Judges 2, The Rise of Judges

We continue to follow up on the early days of the conquest of Canaan.

Judges 2: 1-5, Sin and anger

The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, `I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' 

Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be [thorns] in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you."

When the angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the LORD.

The sins of the people are linked to the persistence of pagan natives remaining in the land. The incomplete conquest leads to the Israelites assimilating the local idolatry, which initiates a cycle of idolatry and renewal that defines the book of Judges.

The name Bokim means "the weepers"; the town is named after the reaction of the people.

Judges 2: 6-9, Death of Joshua

After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel.

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

This repeats a summary of the conquest given at the end of Joshua. The age of Joshua at death, 110, is ten less years than the age given for Moses.

Judges 2:10-15, Serving Baal

After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.

Follow YHWH, slowly fall away, serve the local Baals, experience defeat, repent.  Repeat.

A generation of people have grown up who "did not know YHWH" -- this echoes Exodus 1: 8, when a new king arose who "did not know Joseph".

Judges 2:16-18, Idolatry and judges

Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD's commands.

The ruling of the tribes will now fall on various judges, of differing quality.  This will be the story of this book; this paragraph summarizes the cycles of idolatry/defeat and renewal/victory that follow.

Judges 2: 18-19, The judges will give justice, but only temporarily

Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them.

But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

The judges give justice, die, and the people return to sin and the idols of the Baals. We will read of a series of judges, in a depressingly downward spiral. 

Judges 2: 20-23, The other nations as a test

Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.

I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did." The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.

This chapter summarizes the time of the judges and repeats some of the earlier information, such as the death of Joshua.

After this summary chapter on the judges, we meet the first judges, Othniel and Ehud, in the next chapter.