The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals. They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger. They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
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When Yahweh’s angel spoke these words to all the children of Israel, the people lifted up their voice and wept. They called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there to Yahweh. Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel each went to his inheritance to possess the land. The people served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of Yahweh that he had worked for Israel. Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being one hundred ten years old. They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash. After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know Yahweh, nor the work which he had done for Israel. The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals. They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger. They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, Yahweh’s hand was against them for evil, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn to them; and they were very distressed. Yahweh raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they didn’t listen to their judges; for they prostituted themselves to other gods, and bowed themselves down to them. They quickly turned away from the way in which their fathers walked, obeying Yahweh’s commandments. They didn’t do so. When Yahweh raised up judges for them, then Yahweh was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it grieved Yahweh because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them. But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways. Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel; and he said, “Because this nation transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to my voice, I also will no longer drive out any of the nations that Joshua left when he died from before them; that by them I may test Israel, to see if they will keep Yahweh’s way to walk therein, as their fathers kept it, or not.” So Yahweh left those nations, without driving them out hastily. He didn’t deliver them into Joshua’s hand.
Parallel Translations
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The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals.
They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger.
They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
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And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:
And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.
And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
Show all 3 translations
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And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baalim.
And they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and worshipped them; and they provoked the LORD.
And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
Cross-references (39)
- Judges 3:7 (vv11, 13) The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth.
- Judges 10:6 (vv11, 13) The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of…
- Judges 4:1 (v11) The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, when Ehud was dead.
- Judges 6:1 (v11) The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, so Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.
- Exodus 20:5 (v12) you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on…
Show all 37 cross-references
- Deuteronomy 6:14-15 (v12) You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, for Yahweh your God among you is a jealous God, lest the…
- Deuteronomy 13:5 (v12) That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death, because he has spoken rebellion against Yahweh your God, who brought you…
- Deuteronomy 29:25 (v12) Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them…
- Judges 8:33 (v11) As soon as Gideon was dead, the children of Israel turned again and played the prostitute following the Baals, and made Baal Berith their…
- 1 Kings 18:18 (v11) He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but you, and your father’s house, in that you have forsaken Yahweh’s commandments, and you have…
- Psalms 106:36 (v13) They served their idols, which became a snare to them.
- Deuteronomy 5:9 (v12) You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on…
- Deuteronomy 29:18 (v12) lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from Yahweh our God, to go to serve the gods of…
- Judges 13:1 (v11) The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight; and Yahweh delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty…
- 1 Corinthians 10:20-22 (v13) But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have…
- Judges 2:11 (v13) The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals.
- Judges 3:12 (v11) The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and Yahweh strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel,…
- Judges 10:10 (v11) The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, saying, “We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the…
- 1 Samuel 7:4 (v11) Then the children of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and served Yahweh only.
- 1 Samuel 31:10 (v13) They put his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
- 1 Kings 11:5 (v13) For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
- 1 Kings 11:33 (v13) because that they have forsaken me, and have worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god…
- 2 Kings 23:13 (v13) The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the…
- 2 Chronicles 28:2 (v11) but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and also made molten images for the Baals.
- 2 Chronicles 33:2-3 (v11) He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, after the abominations of the nations whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel. For…
- 2 Chronicles 33:6 (v11) He also made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. He practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft,…
- Ezra 8:12 (v11) Of the sons of Azgad, Johanan the son of Hakkatan; and with him one hundred ten males.
- Jeremiah 2:23 (v11) “How can you say, ‘I am not defiled. I have not gone after the Baals’? See your way in the valley. Know what you have done. You are a swift…
- Jeremiah 9:14 (v11) but have walked after the stubbornness of their own heart and after the Baals, which their fathers taught them.”
- 1 Corinthians 8:5 (v13) For though there are things that are called “gods”, whether in the heavens or on earth; as there are many “gods” and many “lords”;
- Genesis 13:13 (v11) Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against Yahweh.
- Genesis 38:7 (v11) Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in Yahweh’s sight. So Yahweh killed him.
- Deuteronomy 31:16-17 (v12) Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers. This people will rise up and play the prostitute after the strange gods…
- Deuteronomy 32:15 (v12) But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and…
- Deuteronomy 33:17 (v12) Majesty belongs to the firstborn of his herd. His horns are the horns of the wild ox. With them he will push all the peoples to the ends of…
- Judges 5:8 (v12) They chose new gods. Then war was in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?
- Hosea 2:13-17 (v11) I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went…
37 distinct cross-references across this passage (39 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 That is, all manner of idols.
That is, all manner of idols.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–13 Jdg 2:11 And the children of Israel did evil…
Jdg 2:11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:
Ver. 11. And served Baalim,] i.e., Lords. Hence Hannibal, Asdrubal, &c., of old; as now among the Turks, Beglerbeg, Scanderbeg, that is, Lord Alexander. Their idols they called their lords or protectors; and so the devil became their good lord, as they say: for he is ειδωλοχαρης, the author of idolatry, that evil as it is here called κατ αντονομασιαν.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 In the sight of the Lord; which notes the…
In the sight of the Lord; which notes the heinousness and the impudence of their sins above other people’s sins; because God’s presence was with them, and his eye upon them, in a peculiar manner, and he did narrowly observe all their actions, which also they were not ignorant of, and therefore were guilty of more contempt of God than other people.
Baalim, i.e. false gods. He useth the plural number, because the gods of the Canaanites and adjoining nations, which Israel worshipped, were divers, and most of them called by the name of Baal.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And the children of Israel did evil in the…
And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord,.... Openly and publicly, boldly and impudently, in the very face of God, and amidst all the good things they received from him, which were aggravating circumstances of their sins; what the evil was they did is next observed:
and served Baalim; the idol Baal, as the Arabic version, of which there were many, and therefore a plural word is used; to which the apostle refers Co1 8:5; for the word signifies "lords", and there were Baalpeor, Baalzebub, Baalberith, &c. and who seem to have their name from Bal, Bel, or Belus, a king of Babylon after Nimrod, and who was the first monarch that was deified, the Jupiter of the Heathens. Theophilus of Antioch (p) says, that, according to the history of Thallus, Belus the king of the Assyrians, whom they worshipped, was older than the Trojan war three hundred twenty two years; and that some call Cronus or Saturn Bel and Bal; by the Assyrians called Bel, and in the Punic or Phoenician language Bal (q).
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(p) Ad Autolyc. l. 3. p. 138, 139. Vid. Lactant. de fals. Relig. l. 1. c. 23. (q) Servius in Virgil. Aeneid. 1. prope finem.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 In the sight - Which notes the heinousness and…
In the sight - Which notes the heinousness and impudence of their sins, above other peoples; because God's presence was with them, and his eye upon them in a peculiar manner, which also they were not ignorant of, and therefore were guilty of more contempt of God than other people. Baalim - False gods. He useth the plural number, because the gods of the Canaanites, and adjoining nations, which Israel worshipped, were most of them called by the name of Baal.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11–13 Verse 11. Served Baalim] The word בעלים baalim signifies…
Verse 11. Served Baalim] The word בעלים baalim signifies lords. Their false gods they considered supernatural rulers or governors, each having his peculiar district and office; but when they wished to express a particular בעל baal, they generally added some particular epithet, as Baal-zephon, Baal-peor, Baal-zehub, Baal-shamayim, c., as Calmet has well observed. The two former were adored by the Moabites Baal-zebub by the Ekronites. Baal-berith was honoured at Shechem; and Baal-shamayim, the lord or ruler of the heavens, was adored among the Phoenicians, Syrians, Chaldeans, c. And whenever the word baal is used without an epithet, this is the god that is intended and probably, among all these people, it meant the sun.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 Jdg 2:11. The children of Israel did evil in…
Jdg 2:11. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord — Which marks the heinousness and impudence of their sins, above other people’s; because God’s presence was with them, and his eye upon them in a peculiar manner, which also they were not ignorant of, and therefore were guilty of more contempt of God than other people. And served Baalim — False gods, which were called by this general name Baalim, which signifies lords. For among the pagans, as St. Paul observes, there were gods many and lords many, and the gods of the Canaanites and the neighbouring nations, which Israel worshipped, were most of them called by the name of Baal; as Baal of the Sidonians, and Baal of the Amorites, Moabites, Ammonites.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv11–12 And the children of Israel - Here begins the…
And the children of Israel - Here begins the narrative of what really did happen “after the death of Joshua,” but of which Judg. 1 conveys no hint. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua Jdg 2:7. But when Joshua was dead ... “the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and forsook the God of their fathers.” And then follows from Jdg 2:14 to the end of the chapter, a summary of the whole contents of the book.
