Judges 2: A Different Perspective

Introduction

Chapter 1 of Judges caught us up to speed on where the Israelites were after the book of Joshua. Specifically it walked through and gave updates on the ongoing conquest, which wasn’t going well, and also dropping subtle hints of what happens when Israel slowly synchronized with Canaan. In chapter 2, the author is, in a way, going to repeat himself. But this time he is going to tell the story from God’s perspective.

2:1-10: Rewind, Repeat

Instead of continuing the story in a linear fashion, the author of Judges takes us backwards. The book opened with the death of Joshua, but now we’re rewinding back to just before that happened.

Remember, Judges isn’t concerned with chronological storytelling, he’s concerned with theological storytelling.

We learned in chapter 1 that the conquest failed (or was failing). This is a human perspective.

Whenever humans fail at something, or have difficulty accomplishing something, we often attribute it to the wrong thing or nothing at all.

“I’m just down on my luck lately.” “This kind of stuff just happens.” “People lose battles all the time, we’ll get them next time.” ect.

Judges wants us to know that Israel’s failed conquest was just because of bad luck - there was a very real spiritual component to this. God was behind it. And this should be a humbling reminder to us as well - when we aren’t being obedient to God, he might/will make our lives difficult!

So chapter 2 could be said to be telling the story of chapter 1 from God’s perspective. And it starts with the Lord lecturing the people for their disobedience.

The event of the angel going from Gilgal (this was where Joshua first encountered the Lord) to Bochim (this was near Bethel) is said to have happened while Joshua was still alive. It is not mentioned in Joshua, but the encounter does parallel Joshua’s own message to the people in Joshua 24. It theologically follows Judges 1, but chronologically makes sense as have happened in the days of Joshua (in Joshua we start to see cracks of failure.)

As the Lord often does, he gives them a brief history lesson (since the Israelites were VERY forgetful). He reminds them about the covenant he made with them. He kept his end of the bargain, but what about them?

The answer is: no. The Lord simply told them to destroy the idols they encountered, but the people didn’t do that.

Since they didn’t keep their end of the bargain, the Lord was not obligated to keep His, and so he warns them in Judges 2:3 “So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.””

The Lord will give us what we want. If we do not want to cast out the idols of our own lives, He will let them consume and destroy us. This is why the New Testament is so insistent that Christians remove any idolatry from our lives.

The Israelites seem to take this message very seriously. They have a moment of national repentance and mourning. In fact, that’s why the place was named “Bochim” (it means weepers/mourners). And they even make a sacrifice.

When verse 1 says the angel of the Lord went up to Bochim (“the place of crying”) it gives an ominous start to this story. Why is it known as that? Well, now we know.

Naming this place Bochim was to serve as a reminder of the day Israel (almost) got its act together. Whenever they would walk by this place and ask, “Why is it calling ‘mourning’?” the answer should have been, “Because it was hear that we all cried in repentance.”

Memorials are good and important...if you remember what they stand for! The author of Judges is begging the question, “Did the Israelites in fact, remember?”

What kind of reminders should we/do we set up to remember God’s covenant with us?

The answer is...kind of?

Joshua sends the people away, and as long as he’s alive, and those who outlived him, the people keep to the straight and narrow serving the Lord.

But as soon as they all died, “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.”

All it takes is one generation to forget.

Someone once said, “When parent’s make church optional, children think Jesus is unnecessary.”

This passage on Joshua’s death is taken almost word for word from Joshua 24:29-31.

2:11-23: The Cycle

Having forgotten all the deeds of the Lord and how he had rescued them, the author is now going to show us what this led to. In a phrase: spiritual death. This section lays the framework for the entire book of Judges. We will see this pattern over and over and over again.

Step 1: Abandon the Lord and do what is evil in his sight.

Sight/eyes is going to be a recurring theme in Judges.

Typically what is “right in our own eyes” is “evil in the sight of the Lord” (notice the human/God perspectives there).

The author builds on this idolatry and its consequences through phrasing.

