1. Judges 1:7 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Does Adoni-bezek know the true God?

Judges 1:7 (ESV)

7 And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

His reference to God “is ambiguous. As a Canaanite it would have been unusual for him to have named Yahweh, the God of Israel. Accordingly, he ascribes responsibility for his punishment to ʾelōhîm, which could refer either to Yahweh by the generic title or his own pagan god.”1