Did evil in the sight of the Lord - Through this book and all the historical books, this is the regular phrase for falling into idolatry. It occurs seven times in Judges, as descriptive of the seven apostasies of Israel, which drew down upon them the seven servitudes under
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(1) Chushan-Rishathaim,
(2) Eglon,
(3) Jabin,
(4) Midian,
(5) the tyranny of Abimelech,
(6) the Ammonites,
(7) the Philistines.
The recurrence of the phrase marks the hand of one author and of one book. For the opposite phrase, see 1Ki 15:5, 1Ki 15:11, etc.
The plural of Baal, “Baalim,” refers to the numerous images of Baal which they set up and worshipped, as does the plural form, “Ashtaroth” Jdg 2:13, to those of the female divinity, Astarte.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv12–13 They followed strange gods. What is here said of…
They followed strange gods. What is here said of the children of Israel, as to their falling so often into idolatry, is to be understood of a great part of them; but not so universally, as if the true worship of God was ever quite abolished among them: for the succession of the true church and religion was kept up all this time by the priest and Levites, at least in the house of God in Silo. (Challoner) --- At different times God raised up deliverers, who were taken from among his people, and no doubt abhorred the impiety of the multitude.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v11 The apostasy of Israel during the period of the…
The apostasy of Israel during the period of the Judges: Idolatry and its consequences
Jdg_2:11-15
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11And the children [sons] of Israel did evil14 in the sight of the Lord [Jehovah], and served Baalim: 12And they forsook the Lord [Jehovah the] God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt [Mitsraim], and followed other gods, of the gods of the people [peoples] that were round about them, and bowed themselves 13 unto them, and provoked the Lord [Jehovah] to anger. And [Yea] they forsook the Lord [Jehovah], and served Baal and Ashtaroth. 14And the anger of the Lord [Jehovah] was hot [kindled] against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that [and they] spoiled them, and he sold them [gave them up15] into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before 15their enemies. Whithersoever [Wheresoever]16 they went out, the hand of the Lord [Jehovah] was against them for evil [disaster], as the Lord [Jehovah] had said, and as the Lord [Jehovah] had sworn unto them: and they were [became] greatly distressed.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[1 Jdg_2:11—הָרַע: lit. “the evil.” The use of the article, however, scarcely warrants the stress laid on it by Dr. Cassel (see below), as הָרַע, although most frequently used of idolatry, occurs also of sin in general and of other sins, cf. Num_32:13; 2Sa_12:9; Psa_51:6. The art, is probably used here as with other words denoting abstract ideas, cf. Ges. Gr. § 109, Rem. 1, c.—Tr.]
[2 Jdg_2:14.—Bachmann: “The giving up to the enemy is represented as a selling. The term of comparison, however, is not the price received, but the complete surrender into the stranger’s power.”—Tr.]
[3 Jdg_2:15.—The E. V. takes בְּכָל־מָקוֹם = בְּכֹל, and אֲשֶׁר as the accus whither, cf. Num_13:27. So also Bertheau, Keil, and most versions and commentators. Dr. Cassel takes אְשֶׁר as accus. where, as in Gen_35:13, 2Sa_7:7. Dr. Bachmann thinks it safer “in accordance with 2Ki_18:7 (cf. Jos_1:7; Jos_1:9), to understand the whole expression not of the place of the undertaking, but of the undertaking itself (cf. Deu_28:20 : מִשְׁלַח יָרְךָ אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה בְּכָל־, with Jdg_2:19 :. … בְּבֹאֶדָ בְּצֵאתֶדָ): lit. “in all what = for what they went out,” i. e. (since the connection points to matters of war) in all undertakings for which they took the field. It is at least safe to say that 2Ki_18:7 requires this interpretation of the phrase in question, cf. Thenius in loc.—Tr.]
EXEGETICAL AND DOCTRINAL
Jdg_2:11-13. And they did the evil in the sight of Jehovah. In what the evil consisted, we are soon informed: they served other gods, not their God. These other gods of the nations round about them, are national gods. They severally represent the morals, inclinations, and aptitudes, of those nations. The heathen god is the embodiment of the spiritual life and character of the people that worships him. The God of Israel is the very opposite of this. He is the God of the universe, inasmuch as He created heaven and earth; and the God of Israel, inasmuch as He elected them from among the nations in order to be a holy people unto Himself. The law is the abstract representation of that divine morality which is characteristic of the holy nation, as such. Israel forsakes God, when it does not follow this law. It forgets God, when it ascribes to itself that which belongs to Him; when it explains the history of its wars and victories by referring them, not to divine guidance, but to its own strength. Hence also, as soon as Israel forgets God as the author of its history, it falls into the service of other gods, since these are the opposite of the absolute God, namely, the visible embodiment of the nation’s own self. The God of Israel is a God on whom the people feels itself dependent; the heathen deity, with its material representation, is the resultant of the popular will. The very moment in which the impatient Israel of the desert forsook God, it worshipped the golden calf, the type of Egypt. Now, in Canaan also, Israel is induced to forget God as its benefactor. It seeks to remove the contrariety which exists between itself and the Canaanites: to cancel the dividing-lines drawn by the law of the invisible God. It can have fellowship with the other nations only by serving their gods. Among the nations of antiquity no leagues found place except on the basis of community in sacred things; for in these the national type or character expressed itself. In the Italian cities, a union for joint-sacrifices was called concilium, and formed the indispensable prerequisite to connubium and commercium. The children of Israel, for the sake of their neighbors, forget their God. To please men, they do “the evil in the sight of the Lord.” Evil, רַע, is the opposite of what God wills. Whatever the laws forbids, is “evil.” “Ye shall not worship strange gods,” is the burden of the first, and the ultimate ground of all, commandments. Therefore, when Israel serves them it does what is, not simply “evil,” but “the evil” (הָרַע). The trains of thought of the simple sentences, are bound together by a profoundly penetrating logic. The new generation no longer knows the works of God in Israel’s behalf. Hence it longs for intercourse with the nations round about. For these have not been driven out. In order to gratify this longing, it serves their strange gods. But thereby it forsakes Jehovah, and provokes Him to anger.
And they served Baalim. Baal (בַּעַל), as deity, is for the nation, what as master he is in the house, and as lord in the city. He represents and impersonates the people’s life and energies. Hence, there is one general Baal, as well as many Baalim. The different cities and tribes had their individual Baalim, who were not always named after their cities, but frequently from the various characteristics for which they were adored. The case is analogous to that of Zeus, who by reason of his various attributes, was variously named and worshipped in Greece. The Israelites, as they forgot their own God, apostatized to that form of Baal service which obtained in the tribe or city in which they happened to live, according to the manifold modifications which the service of the idol assumed. Our passage reproduces very closely the words of the Mosaic law (cf. Deu_17:2-3; Deu_29:25 (26)), except that it substitutes Baalim for im acherim, other gods. im acherim is of universal comprehensiveness. “Other gods” being forbidden, the false gods of all ages and countries, whatever names they may bear, are forbidden. Acher is “another,” not in any sense implying coördination, but as expressive of inferiority, spuriousness. It is used like ἕτερος, posterior, and the German after and aber. (Aberglaube [superstition] is a false glaube [faith], just as elohim acherim are false gods.17) Baalim is here substituted as being the current name of the country for the false god. And in truth the very name of Baal, in its literal signification, expresses the contrast between him and the absolute and true Elohim, Jehovah. For as Baal (i.e. Lord, Master), he is dependent on the existence of him whose Baal he is, just as he is no husband who has not a wife; whereas it is the nature of the absolute God to be perfectly free and independent of every extraneous object. These Baalim were the “gods of the nations who dwelt round about them.” Every word of Jdg_2:12 indicates that what now occurred, had been foretold by Moses (cf. Deu_28:20; Deu_31:16; Lev_22:33). The chief passages which are kept in view, are Deu_6:10 ff; Deu_29:25 ff. Ver.13 begins with the same words as Jdg_2:12, “they forsook God,” not to repeat but to strengthen the statement. It must astound the reader that they have forsaken God (עָזַב has the sense of our expression “to ignore one,” “not to notice him,” as one lets a poor mar stand and beg without noticing him), to serve “Baal and Ashtaroth.” Israel, the narrator wishes to say, was actually capable of giving up its own glorious God, who brought it up out of Egypt, for the sake of Baal and Ashtaroth! The statements of Jdg_2:11-14 form a climax; for sin is not stationary, but sinks ever deeper. Jdg_2:11 had said that “they served Baalim.” Jdg_2:12 intimates that this was in fact nothing else than that which Moses, in the name of God, had described as the deepest and most radical crime of which the nation could be guilty. Jdg_2:13 shows the blindness of Israel in its deepest darkness. The people has forsaken its God of truth and purity, for the sake of Baal and Ashtaroth! That has come to pass against which Deu_4:19 warned as possible: “Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, shouldest bow down to them and serve