The study of Judges 1, which is here revisited in a historical approach, highlights the importance of the tribal model and its function in the construction of the chapter. Indeed, this model, so rooted in Levantine cultures, is construed over the centuries in different biblical texts so as to become the symbolic “twelve tribes” or “twelve sons of Jacob” and is in its latest stage confirmed as the identity of “Israel,” a definition more genealogical, ethnic or clan-based than truly territorial. It is hoped to demonstrate here, through the detailed analysis of Judg. 1, how frontiers are generated, through inner-biblical expansions and corrections, and how they build a “greater Judea” and even a “greater Israel” at a time when manifestly the kingdom has turned into a province and is in search of a new identity and recognition.