And the Lord said
By an articulate voice, which it is probable was the usual way of answering by Urim and Thummim:
Judah shall go up;
not Judah in person, who was long ago dead, but the tribe of Judah; it was the will of the Lord that that tribe should engage first with the Canaanites, being the principal one, and the most numerous, powerful, and valiant, and perhaps had the greatest number of Canaanites among them; and who succeeding, would inspire the other tribes with courage, and fill their enemies with a panic:
behold, I have delivered the land into his hands;
that part of it which belonged to that tribe as yet unsubdued, the conquest of which they are assured of for their encouragement.