them.” The luminaries of the heavens are the original symbols of ancient idolatry. Baal answers to Zeus, the Greek Light god. Ashtaroth, in like manner, corresponds to Hera (according to the meaning of her name, a Baalah), the Star-queen. Ashtoreth means “the star” (אֶסְתֵּר, Persian sitareh, ἀστήρ, star); in the plural her name is Ashtaroth. This plural expresses the Scripture phrase “host of heaven,” in one collective conception. As Elohim in its plural form represents the Deity, so Baalim represents Baaldom, and Ashtaroth the shining night-heavens. (Just as cives and civitas, בְּעָלִים and בַּעֲלָה, are used to express all that is included in the idea of the State.) The Greek form of Ashtoreth, it is well known, was Astarte. Hence, names formed like Abdastartus18 (Servant of Astarte), find their contrast in such as Obadiah (Servant of Jah), formed in the spirit of the Israelitish people. Astarte represents on the coast of Phœnicia the same popular conception, suggested by natural phenomena, which till a very late period Asia Minor worshipped in the goddess of Ephesus. The Greek conceptions of Hera, Artemis, and Aphrodite do not so coalesce in her as to prevent us from clearly finding the common source. From the instructive passages of Scripture, in which the language shows a relation of Astarte to the propagation of flocks (Deu_7:13; Deu_28:4), it is evident that as luminous night-goddess she, like Hera, was a patroness of corporeal fertility, an Ilithyia, Lucina, Mylitta. On account of this idea, which is characteristic of both goddesses, the heavenly Hera (Juno cœlestis) coincides with Aphrodite Urania, so that Hesychius remarks concerning Belthis (Baalath), that she may be the one or the other. Astarte was worshipped as Ashtoreth, not only in Zidon (1Ki_11:5; 2Ki_23:13), but throughout Canaan; special mention is made of her temple in Askelon (1Sa_31:10). It is evidently this temple of which Herodotus (i. 105) speaks as dedicated to Aphrodite Urania, and which, as the national sanctuary of Askelon, the Scythians destroyed. It was on account of its national character, that the Philistines deposited in it the armor of Saul as trophies. They saw in its goddess the victor over the defeated enemy, just as at Ephesus the repulse of the Cimmerians was attributed to the aid of Artemis. Powers of resistance and defense were ascribed to all those Asiatic goddesses who presided over the principle of fecundity in nature. Their weapons protect pacific nature and that which she cherishes, against the hostility of wild and savage forces. The worship of the Ephesian goddess is founded and celebrated by Amazons. Juno, the celestial, is represented with lance in hand. The same conception is indicated by ancient representations of Aphrodite, in which she appears armed and prepared for battle. Astarte is at all events considered favorable to her nation in war; since trophies of victory hang in her temple, and the capital of the terrible warrior Og bears the name Ashtaroth (Jos_9:10; Jos_12:4). This King Og of Bashan is regarded as a scion of the mighty Rephaim. These latter have their seat at Ashteroth Karnaim, where they are attacked by the eastern kings (Gen_14:5). Ashteroth Karnaim points to the horns of the crescent moon, by which also Astarte of Askelon is indicated on the coins of that city (cf. Stark, Gaza, p. 259). The armed Aphrodite in Sparta is the same with Helena or Selene, the moon-goddess,—a fact clearly demonstrative of her identity with Astarte. Moon and stars, the luminaries of the night-sky, are blended in Ashtaroth. She represents the collective host of heaven. Before this “host” Israel bowed down when it forsook its “Lord of hosts.” Baal and Ashtaroth stand for the whole national worship of Phœnicia, over against Jehovah, the God of the universe. They are the representatives of their nation’s prosperity; and it is therefore a profound conception, which Epiphanias says some held (Hœres. 55. cap. 2), which makes Hercules (Baal) to be the father, and Ashtaroth (or Asteria, τὴν καὶ ’Αστερίαν,) the mother, of Melchizedek. Thus when Melchizedek bowed himself before Abraham and Abraham’s God, the national spirit of Canaan submitted itself. When Israel prostrates itself before such symbols, it cannot fail to provoke the anger of its God.
Jdg_2:14. And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel. A climax appears also in the expressions concerning the displeasure of God. First, that which they do is evil in his sight (Jdg_2:11); then, they provoke Him to anger (Jdg_2:12; cf. Deu_4:25; Deu_9:18); finally, his anger is kindled (Jdg_2:14; also Num_25:3; Num_32:13).
And He delivered them into the hands of the oppressors [spoilers]—and gave them up into the hands of their enemies.19 Thus far the phraseology has been literally quoted from Mosaic utterances, except that Baal and Ashtaroth were substituted for sun, moon, and stars. The above words occur here for the first time. They express the historical consequences of Israel’s wrong-doing. When Israel forsakes God and his law, it loses the basis of its nationality. With God and God’s law, and through them, it is a people; without them, it has neither law nor national power. The gods after whom they run, do not at all belong to them. On the contrary, they are the property of nations who are their enemies. Israel left Egypt a crowd of slaves. It was God’s own revelation of Himself, fulfilling his promise to the fathers, that made it free. If it give up this revelation, it has no longer a basis of freedom. Freedom is henceforth impossible; for by serving the gods of other nations, it dissolves its own national existence. Hence, this faithlessness towards God, is the worst folly against itself. For the enemy who gave way before Israel’s God and Israel’s enthusiasm, will no longer spare the conquerors of Canaan when, like men without character, they kneel at strange altars. When God who elected Israel is not in the midst of the nation as its protector, it is like the defenseless hart which the hunter pursues. Such is the figure which underlies the expression: “and God gave them into the hands of their שֹׁסִים” The root שָׁכַס שָׁסָה, is not found in the Pentateuch, and occurs here for the first time. The shosim are enemies of the property of another, robbers, plunderers,—as the hunter robs his game of life and happiness. The word is kindred to the Greek χάζω, with the same meaning, although, to be sure, only the passive χάζομαι is in use. (It seems also that the Italian cacciare and the French chasser are to be derived from this word; but cf. Diez, Lex. der Röm. Spr., p. 79). Israel, having broken its covenant with God for the sake of men, was by these very men oppressed. They robbed it of goods and freedom. For God had “sold it,” like a person who has lost his freedom. What but servitude remained for Israel when it no longer possessed the power of God? It cannot stand before its enemies, as was foretold, Lev_26:37, in somewhat different words. A people that conquered only through the contrariety of its spirit with that of its enemies, must fall when it ceases to cherish that spirit. No one can have power to succeed, who himself destroys his sole vocation to success. Hence, Israel could no more be successful in anything. The measure of its triumph with God, is the measure of its misery without Him. Apostasy from God is always like a return to Egypt into bondage (Deu_28:68).
Jdg_2:15. As Jehovah had said, and as he had sworn unto them. By applying to their sin the very words used in the law, the narrator has already emphasized the enduring truthfulness of the divine announcements. Israel is to experience that everything threatened comes to pass; and with reason, for every promise also has been verified. But here he expresses himself still more plainly. The hand of the Lord (Deu_2:15) was against them for evil (Deu_29:20), as He “had sworn unto them.” No sentence evinces more plainly how closely the narrator keeps to the Mosaic writings. When God is said to swear unto Israel, it is almost always in connection with blessings to be bestowed. Only in two instances (Deu_2:14; cf. Jos_5:6), the Lord is represented as having sworn that to those who had not obeyed his voice, He would not show the land. In these, therefore, the oath is confirmatory of threatened punishment. The double form of expression also, that God spake and swore, is prefigured Deu_29:12 (13).
And they became greatly distressed, וַיֵּצֶר. Deu_28:50-52 describes the plunderers, who shall rob them of their cattle and their harvests. “Thou shalt be distressed in all thy gates” (וְהֵצַר לְךָ), is twice repeated in Judges 2:52. The narrator presupposes intimate acquaintance with the ancient writings, and therefore cites only their salient points.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
After the judgment of the word comes the judgment of the sword. He who ceases to remember the works of God, ceases also to enjoy the power of God. For him who shuts his eyes, the sun affords no light. Men are judged by the truth which they despise, and betrayed by the sin which they love. Israel can no longer withstand the nations over whom it formerly triumphed, because it courts their idols and leaves its own God.
Thus men suffer through the passions which they entertain. They are plundered, when instead of God, they serve Baal-Mammon. The judgment of the word which they forsake, is confirmed Men lose the freedom of the children of God, when (1) they are no longer grateful to God; consequently, (2) remember Him no more; hence, (3) attend no longer to the preaching of repentance; and despite of it, (4) serve idols.
Starke: He who engages in another worship, forsakes the true God, and apostatizes from Him. But woe to the man who does this: for he brings himself into endless trouble. The same: God is as true to his threats as to his promises. Lisco: The people whom trouble and bondage had brought to a consciousness of their guilt, sank again into idolatry through levity and commerce with heathen, and thus new chastisements became necessary. Gerlach: The judgment affords a deep glance into God’s government of the world, showing how He makes all sin subservient to his own power, by punishing it with the very evils that arise from it.