“They abandoned the Lord...and went after other gods of the peoples who were around them.”

“And they provoked the Lord to anger”

“They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.” (more specific)

Baal was a fertility god, often worshipped through cultic prostitution.

Ashtaroth was also a sex and war goddess.

“The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he gave them over to plunderers...sold them into the hands of their enemies” and allowed them to be defeated in every battle (more specific).

That last part connects us back to chapter 1: they weren’t just losing battles and failing to conquer because they were terrible fighters - they were doing so because the Lord was against them!

This is still true. The Lord will make our lives physically difficult when we are spiritually disobedient!

Step 2: Abandon/Turn over to enemies.

Nearly every story in Judges will have this piece - and as we just mentioned, it was punishment from the Lord.

Step 4: God raises up judges.

This was often in response to their crying out or “groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them” which let the Lord to pity them.

The judges would rise up and “rescue” the people.

As we’ll see this wasn’t always the case.

Sometimes they would obey while the judge was still alive, other times they would just go right back to their idolatry.

After the judge died, they would definitely return to their idolatry and “were more corrupt than their fathers”.

When the Lord rescues us, the worst thing we can do is say “thanks” and go right back to what we were doing before. That’s not how this is suppose to work!

The ultimate consequence of this is that God throws his hands up in the air and says, “Enough!”

Specifically he declares that he will no longer drive out the nations as he had promised, but instead will leave them in the land “to test Israel”.

Again, this is the theological explanation for why the Israelites failed in their conquest of Chapter 1.

Reflection question: what does Covenant Forgetfulness (or amnesia) look like in the Church or lives of Christians today? What can we do to prevent it from happening?

The Lord said he’s going to leave the other nations there to test the people. But as the narrative rolls over into chapter 3, the author is going to show us exactly what this means using the human/God perspective again.

From an earthly/human perspective, the nations were left there “in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before”.

Traditionally, people who forget how to fight are the most vulnerable. This is true for us spiritually as well. Paul encourages us to put on the “full armor of God”, and to remember who we are fighting: the dark spiritual forces and sin! Christians who forget how to fight are usually defeated.

Sometimes the Lord will leave “thorns in our flesh” to keep us on our toes.

But from a spiritual/Godly perspective, the author tells us “They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord.”

The Lord doesn’t tempt, but he does sometimes allow temptation (Iike with Job), to see how we will respond and to strengthen our faith.

Vs 5 tells us that the Israelites lived among 6 different people groups + the Philistines = 7. There were lots of people groups in Canaan, but the author wants to use the number 7 to symbolize the complete takeover of Israel by the culture around them.

We are immediately told that the Israelites failed their test: they began intermarrying with the people around them...and consequently serving other gods.

7-11: The Ideal Judge

We now get our first judge, and it’s a familiar face. Othniel. We met him in Chapter 1 when he marries Caleb’s daughter.

The story of Othniel serves as the “ideal template” for every Judge in the book. But what we’ll notice is that every story is missing a part of this template. The template also alligns with what we saw in chapter 2.

The template:

Israel what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Served other gods, made God angry.

God hands them over to an enemy (in this cause Cushan king of Mesoptamia).

After a time period (here 8 years), the Israelites cry out to the Lord.

The Lord raises up a Judge (here it is Othniel).

The Spirit of the Lord is upon him, he defeats the king and rescues the people.

The land has rest for a certain amount of time (typically round numbers which slowly diminish over time...)

The Judge dies.

Restart.

That will be the same basic pattern that we see over and over, but as mentioned, each story will tend to be missing an element of the formula.

Conclusion

Why do we find ourselves in hard times and situations? Sometimes it might be random...but other times it should force us to ask the question, “Am I being obedient to the Lord?” Judges shows that spiritual disobedience is real world consequences. Thankfully the Lord has given us His Son (just as Caleb gave Israel Othniel) to save us when we cry out and repent. But the point isn’t to keep finding ourselves in that situation. It is the break the cycle and remember our covenant with the Lord at all times.