CHAPTER 2

(1425 B.C.)

THE LORD

¹And an Angel of the LORD (actually, a preincarnate appearance of Christ) came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I swore unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break My Covenant with you (the Lord has never broken a Covenant, but, most definitely, man breaks it repeatedly).

²And you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; you shall throw down their altars: but you have not obeyed My Voice: why have you done this? (This is the question the Lord continues to ask of many Believers! As stated, if we make a league with the world, the world doesnt become more Christian, but rather we become more worldly.)

³Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you (in other words, if Israel disobeyed the Lord, He would withhold His help; in that case, Israel could but fail!).

⁴And it came to pass, when the Angel of the LORD spoke these words unto all the Children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept (as to exactly how the Lord delivered this Word unto Israel, we arent told here; perhaps He used the High Priest; however, any guess is but speculation).

⁵And they called the name of that place Bochim (means weeping): and they sacrificed there unto the LORD. (Exactly where Bochim was, we arent told, but many think that it was near Shiloh. In fact, the Sacrifices were probably carried out at Shiloh. It seems that the people repented; however, it is also obvious that their repentance was shallow.)

JOSHUA

⁶And when Joshua had let the people go, the Children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land (this was after Joshuas farewell address, given to us in Chapter 24 of his Book).

⁷And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that He did for Israel.

⁸And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. (This happened before the events of Verses 1-5.)

⁹And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the Mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.

¹⁰And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which He had done for Israel. (The statement about Joshua and the elders is repeated here designedly by the Holy Spirit, in order to justify the righteous indignation and words of the Angel of Jehovah Williams.)

APOSTASY

¹¹And the Children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim (some six times this phrase is used in this Book of Judges; in all of these six Passages, the definite article, the evil, should be used; it means idolatry [2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1]):

¹²And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people who were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. (The doctrine of this Chapter is that the Lord cannot give victories to the flesh [Rom. 8:8]. These people had seen God move mightily at the crossing of the Jordan, the fall of Jericho, and a hundred other similar victories; however, miracles, as wonderful as they are, seldom, if ever, hold people to the tried-and-true. It is Faith alone which can accomplish that, and, above all, Faith in the correct object, which is Christ and the Cross, i.e., the Word of God [I Cor. 1:17-18, 21, 23; 2:2].)

¹³And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth (Baal and Ashtaroth are frequently coupled together; this was the god of the Zidonians; their worship was accompanied by the most vile immoralities).

¹⁴And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of spoilers who spoiled them, and He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.

¹⁵Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed (gods invented by men are served faithfully; however, the fact that Israel was at perpetual war with Jehovah proclaims the fact that the Lord was not an invention of man; as the Lord had worked for Israel, He now works against Israel; God hasnt changed; what He did then, He does now!).

JUDGES

¹⁶Nevertheless the LORD raised up Judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those who spoiled them. (The Hebrew word for judge means one who sets right what has been put wrong. We will find that all of these Judges were all distinguished by some disability, as will appear when each ones history is studied, and they will be found to illustrate the principle that God uses weak things to confound the mighty [I Cor. 1:27].)

¹⁷And yet they would not hearken unto their Judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the Commandments of the LORD; but they did not so.

¹⁸And when the LORD raised them up Judges, then the LORD was with the Judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the Judge: for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them who oppressed them and vexed them. (With these Judges, God gave gracious revivals; but, after each revival, the nation fell into deeper sin and bondage.)

¹⁹And it came to pass, when the Judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. (Without proper spiritual leadership, basically every time the Church will go into apostasy. That is the problem with the modern Church. Its leadership, for all practical purposes, is man-appointed, which God can never recognize.)

²⁰And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and He said, Because that this people has transgressed My Covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto My Voice;

²¹I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died:

²²That through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not.

²³Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered He them into the hand of Joshua. (Everything, as it regards the Child of God, is a test. How will we act? How will we react?)