Footnotes:
[14][Jdg_2:11—הָרַע: lit. “the evil.” The use of the article, however, scarcely warrants the stress laid on it by Dr. Cassel (see below), as הָרַע, although most frequently used of idolatry, occurs also of sin in general and of other sins, cf. Num_32:13; 2Sa_12:9; Psa_51:6. The art, is probably used here as with other words denoting abstract ideas, cf. Ges. Gr. § 109, Rem. 1, c.—Tr.]
[15][Jdg_2:14.—Bachmann: “The giving up to the enemy is represented as a selling. The term of comparison, however, is not the price received, but the complete surrender into the stranger’s power.”—Tr.]
[16][Jdg_2:15.—The E. V. takes בְּכָל־מָקוֹם = בְּכֹל, and אֲשֶׁר as the accus whither, cf. Num_13:27. So also Bertheau, Keil, and most versions and commentators. Dr. Cassel takes אְשֶׁר as accus. where, as in Gen_35:13, 2Sa_7:7. Dr. Bachmann thinks it safer “in accordance with 2Ki_18:7 (cf. Jos_1:7; Jos_1:9), to understand the whole expression not of the place of the undertaking, but of the undertaking itself (cf. Deu_28:20 : מִשְׁלַח יָרְךָ אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה בְּכָל־, with Jdg_2:19 :. … בְּבֹאֶדָ בְּצֵאתֶדָ): lit. “in all what = for what they went out,” i. e. (since the connection points to matters of war) in all undertakings for which they took the field. It is at least safe to say that 2Ki_18:7 requires this interpretation of the phrase in question, cf. Thenius in loc.—Tr.]
[17]Cf. my Abhandlung über Wissensch. und Akademien, p. 38.
[18]Compare Methuastartus (מתוצשתרת), formed like Methubaal, Methusalem, Man of (belonging to) Astarte. Compare אמצשתרת, “my mother is Astarte,” on the Sidonian Inscription of Eshmunazar. Rödiger (Zeitschrift d. d. m. Ges., 1865, p. 656) regards it as an abbreviation for אמתצשתרת, “maid-servant of Astarte,” wherein he is followed by others.
[19][On these words Bachmann remarks: “This does not describe a twofold visitation, either simultaneous or successive: first spoiling, then servitude (P. Mart.), or roving robber bands and regular hostile armies (Schm.); still less (Cajet.) a threefold degree of calamity—spoiling, slavery, flight [the latter indicated by ‘they were no longer able to stand before their enemies’—Tr.]; but God in abandoning the people to the resistless violence of their hostile neighbors, does thereby deliver them into the hands of the spoilers.”—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 WICKEDNESS OF THE NEW GENERATION AFTER JOSHUA. (Jdg 2:11-19)
WICKEDNESS OF THE NEW GENERATION AFTER JOSHUA. (Jdg 2:11-19)
the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord--This chapter, together with the first eight verses of the next [Jdg. 2:11-3:8], contains a brief but comprehensive summary of the principles developed in the following history. An attentive consideration of them, therefore, is of the greatest importance to a right understanding of the strange and varying phases of Israelitish history, from the death of Joshua till the establishment of the monarchy.
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served Baalim--The plural is used to include all the gods of the country.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 11. Did evil — Practical infidelity follows swiftly upon…
11. Did evil — Practical infidelity follows swiftly upon the heels of speculative infidelity. Decay of morals inevitably follows decay of faith. A curious proof of this fact is imbedded in almost every language in those words whose primary signification implies unbelief, and whose secondary meaning is expressive of practical wickedness. For example, miscreant first signified a misbeliever, then a vile wretch; the word unprincipled first had reference to speculative religious opinions, then passed over into its more common signification of profligate and vicious.
Served Baalim — Baal is a Hebrew common noun signifying master, or owner. With the article it becomes a proper name of the supreme male divinity of the Phenician and Canaanitish nations, having the peculiarity of being used in the plural, Baalim, signifying different modifications of the same god. This was not the first time that Israel was seduced to this worship — see Num_25:3-5 — nor was it the last, for this form of pagan cultus continued in Israel up to the time of Samuel, at whose rebuke it was renounced. 1Sa_7:4. It broke out again like a deadly contagion, and became the religion of the court and people under Ahab. It had the advantage of being a gorgeous ceremonial, dazzling the senses of the ignorant masses. It captivated many of the Hebrews during the reign of the Kings.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11. The Deuteronomist’s rationale of the period of the…
11. The Deuteronomist’s rationale of the period of the Judges begins here. He starts with one of his recurring formulae, did evil in the sight of the Lord, Jdg_3:7; Jdg_3:12, Jdg_4:1, Jdg_6:1, Jdg_10:6, Jdg_13:1; 1Ki_11:6; 1Ki_14:22 and often; Deu_4:25; Deu_9:18 etc.
and served the Baalim] See on Jdg_2:13. The words anticipate the ‘forsaking of the Lord’ in Jdg_2:12, and Rd’s account of the false worship in Jdg_3:7; they look like a gloss on the first half of the verse.
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–13 (11) Did evil in the sight of the Lord.—Rather,…
(11) Did evil in the sight of the Lord.—Rather, “the evil.” Used especially of apostasy (see Jdg_3:7-12; Jdg_4:1; Jdg_6:1; Jdg_10:6; Jdg_13:1). They fell into the very idolatry against which they had been emphatically warned (Deu_4:19).
Baalim.—Rather, “the Baalim.” Baal means “lord,” or “possessor,” and in its idolatrous sense was applied especially to the sun, that was worshipped as the great nature-power, under a multitude of different names and attributes. Baal-worship was evidently Phoenician (Mövers, Phönizier, 184, § 9), and the traces of it are still seen in the Carthaginian names, Hasdru-bal, Hannibal, Maherbal, Adherbal, &c.
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“ With these came they who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth: those male,
These feminine.”
Milton, Par. Lost, i. 420.
The splendour of the worship, as well as its sensual and orgiastic character, made it very attractive to the backsliding Israelites (1Ki_16:32; 1 Kings 28:26; 2Ki_11:18; 2Ki_10:22; Jer_7:9; Jer_19:5). In Scripture we read of Baalzebub (“lord of filth, or flies”); a Jewish term of scorn for Baalzebul, (“lord of the heavenly habitation”); Baal-samîn (Son_8:1; Plaut. Poem. v. 2, 67; Jdg_10:10; Num_32:28); Baal-berith (“lord of the covenant,” Jdg_8:33), &c. In Hos_2:16-17 there seems to be a warning against the too facile use of the word, “And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishî (my husband), and shalt call me no more Baalî (my lord). For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.” (Comp. Jer_23:27; Zec_13:2.) It is at least doubtful whether the name has any philological connection with the Babylonian Bel.
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The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11–13 HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Vers. 11-13. Israel"s apostasy.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Vers. 11-13. Israel"s apostasy.
The repeated apostasy of Israel and the consequences of it furnish the ever-recurring theme of the darker pages of the Book of Judges. It may be well, therefore, to look at the subject generally, apart from special instances.
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I THE NATURE OF THE APOSTASY.
1. It consisted in forsaking God. All sin begins here, because while we live near to him it is impossible for us to love and follow evil. If we cannot serve God and mammon, so long as we are faithful to God we shall be safe from the idolatry of worldliness. The guilt of forsaking God is great because it involves
1. disobedience to our Father,
2. ingratitude to our Benefactor,
3. the fall from devotion to the Highest to lower pursuits.
2. This apostasy consisted in the worship of other gods. The shrine of the heart cannot long be empty. Man is a religious being, and he will have some religion; if not the highest and purest, then some lower form of worship. We must have a master, a God.
3. There was nothing inventive in the apostasy of Israel. The people only worshipped the old deities of the native population. They who give up Christianity for supposed novel forms of religion generally find themselves landed in some old-world superstition.
4. The guilt of the apostasy was aggravated by the character of the worship into which the people fell. This was
(1) false the worship of supposed gods which possessed no Divine power;
(2) materialistic the worship of idols in place of the unseen spiritual God; and
(3) immoral the worship of impure deities with impure rites.
II THE CAUSES OF THE APOSTASY.
1. Defective education. So long as Joshua and his contemporary elders lived the people remained faithful. Apostasy arose in a new "generation which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel." But if the former generation had trained its children aright they would not have been thus ignorant. The Church should feel the supreme importance of the religious education of the young. Her continued existence depends on this. Children do not inherit their father"s religion by natural succession. They must be trained in it.
2. Circumstances of ease. While the people were surrounded with the perils of the wilderness they displayed a moral heroism which melted beneath the sun of peaceful prosperity. Worldly comfort brings a great inducement to religious negligence.
