See through empty promise to catch judge (9)
I believe the answer is:
penetrate
'see through' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'empty promise to catch judge' is the wordplay.
'empty' means to remove the middle letters.
'to catch' becomes 'net' (netting is a kind of catching).
'judge' becomes 'rate' (rating is a kind of judging).
'promise' with its middle removed is 'pe'.
'pe'+'net'+'rate'='PENETRATE'
(Other definitions for penetrate that I've seen before include "Pass into or through" , "Force way through, into" , "probe" , "Go through" , "Run through" .)