Adoni-Bezek

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

("Lord of Bezek", a city of Canaan.) Leading the confederated Canaanites and Perizzites, he was conquered by Judah and Simeon, who cut off his thumbs and great toes. Conscience struck, he confessed that 70 kings (petty princes) had gleaned (margin) their meat under his table, deprived of thumbs and great toes: "As I have done, so God hath requited me" ( Judges 1:4-7). Brought a prisoner to Jerusalem, he died there. God pays sinners in their own coin ( 1 Samuel 15:33). Judah was not giving vent to his own cruelty, but executing God's lex talionis ( Leviticus 24:19;  Revelation 16:6;  Proverbs 1:31). The barbarity of Canaanite war usage's appears in his conduct. The history shows that Canaan was then parceled out among a number of petty chiefs.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Adoni-Bezek (perhaps a corrupted form of Adoni-zedek ,   Joshua 10:1-27 ). A king of Bezek (a different place from that mentioned in   1 Samuel 11:8 ), who was defeated by Simeon and Judah. The mutilation inflicted upon him the cutting off of the thumbs and great toes was in order to render him harmless, while retaining him as a trophy; but he died on reaching Jerusalem. Adoni-bezek boasted of having mutilated seventy kings in a similar manner. The passage (  Judges 1:5-7 ) which speaks of Adoni-bezek does not appear to be intact; the original form probably gave more details.

W. O. E. Oesterley.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Adon'i-be'zek. (Lord Of Bezek). King of Bezek, a city of the Canaanites. See Bezek . This chieftain was vanquished by the tribe of Judah,  Judges 1:3-7, who cut off his thumbs and great toes, and brought him prisoner to Jerusalem, where he died. He confessed that he had inflicted the same cruelty upon 70 petty kings whom he had conquered. (B.C. 1425).

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

The lord of Bezek ( Judges 1:4-5)

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Judges 1:5-7Bezek

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(Heb. Adoni ’ -Be ’ zek, אֲדנַיאּבֶזֶק , Lord Of Bezek; Sept. Ἀδωνιβέζεκ ) , a chieftain of Bezek (q.v.), who had subdued seventy of the petty kings around him, and, after barbarously cutting off their thumbs and great toes, had compelled them, to gather their food under his table ( Judges 1:5-7). Elated with this success, he ventured, at the head of the confederate Ganaanites and Perizzites, to attack the army of the tribes of Judah and Simeon, after the death of Joshua; but was himself defeated, captured, and served in the same manner as he had treated his own captives — a fate which his conscience compelled him to acknowledge as a righteous retribution for his inhumanity. He died of these wounds at Jerusalem, whither he was taken, B.C. cir. 1590. (See Kitto ’ s Daily Bible Illust. in loc.; and comp. AElian, Var. Hist. 2, 9)