1. Judges 4:2 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

Which Jabin was this?

Judges 4:2 (ESV)

2 And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

In a way, Jabin is to Canaan what Pharaoh is to Egypt. Jabin was a name carried by all of Canaan’s rulers, as a sort of dynastic name.1 This would be Jabin II, as Joshua, more than forty years earlier, had killed Jabin I (Joshua 11:10–12). The defeat of that king of Canaan had been the climax of the conquest. But now a kingdom once again existed in the Hazor region, and another Jabin had emerged. Israel has fallen far from the days of Joshua.2