3. Tolerance of evil. The earlier generation had failed to extirpate the idolatry of Canaan, and now this becomes a snare to the later generation. Indifference and indolence in regard to the wickedness which is around us is certain to open the door of temptation to our children, if not to ourselves.
4. The worldly attractions of the lower life. The service of God involves high spiritual efforts, purity of life, self-sacrifice, and difficult tasks. (Jos_24:19) The service of the world is more agreeable to the pleasures of sense and selfishness. Regarded from the low ground of sense and with the short sight of worldly wisdom, it is easier to worship Baal than to worship the Eternal. A.
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The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v11 They forsook the Lord God of their fathers.
Jdg_2:11-15
They forsook the Lord God of their fathers.
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Israels obstinacy and Gods patience
This passage sums up the Book of Judges, and also the history of Israel for over four hundred years. Like the overture of an oratorio, it sounds the main themes of the story which follows. That story has four chapters, repeated with dreary monotony over and over again. They are: Relapse into idolatry, retribution, respite and deliverance, and brief return to God. The last of these phases soon passes into fresh relapse, and then the old round is gone all over again, as regularly as the white and red lights and the darkness come round in a revolving lighthouse lantern, or the figures in a circulating decimal fraction.
1. The first is the continual tendency to relapse into idolatry. The fact itself, and the frank prominence given to it in the Old Testament, are both remarkable. As to the latter, certainly, if the Old Testament histories have the same origin as the chronicles of other nations, they present most anomalous features. Where do we find any other people whose annals contain nothing that can minister to national vanity, and have for one of their chief themes the sins of the nation? As to the fact of the continual relapses into idolatry, nothing could be more natural than that the recently received and but imperfectly assimilated revelation of the one God, with its stringent requirements of purity and its severe prohibition of idols, should easily slip off these rude and merely outward worshippers. Instead of thinking of the Israelites as monsters of ingratitude and backsliding, we come near the truth, and make a better use of the history, when we see in it a mirror which shows us our own image. The strong earthward pull is ever acting on us, and, unless God hold us up, we too shall slide downwards. Idolatry and worldliness are persistent; for they are natural. Firm adherence to God is less common, because it goes against the strong forces, within and without, which bind us to earth. Apparently the relapses into idolatry did not imply the entire abandonment of the worship of Jehovah, but the worship of Baalim and Ashtaroth along with it. Such illegitimate mixing up of deities was accordant with the very essence of polytheism, and repugnant to that of the true worship of God. These continual relapses have an important bearing on the question of the origin of the Jewish conception of God. They are intelligible only if we take the old-fashioned explanation, that its origin was a Divine revelation, given to a rude people. They are unintelligible if we take the new-fashioned explanation that the monotheism of Israel was the product of natural evolution, or was anything but a treasure put by God into their hands, which they did not appreciate, and would willingly have thrown away.
2. Note the swift-following retribution: The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. That phrase is no sign of a lower conception of God than the gospel brings. Wrath is an integral part of love, when the lover is perfect righteousness and the loved are sinful. The most terrible anger is the anger of perfect gentleness, as expressed in that solemn paradox of the apostle of love, when he speaks of the wrath of the Lamb. God was angry with Israel because He loved them, and desired their love, for their own good. The rate of Israels conquest was determined by Israels faithful adherence to God. That is a standing law. Victory for us in all the good fight of life depends on our cleaving to Him, and forsaking all other. The Divine motive, if we may so say, in leaving the unsubdued nations in the land, was to provide the means of proving Israel. Would it not have been better, since Israel was so weak, to secure for it an untempted period? Surely it is a strange way of helping a man who has stumbled, to make provisions that future occasions of stumbling shall lie on his path. But so the perfect wisdom which is perfect love ever ordains. There shall be no unnatural greenhouse shelter provided for weak plants. The liability to fall imposes the necessity of trial, but the trial does not impose the necessity of falling. The devil tempts, because he hopes that we shall fall. God tries, in order that we may stand, and that our feet may be strengthened by the trial.
3. Respite and deliverance are described in verses 16 and 18. The R.V. has wisely substituted a simple and for nevertheless at the beginning of verse 16. The latter word implies that the raising up of the judges was a reversal of what had gone before; and implies that it was a continuation. And its use here carries the lesson that Gods judgment and deliverance come from the same source, and are harmonious parts of one educational process. Nor is this thought negatived by the statement in verse 18 that it repented the Lord. That strong metaphorical ascription to Him of human emotion simply implies that His action, which of necessity is the expression of His will, was changed. The will of the moment before had been to punish; the will of the next moment was to deliver, because their groaning showed that the punishment had done its work. But the two wills were one in ultimate purpose, and the two sets of acts were equally and harmoniously parts of one design. The surgeon is carrying out one plan when he cuts deep into quivering flesh, and when he sews up the wounds which he himself has made. Gods deliverances are linked to His chastisements by and, not by nevertheless.
4. A word only can be given to the last stage in the dreary round. It comes back to the first. The religion of the delivered people lasted as long as the judges life. When he died, it died. There is intense bitterness in the remark to that effect in verse 19. Did God then die with the judge? Was it Samson, or Jehovah, that had delivered? (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.
Gods methods with nations
I. Some characteristics of national sins (Jdg_2:11-13). There is an amazing tendency in communities to commit the same sins. We are such creatures of imitation that every community develops a certain individuality; all composing it, while having personal peculiarities, do yet have many modes of speech and thought and habits of life in common. Every nation, every city, has its characteristic virtues, its characteristic sins. It is easy to follow a multitude to do evil. So the Jewish people developed a propensity to idolatry. But a still more striking fact regarding national sin is the way it is promoted by the influence of other nations. Israel followed the gods of the people that were round about them.
II. The retribution of nations (verses 14, 15). A nation must be punished in this life if at all, for it has no hereafter. Consequently, in national experience the connection between sin and the loss of prosperity is most distinctly seen.
III. The importance of good men as leaders (Jdg_2:16-18). It is Gods method to elevate and save nations by the influence of men whom He brings forward for the purpose. They may hold very different positions in public life, they may be men of very different character and abilities, but we are to recognise the work they do as made possible through the goodness of God. We must trust God more in national emergencies, and pay more heed to the counsels of men who are appointed of God to be our leaders. It is worth our notice here that the judges of Israel were simply the vicegerents of God. God was the Chief Magistrate of the nation. He claimed absolute authority. The government was a theocracy; that is, God enacted the laws of the nation, interpreted them, and enforced them. He combined in Himself the three departments of government--the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. Our governments are under equal obligation with the judges of old to bring Gods thought before the people and to enforce His will. Our rulers show themselves to be raised up of God, and are delivering us from the misery of our national sins only as they act for God and express His will in their government of the people.
IV. The amazing tendency of nations to relapse into sin (Jdg_2:19). It is a sad record, but true to nature and repeated in every age of the world. Reform makes progress, as the tide advances, by refluent waves, only each succeeding wave rolls a little higher up the beach. The wave sweeps in, but it does not stay there. It rolls back and leaves the shore bare, and everything seems swept out to sea. That is a very discouraging feature to the eager reformer. There is need for us of to-day, in view of this law of retrogression in progress, of two things. One is never to be discouraged by any seeming discomfiture. There are undoubtedly moral lapses in communities. In Cromwells day, in England, there was a great advance in morals and high purpose, but with the death of Cromwell and the accession of Charles
II. the wave of progress flowed back again and left the unhappy kingdom demoralised and given over to folly. But this was only a temporary reverse. In time the right re-asserted itself, morality triumphed, and the nation rose to a higher level than ever before. We may be sure this is Gods design for us.
V. The probation and discipline of nations by trial (Jdg_2:20-23). Just as David was fitted for kingship by the rude discipline of his life as an outlaw, so was Israel fitted to introduce Christ to the world by its bitter experiences in the time of the judges, in the days of the captivity, and under the hated Roman yoke. God is doing the same thing for this nation, training it for great usefulness, or at least giving it opportunity to be so trained, by its successive trials. (A. P. Foster.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v11 Jdg_2:11. And served Baalim.] The pl. form indicates the…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Jdg_2:11. And served Baalim.] The pl. form indicates the different Baalim, or the different characters and modifications under which Baal, the sun-god, was worshipped, rather than the different images of Baal. The singular, Baal = “lord.” principally in the sense of owner and possessor. “When the worshippers wished to express a particular Baal they generally added some particular epithet, as Baal-zephon, Baal-peor, Baal-zebub, Baal-shamayim, &c. The two former were adored by the Moabites; Baal-zebub, by the Ekronites; Baal-berith was honoured at Shechem; and Baal-shamayim, the lord of the heavens, was adored among the Phœnicians, Syrians, Chaldeans, &c. Probably among all these people, Baal meant the sun.” [Dr. A. Clarke.]
