The first chapter of Judges tells us in outline what the map of Palestine was like after the settlement of the Israelitish tribes. In the south the mountainous country was held by the Edomite tribe of Caleb as well as by the more strictly Israelitish tribe of Judah. But it was only ‘the mountain’ that was thus held. Though ‘the Lord was with Judah,’ he ‘could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.’ Further south, however, Judah and Simeon in combination succeeded in making themselves masters of the Negeb or desert plain as far as Zephath, where a mixed population, partly Israelitish, partly Edomite, and partly Kenite, took the place of the older inhabitants. Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Jebusites until it was captured by David. It is true, we read (Judg. i. 8) that ‘the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it and smitten it with the edge of the sword.’ But if so, it must soon have been again fortified by its former possessors, since we are expressly told (Judg. i. 21) that the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites ‘dwell with the children of Judah in Jerusalem unto this day.’[255] Modern critics have been in the habit of dismissing the alleged capture of the city as unhistorical, but it is quite possible that Jerusalem really suffered momentarily from a sudden raid. The capture of the city is not ascribed to Joshua—indeed, though he defeated its king and his allies, he seems to have made no effort to reduce the city itself—and it is said to have been effected by Judah after Joshua’s death. This may have been at any time during the period of the Judges. The Tel el-Amarna tablets show us how easily the cities of Canaan could be taken and retaken in the course of local quarrels, and the fact that Jerusalem was for a while in Jewish hands seems to form an integral part of the story of the conquest of Bezek.