Judges 2:1-10

1 Now the angel of ADONAI came up from Gilgal to Bokhim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt, led you to the land I swore to your fathers and said, 'I will never break my covenant with you;

2 you, for your part, are not to make any covenant with the inhabitants of this land but must tear down their altars.' However, you have paid no attention to what I said. What is this you have done?

3 This is why I also said, 'I will not drive them out before you; but they will be on your flanks, and their gods will become a snare for you.'"

4 When the angel of ADONAI spoke these words to all the people of Isra'el, they began crying and wailing at the top of their voices.

5 So they called the name of that place Bokhim [crying] and sacrificed there to ADONAI.

6 When Y'hoshua had sent the people away, the people of Isra'el had gone each one to his assigned property in order to take possession of the land.

7 The people served ADONAI throughout Y'hoshua's life and throughout the lives of all the older men who outlived Y'hoshua and who had seen all the great work of ADONAI which he had done for Isra'el.

8 When Y'hoshua the son of Nun, the servant of ADONAI, died, he was 110 years old;

9 and they buried him near the boundary of his property in Timnat-Heres, in the hills of Efrayim, north of Mount Ga'ash.

10 When that entire generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation arose that knew neither ADONAI nor the work he had done for Isra'el.

Judges 2:1-10 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.