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Jdg_2:13. Ashtaroth.] The pl. form of Ashtoreth, the Greek Astarte. Solomon followed the impure worship of this idolatry (1Ki_11:5; 1Ki_11:33; 2Ki_23:13). “Ashteroth Karnaim points to the horns of the crescent moon, by which also Astarte of Askelon is indicated on the coins of that city (cf. Stark, Guza, p. 259). The armed Aphrodite in Sparta is the same with Helena or Selene, the moon-goddess, a fact clearly demonstrative of her identity with Astarte. Moon and stars, the luminaries of the night-sky, are blended in Ashtaroth. She represents the collective host of heaven.” [Cassel.] Thus, Ashtoreth cannot be limited to Venus, but is the moon-goddess, including Venus and the rest of the stars, Ashtoreth of the night thus standing over against Baal of the day. This relation of Ashtoreth to the moon is of importance in understanding Joshua’s command for the moon “to stand still,” as well as the sun.
Jdg_2:15. Whithersoever they went out the hand of the Lord was against them.] “This is in terrible contrast to what is said in Jos_1:9.” [Speaker’s Com.] Hence the relevancy and great significance of the quotation in Jdg_2:6-9. They were greatly distressed.] Lit., “And it became to them very narrow.” וַיֵּצֶר, from צוּר, “to straiten, to press upon, to compress;” thence, intrans., “to become straitened” (cf. Jdg_10:9).
Jdg_2:16. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges.] Heb., “and the Lord raised,” &c. This is the first use of the word shoph’tim, or judges, from which the book takes its name.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jdg_2:11-16
MAN’S SIN AND GOD’S ANGER
We see in these verses, sin notwithstanding much goodness, anger on account of grievous sin, and mercy because of great distress.
I. The sin of the Lord’s people. Their transgression was of a twofold nature.
1. They forsook God. (a) They forsook Him, notwithstanding His holy character. The lofty manifestations of His holy name made no abiding impression on them. The pure truths which He had given them had no place in their hearts. They preferred the lewd service of idols to the knowledge of the holy God. The reason of unbelief and forsaking God now, is often because God’s Word is too pure and too holy in its requirements. No man forsakes God because God is below his ideal of goodness. (b) They forsook God in spite of His Divine right to their service. They were not their own, but bought with a price. God was their Maker. He had “brought them out of the land of Egypt.” He had fed their fathers forty years long in the wilderness, and often saved them when they were ready to perish. (c) They forsook God, forgetting His boundless goodness to themselves. The mercy in which the Lord had dealt with their fathers He had shown to them no less. He had helped them in all their necessity. (d) They forsook God on the very ground which He had given to them for an inheritance. Every city which they held was Jehovah’s gift. They set up their idols on the land which He had won for them with a high hand and an outstretched arm. He who sins in these days, always sins with strength and amid opportunities which the Lord has given. This is ever one of the heinous features of all transgression. God gives men health, riches, intellectual gifts, a comely person, many social advantages; and when men sin they invariably use God’s favours as a means of offence against God. (e) They forsook God, heedless of many warnings. Jehovah had repeatedly warned them in plain and unmistakable terms, through both Moses and Joshua, of these very transgressions of which they were now guilty. He had warned them of the danger of disobedience by the defeat at Ai. More recently the angel of His own presence had warned them at Bochim. They had themselves affirmed to Joshua, in a solemn covenant at Shechem, that they would reject all the strange gods of the Canaanites. They had said, “The Lord our God will we serve, and His voice will we obey.” They had heard Joshua say, “Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve Him;” and, accepting that solemn challenge, they had answered back, “We are witnesses.” God ever has room to say to those who transgress, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.” All sin is “without excuse.”
2. They served the Baalim and Ashtaroth of the Canaanites. (Different forms of Baal-worship have already been mentioned in the Critical Notes on this verse.) “The worship of Baal amongst the Jews seems to have been appointed with much pomp and ceremonial. Temples were erected to him (1Ki_16:32; 2Ki_11:18); his images were set up (2Ki_10:26) his altars were very numerous (Jer_11:13), were erected particularly on lofty eminences (1Ki_18:20), and on the roofs of houses (Jer_32:29); there were priests in great numbers (1Ki_18:19), and of various classes (2Ki_10:19); the worshippers appear to have been arrayed in appropriate robes (2Ki_10:22); the worship was performed by burning incense (Jer_7:9) and offering burnt sacrifices, which occasionally consisted of human victims (Jer_19:5); the officiating priests danced with frantic shouts around the altar, and cut themselves with knives to excite the attention and compassion of the god (1Ki_18:26-28). Throughout all the Phœnician colonies we continually find traces of the worship of this god; nor need we hesitate to regard the Babylonian Bel (Isa_46:1), or Belus, as essentially identical with Baal, though perhaps under some modified form.” [Smith’s Bib. Dict.] In the same manner, there can be little doubt that the Assyrian goddess Ishtar is, for the most part, the same as the Phœnician Ashtaroth. In the “Assyrian Discoveries” of the late Mr. George Smith, many of the inscriptions refer to the goddess Ishtar and to the honours demanded and rendered in her worship. It need hardly be said that the distinguishing feature between the worship of Jehovah, whom the Israelites forsook, and of Baal and Ashtaroth, for whom they went astray, was emphatically this;—one was pure and self-denying, the other was lewd and self-indulgent. They who change their gods, generally do so because their affections are set on things of the earth, and not on things which are above; because sensuousness and indulgence of the passions are more pleasant than the self-denying ordinances of the God of heaven.
II. The severity of the Lord’s anger. “The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.”
1. It was terrible in its reality. Some people lay so much stress upon the mercy of God, that they get to treat His anger as a mere sentiment, having little expression except in words. God’s anger is the anger of truth, and righteousness, and love. It is no less severe because it is calm and full of patient waiting. The angel does not smite at Bochim, but the smiting is none the less terrible when it comes.
“When anger rushes unrestrained to action,
Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way.
The man of thought strikes deepest, and strikes safely.” [Savage.]
God bears long with His disobedient children, but woe comes heavily on those who mistake His patience for indifference.
2. God’s anger was fearful in its consequences. “He delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them, and He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, that so they could not any longer stand before their enemies.” These consequences became matters of history. The Book of Judges is one early fragment of that history. When men would forget the anger of the Lord in the more pleasing thought of His mercy, they should remember that Divine anger has an awful history. No vapid sentiments can do away with the history of the deluge, with the overthrow of Sodom, with the plagues of the wilderness, with this suffering under the judges, or with the subsequent captivity at Babylon. Men may refine upon future punishment as they will; past punishment will always stand ready to revise their theorisings in the human judgment, and an ineffaceable sense of the deserts of sin stands equally ready to correct them in the human conscience. Any calm and tender preacher of the wrath of the Lamb is good against all the books that were ever written to make light of it; history and conscience make short work of what may be called the poetry of the appetites.
3. God’s anger is not vindictive. There ever seems to be in it far more thought for truth and for His creatures than for Himself. The wise man can do little but fear an anger which rests on a basis so broad as this, and which moves to punishment with slow gentleness through so many remonstrances.
4. The anger of God is necessary. Unlike ours, His anger is Mercy’s last plea with the obstinate. It is necessary for the vindication of His own laws; it thus becomes necessary for justice; it is necessary for those who have not been so fully tempted to transgress; it is, at least in this life, necessary for the transgressor himself. Fancy the effect, in a single year, if the thought of the reality of God’s anger were blotted out from the universal conscience of living men to-morrow!
III. The tenderness of the Lord’s pity. “Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.” Man’s distress is, in itself, a plea before God. It was “when they were greatly distressed” that the Lord was thus moved to compassion. Our suffering becomes a prayer to God, even when no word of prayer is uttered. It was so with the Israelites in Egypt. When “the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant” (Exo_2:23-24). “Mercy hath but its name from misery,” said Thomas Binney, “and is no other thing than to lay another’s misery to heart.” It is the severe Apostle James who tells us that “the Lord is very pitiful.” The severity of truth and the tenderness of love ever dwell together. The anger of the Lord makes His mercy very beautiful; the mercy of the Lord makes His anger very terrible.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
THE ALL-SEEING EYE OF GOD.—Jdg_2:11
I. He who “does evil,” always does it “in the sight of Jehovah.” There is no other place in which to do it. “Thou art acquainted with all my ways.”
II. He who forsakes the Lord is still and ever in the presence of the Lord. He “compasses the path and lying down” of the idolater also.
III. He who serves, other gods,” ever bows down to them under the eye of the only God. All the idolatries of men are carried on at the foot of the throne of their insulted Lord.
Mrs. E. B. Browning tells us that though all her gentlest-hearted friends could concentre their gentleness in one heart, that still grew gentler, till its pulse was less for life than pity, she must hesitate to reveal her own heart even to such a friend. She says—
“I should fear
Some plait between the brows, some rougher chime
In the free voice;”
and then, thinking of those who stand continually under the glance of Omniscience, she exclaims in wonder and envy concerning the holy angels,
“Who bear calmly all the time
This everlasting face-to-face with God.”
