philistines (Judg. i. 34, 35).