Judges 2:11-19

11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of Jehovah, and served the Baals.
12 And they forsook Jehovah the God of their fathers, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods of the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and bowed themselves to them, and provoked Jehovah to anger.
13 And they forsook Jehovah, and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
14 And the anger of Jehovah was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about; and they could not any longer stand before their enemies.
15 Whithersoever they went out the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as Jehovah had said, and as Jehovah had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed.
16 And Jehovah raised up judges, and they saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.
17 But they did not even hearken to their judges, for they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves to them; they turned quickly out of the way that their fathers had walked in, obeying the commandments of Jehovah; they did not so.
18 And when Jehovah raised them up judges, then Jehovah was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it repented Jehovah because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and crushed them.
19 And it came to pass when the judge died, that they turned back and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down to them: they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.

Judges 2:11-19 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JUDGES 2

This chapter gives an account of an angel of the Lord appearing and rebuking the children of Israel for their present misconduct, Jud 2:1-5; of their good behaviour under Joshua, and the elders that outlived him, Jud 2:6-10; and of their idolatries they fell into afterwards, which greatly provoked the Lord to anger, Jud 2:11-15; and of the goodness of God to them nevertheless, in raising up judges to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies, of which there are many instances in the following chapter, Jud 2:16-18; and yet that how, upon the demise of such persons, they relapsed into idolatry which caused the anger of God to be hot against them, and to determine not to drive out the Canaanites utterly from them, but to leave them among them to try them, Jud 2:19-23.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Baal and Ashtoreth in the plural are constantly used as generic terms for the male and female divinities of the Canaanitish peoples, and especially of the Phoenicians. Ashtoreth, or Astarte, would seem to have been the moon: compare Jer. 7.18 and 8.2, with 2Kings 23.13,14.
  • [b]. Or 'Jehovah had pity.'
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.