Judges 2:20-23

20 So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed the covenant I laid down for their fathers and has not heeded My voice,

21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.

22 In this way I will test whether Israel will keep the way of the LORD by walking in it as their fathers did.”

23 That is why the LORD had left those nations in place and had not driven them out immediately by delivering them into the hand of Joshua.

Judges 2:20-23 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.