We all have to bear this everlasting face-to-face with God every day; many bear it heedlessly, because His face is not yet visible. They walk before Him neither by sight nor faith, but they are “in the sight of the Lord,” nevertheless. Human blindness blots out of existence nothing that is. Every tree is a tree, whether seen or not; every rose is beautiful, though every passer-by has lost his eyes. So man is not out of “the sight of the Lord,” because the Lord is out of the sight of man.
FORSAKING GOD.—Jdg_2:12
I. When men forsake God they seek false gods. Few men propose to do without a god. It is only “the fool” who hath “said in his heart, There is no God.” Man must have a god. Men may forsake the living God in heart and thought, and still cleave to Him in their creed. Even then, they both forsake God, and serve false gods. The essence of idolatry is in having a new god, not in serving the new god openly.
II. When men forsake God it is usually through misguided love. It is “with the heart,” also, that man believeth unto wickedness. Changed affections ever have to do with a change of gods.
III. When men forsake God they do so in misdirected efforts. They still “serve;” and serving idols, they serve where the yoke is no longer easy, and the burden no longer light. Israel forsook God, but “served Baalim,” and “followed other gods and bowed themselves unto them.” He who forsakes the fountain of living waters, always finds a heavier task in hewing out “broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
IV. When men attempt to forsake the Lord, they attempt what is impossible. They may follow other gods, but God, from whom they would depart, still follows them.
1. If men could forsake God, they would be godless indeed. With exquisite sarcasm Jeremiah says of the gods of the idolaters: “They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not; they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them, for they cannot do evil; neither also is it in them to do good.”
2. But no man can forsake God. The children of Israel tried to, for many generations, but presently returned even from Babylon to build again the Temple of Jehovah. God will not forsake us. He will be for us, as He was for Israel under Joshua; or He will be against us, as He was often against Israel under the judges (Jdg_2:15). “He must reign.” There is no Tarshish to which we can flee that is beyond His presence. There is no sea on which we can sail that He does not rule its waves. There is no shipmaster with whom we can take passage whom He cannot constrain to cry to us, “What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God.” The Lord has His messengers of reproof beside every idol altar before which it is possible for men to bow down.
CHANGING GODS.—Jdg_2:12-13
I. Gods changed, heedless of the claims of the only true God. Jehovah had done great things for them, but they were not glad in Him.
II. Gods changed out of regard to indulgences which might be afforded. Children sometimes think a foolish nurse kinder than wise parents. That is because they are children.
III. Gods changed, and prosperity changing also. He who had been for them in many a field, was turned to be their enemy, and fought against them (Jdg_2:15.) That could only end in their being “greatly distressed.”
IV. Gods changed, and heaven finding therein an occasion for astonishment. “Hath a nation changed their gods which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be ye very desolate, saith the Lord” (Jer_2:11-12).
I. Motives for changing gods. These all lay in the direction of sense, and of time.
II. Determination in changing gods. Neither Moses nor Joshua, and not even the angel at Bochim, sufficed to hinder these men, whose hearts were set in them to do evil.
III. Results from changing gods.
1. The results which were external and general. “They were greatly distressed” in their surroundings.
2. The results which were internal and personal. Every man must have been troubled in his own conscience.
IV. God’s way of asserting that He alone is God.
1. He chastised them severely.
2. He chastised them by the very people with whom they had made leagues.
3. He chastised them by the corruptions which came of their newly-chosen worship.
THE LORD GOD OF OUR FATHERS.—Jdg_2:12
The expressions, “My father’s God,” “the God of his fathers,” “God of our fathers,” “God of my fathers,” &c., are used many times in the Scriptures. The thought is common to both the Old and New Testament utterances. Dr. Parker, under the title, “The Pathos of Theology,” has a suggestive outline on the phrase, as occurring in Exo_15:2. An abstract from this is here given. “My father’s God”:—
“
I. Then religion was no new thing to them.… Religion should not be an originality to us; it should not be a novel sensation; it should be the common breath of our daily life, and the mention of the name of God in the relation of our experiences ought to excite no mere amazement.
“
II. Then their father’s religion was not concealed from them. They knew that their father had a God.… Is it possible that your child is unaware that you have a God? Is it possible that your servants may be ignorant of the existence of your religion?
“
III. Yet it does not follow that the father and the child must have the same God. Religion is not hereditary. You have power deliberately to sever the connection between yourself and the God of your fathers. It is a terrible power.
“
IV. Then we are debtors to the religious past. There are some results of goodness we inherit independently of our own will. This age inherits the civilisation of the past. The child is the better for his father’s temperance. Mephibosheth received honours for Jonathan’s sake. The processes of God are not always consummated in the age with which they begin. Generations may pass away, and then the full blessing may come. We are told that some light which may be reaching the earth to-day, started from its source a thousand years ago. What is true in astronomy is also true in moral processes and events; to-day we are inheriting the results of martyrdoms, sacrifices, testimonies, and pledges which stretch far back into the grey past of human history.
“The text impels us to ask a few practical questions:—
“
1. Are you so much wiser than your father that you can afford to set aside his example?
2. Will you undertake to break the line of a holy succession?
3. Will you inherit all that your father has given you in name, in reputation, in social position, and throw away all the religious elements which made him what he was? You would not willingly forego one handful of his material possessions. Are you willing to thrust out his Saviour?
4. Your father could not live without God,—can you? Your father encountered death in the name of the Living One. How do you propose to encounter the same dread antagonist? When your father was dying, he said that God was the strength of his heart, and would be his portion for ever. He declared that but for the presence of his Saviour he would greatly fear the last cold river which rolled between him and eternity, but that in the presence of Christ that chilling stream had no terror for him. When the battle approached the decisive hour, your father said, ‘Thanks be unto God which giveth to us the victory,’—how do you propose to wind up the story of your pilgrimage?” [Dr. Parker.]
IDOLATRY
“Idolatry! you cannot find any more gross, any more cruel, on the broad earth, than within the area of a mile around this pulpit (in New York). Dark minds, from which God is obscured; deluded souls, whose fetish is the dice-box or the bottle; apathetic spirits, steeped in sensual abomination, unmoved by a moral ripple, soaking in the swamp of animal vitality. False gods, more hideous, more awful than Moloch or Baal; worshipped with shrieks, worshipped with curses, with the hearth-stone for the bloody altar, and the drunken husband for the immolating priest, and women and children for the victims.” [Chapin.]
“A singular phenomenon, known as the Spectre of the Brocken, is seen on a certain mountain in Germany. The traveller who at dawn stands on the topmost ridge, beholds a colossal shadowy spectre moving on the summits of the distant hills. But, in fact, it is only his own shadow projected upon the morning mists by the rising sun, and it imitates, of course, every movement of its creator. So heathen nations have mistaken their own image for Deity. Their gods display human frailties and passions, and scanty virtues, projected and magnified upon the heavens, just as the small figures on the slide of a magic lantern are projected magnified and illuminated upon a white sheet.” [E. B.]
EFFECTS OF THE LORD’S ANGER.—Jdg_2:14-15
“After the judgment of the word comes the judgment of the sword.
“He who ceases to remember the works of God, ceases also to enjoy the power of God. For him who shuts his eyes, the sun affords no light.
“Men are judged by the truth which they despise, and betrayed by the sin which they love. Israel can no longer withstand the nations over whom it formerly triumphed, because it courts their idols and leaves its own God.” [Cassel.]
“He who engages in another worship, forsakes the true God, and apostatises from Him. But woe to the man who does this, for he brings himself into endless trouble.
“God is as true to His threats as to His promises.” [Starke.]
“The judgment affords a deep glance into God’s government of the world, showing how He makes all sin subservient to His own power, by punishing it with the very evils that arise from it.” [Gerlach.]
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v11 Jdg 2:11 - Jdg 2:23.
Judges
ISRAEL’S OBSTINACY AND GOD’S PATIENCE
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Jdg 2:11 - Jdg 2:23.
This passage sums up the Book of Judges, and also the history of Israel for over four hundred years. Like the overture of an oratorio, it sounds the main themes of the story which follows. That story has four chapters, repeated with dreary monotony over and over again. They are: Relapse into idolatry, retribution, respite and deliverance, and brief return to God. The last of these phases soon passes into fresh relapse, and then the old round is gone all over again, as regularly as the white and red lights and the darkness reappear in a revolving lighthouse lantern, or the figures recur in a circulating decimal fraction. That sad phrase which begins this lesson, ‘The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord,’ is repeated at the beginning of each new record of apostacy, on which duly follow, as outlined here, the oppression by the enemy, the raising up of a deliverer, the gleam of brightness which dies with him, and then, da capo, ‘the children of Israel did evil,’ and all the rest as before. The names change, but the incidents are the same. There is something extremely impressive in this uniformity of the plan of the book, which thus sets in so strong light the persistence through generations of the same bad strain in the nation’s blood, and the unwearying patience of God. The story of these successive recurrences of the same sequence of events occupies the book to the end of chapter xvi., and the remainder of it is taken up with two wild stories deeply stained with the lawlessness and moral laxity of these anarchic times. We may best bring out the force of this summary by considering in their order the four stages signalised.
