Judges 2:3-13

3 Now I tell you, 'I will not force out the people in this land. They will be your enemies, and their gods will be a trap for you.'"

4 After the angel gave Israel this message from the Lord, they cried loudly.

5 So they named the place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.

6 Then Joshua sent the people back to their land.

7 The people served the Lord during the lifetime of Joshua and during the lifetimes of the older leaders who lived after Joshua and who had seen what great things the Lord had done for Israel.

8 Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten.

9 They buried him in his own land at Timnath Serah in the mountains of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

10 After those people had died, their children grew up and did not know the Lord or what he had done for Israel.

11 So they did what the Lord said was wrong, and they worshiped the Baal idols.

12 They quit following the Lord, the God of their ancestors who had brought them out of Egypt. They began to worship the gods of the people who lived around them, and that made the Lord angry.

13 The Israelites quit following the Lord and worshiped Baal and Ashtoreth.

Judges 2:3-13 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.