Chapter 1

The book starts this way:

1 After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the LORD, "Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?" [Jdg 1:1 ESV]

So we know we are taking up about where Joshua leaves off.  The last few verses of Joshua are written by someone else after his death.  Further, though we have been told twice at least that God has kept all his promises to Israel about the land, there is still fighting to be done.  The land is divided, but there is still opposition, there are still enemies in the land, and they are still capable of making a defense.  So in what sense really are we to see the promises as fulfilled?  That opposition is so reduced that the whole of the nation of Israel is not required to finish the job?  The big tasks are done, and only mopping up is necessary for complete occupation?

2024 - Look at vs 4.  Even at this time the inhabitants of the land put together a 10,000 man army to oppose Judah and Simeon.  That's a lot of resistance from a "conquered" land. 

With Joshua dead, Judah and Simeon team up to rid Judah's portion of more Canaanites, and then Judah is to help Simeon.  God had told Judah to do this, and was with them as they conquered. One of the kings they capture in Judah's territory has previously cut off the thumbs and big toes of 70 other kings.  So they decide to cut off his big toes and thumbs.  The first of many interpretive challenges.  Remember that in Jacob's final blessings, Judah and Simeon didn't fare all that well.

They also capture Jerusalem on this campaign.  Then they capture Simeon's land, various places.  Then, though it says they defeated Jerusalem and set it on fire in vs. 8, in vs. 21 it says Benjamin did not drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem, and they lived with them.  Manasseh did not drive out many of the inhabitants of his land.  They put them to forced labor, but didn't drive them out.

The rest of chapter 1 is about the inhabitants who were not run off the land God had given Israel.  Many were allowed to stay, and some were used as a forced labor pool. 

This was not what God had said.  Both God, Moses, and Joshua had warned that if they left foreigners in the land, and mingled with them and intermarried with them, that the foreigners would lead the people to worship their false gods, and bring about the wrath of the true God.

2024 - So this first chapter is much more about the failure of Israel to secure the land than it is about continued conquest.  Especially in the north, the Canaanites were allowed to remain, though eventually as forced labor - as slaves to Israel.  I do note in vs. 18 that Gaza is taken.  It seems to me that in the south, for the most part, the Canaanites were run off, though with notable exceptions.

2026 - This time, as I read this, Chapter 1 seems to be a repeat of things at the end of Joshua.  For instance, we see Caleb's conquests and his giving his daughter to his nephew.  I know that in Joshua much of Gaza was already taken.  So at least some of Judges one is a recap of what we have already read in Joshua.  First a recap, and then a list of what they did NOT do.