Judges 2:1-5

Israel Rebuked at Bochim

1 Now the angel ^[a] of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I had promised to your fathers, and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you,

2 and you are not to make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall tear down their altars.’ Yet you have not obeyed My voice. What is this you have done?

3 So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

4 When the angel of the LORD had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people lifted up their voices and wept.

5 So they called that place Bochim ^[b] and offered sacrifices there to the LORD.

Judges 2:1-5 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

• [a] Or Angel; also in verse 4
• [b] Bochim means weepers.