I. The first is the continual tendency to relapse into idolatry. The fact itself, and the frank prominence given to it in the Old Testament, are both remarkable. As to the latter, certainly, if the Old Testament histories have the same origin as the chronicles of other nations, they present most anomalous features. Where do we find any other people whose annals contain nothing that can minister to national vanity, and have for one of their chief themes the sins of the nation? The history of Israel, as told in Scripture, is one long indictment of Israel. The peculiarity is explicable, if we believe that, whoever or how numerous soever its authors, God was its true Author, as He is its true theme, and that the object of its histories is not to tell the deeds of Israel, but those of God for Israel.
As to the fact of the continual relapses into idolatry, nothing could be more natural than that the recently received and but imperfectly assimilated revelation of the one God, with its stringent requirements of purity, and its severe prohibition of idols, should easily slip off from these rude and merely outward worshippers. Joshua’s death without a successor, the dispersion of the tribes, the difficulty of communication when much of the country was still in the hands of its former possessors, would all weaken the sense of unity, which was too recent to be firm, and would expose the isolated Israelites to the full force of the temptation to idolatry. It is difficult for us fairly to judge the immense strain required for resistance to it. The conception of one sole God was too high to be easily retained. A shrine without a deity seemed bare and empty. The Law stringently bridled passions which the hideous worship of the Canaanites stimulated. No wonder that, when the first generation of the conquerors had passed away, their successors lapsed into the universal polytheism, with its attendant idolatry and immorality. Instead of thinking of the Israelites as monsters of ingratitude and backsliding, we come nearer the truth, and make a better use of the history, when we see in it a mirror which shows us our own image. The strong earthward pull is ever acting on us, and, unless God hold us up, we too shall slide downwards. ‘Hath a nation changed their gods, which yet are no gods? but My people hath changed their glory for that which doth not profit.’ Idolatry and worldliness are persistent; for they are natural. Firm adherence to God is less common, because it goes against the strong forces, within and without, which bind us to earth.
Apparently the relapses into idolatry did not imply the entire abandonment of the worship of Jehovah, but the worship of Baalim and Ashtaroth along with it. Such illegitimate mixing up of deities was accordant with the very essence of polytheism, and repugnant to that of the true worship of God. The one may be tolerant, the other cannot be. To unite Baal with Jehovah was to forsake Jehovah.
These continual relapses have an important bearing on the question of the origin of the ‘Jewish conception of God.’ They are intelligible only if we take the old-fashioned explanation, that its origin was a divine revelation, given to a rude people. They are unintelligible if we take the new-fashioned explanation that the monotheism of Israel was the product of natural evolution, or was anything but a treasure put by God into their hands, which they did not appreciate, and would willingly have thrown away. The foul Canaanitish worship was the kind of thing in which, if left to themselves, they would have wallowed. How came such people by such thoughts as these? The history of Israel’s idolatry is not the least conclusive proof of the supernatural revelation which made Israel’s religion.
II. Note the swift-following retribution. We have two sections in the context dealing with this, each introduced by that terrible phrase, which recurs so often in the subsequent parts of the book, ‘The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.’ That phrase is no sign of a lower conception of God than that which the gospel brings. Wrath is an integral part of love, when the lover is perfectly righteous and the loved are sinful. The most terrible anger is the anger of perfect gentleness, as expressed in that solemn paradox of the Apostle of love, when he speaks of ‘the wrath of the Lamb.’ God was angry with Israel because He loved them, and desired their love for their own good. The fact of His choice of the nation for His own and the intensity of His love were shown no less by the swift certainty with which suffering dogged sin, than by the blessings which crowned obedience. The first section, referring to the punishment, is in Jdg 2:14 - Jdg 2:15, which seems to describe mainly the defeats and plunderings which outside surrounding nations inflicted. The brief description is extraordinarily energetic. It ascribes all their miseries to God’s direct act. He ‘delivered’ them over, or, as the next clause says still more strongly, ‘sold’ them, to plunderers, who stripped them bare. Their defeats were the result of His having thus ceased to regard them as His. But though He had ‘sold’ them, He had not done with them; for it was not only the foeman’s hand that struck them, but God’s ‘hand was against them,’ and its grip crushed them. His judgments were not occasional, but continuous, and went with them ‘whithersoever they went out.’ Everything went wrong with them; there were no gleams breaking the black thunder-cloud. God’s anger darkened the whole sky, and blasted the whole earth. And the misery was the more miserable and awful because it had all been foretold, and in it God was but doing ‘as He had said’ and sworn. It is a dreadful picture of the all-withering effect of God’s anger,-a picture which is repeated in inmost verity in many an outwardly prosperous life to-day.
The second section is in Jdg 2:20 - Jdg 2:23, and describes the consequence of Israel’s relapse in reference to the surviving Canaanite and other tribes in the land itself. Note that ‘nation’ in Jdg 2:20 is the term usually applied, not to Israel, but to the Gentile peoples; and that its use here seems equivalent to cancelling the choice of Israel as God’s special possession, and reducing them to the level of the other nations in Canaan, to whom the same term is applied in Jdg 2:21. The stern words which are here put into the mouth of God may possibly refer to the actual message recorded in the first verses of the chapter; but, more probably, ‘the Lord said’ does not here mean any divine communication, but only the divine resolve, conceived as spoken to himself. It embodies the divine lex talionis. The punishment is analogous to the crime. Israel had broken the covenant; God would not keep His promise. That involves a great principle as to all God’s promises,-that they are all conditional, and voidable by men’s failure to fulfil their conditions. Observe, too, that the punishment is the retention of the occasions of the sin. Is not that, too, a law of the divine procedure to-day? Whips to scourge us are made of our pleasant vices. Sin is the punishment of sin. If we yield to some temptation, part of the avenging retribution is that the temptation abides by us, and has power over us. The ‘Canaanites’ whom we have allowed to lead us astray will stay beside us when their power to seduce us is done, and will pull off their masks and show themselves for what they are, our spoilers and foes.
The rate of Israel’s conquest was determined by Israel’s faithful adherence to God. That is a standing law. Victory for us in all the good fight of life depends on our cleaving to Him, and forsaking all other.
The divine motive, if we may so say, in leaving the unsubdued nations in the land, was to provide the means of proving Israel. Would it not have been better, since Israel was so weak, to secure for it an untempted period? Surely, it is a strange way of helping a man who has stumbled, to make provision that future occasions of stumbling shall lie in his path. But so the perfect wisdom which is perfect love ever ordains. There shall be no unnatural greenhouse shelter provided for weak plants. The liability to fall imposes the necessity of trial, but the trial does not impose the necessity of falling! The Devil tempts, because he hopes that we shall fall. God tries, in order that we may stand, and that our feet may be strengthened by the trial. ‘I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for,-not without dust and heat.’
III. Respite and deliverance are described in Jdg 2:16 and Jdg 2:18. The Revised Version has wisely substituted a simple ‘and’ for ‘nevertheless’ at the beginning of Jdg 2:16. The latter word implies that the raising up of the judges was a reversal of what had gone before; ‘and’ implies that it was a continuation. And its use here is not merely an instance of inartificial Hebrew style, but carries the lesson that God’s judgment and deliverance come from the same source, and are harmonious parts of one educational process. Nor is this thought negatived by the statement in Jdg 2:18 that ‘it repented the Lord.’ That strong metaphorical ascription to Him of human emotion simply implies that His action, which of necessity is the expression of His will, was changed. The will of the moment before had been to punish; the will of the next moment was to deliver, because their ‘groaning’ showed that the punishment had done its work. But the two wills were one in ultimate purpose, and the two sets of acts were equally and harmoniously parts of one design. The surgeon is carrying out one plan when he cuts deep into the quivering flesh, and when he sews up the wounds which he himself has made. God’s deliverances are linked to His chastisements by ‘and,’ not by ‘nevertheless.’ We need not discuss that remarkable series of judges, who were champions rather than the peaceful functionaries whom we understand by the name. The vivid and stirring stories associated with their names make the bulk of this book, and move the most peace-loving among us like the sound of a trumpet. These wild warriors, with many a roughness and flaw in their characters, of whom no saintly traits are recorded, are yet treated in this section as directly inspired, and as continually upheld by God. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews claims some of them as heroes of ‘faith.’ And one chief lesson for us to learn, as we look on the strange garb in which in them faith has arrayed itself, and the strange work which it does in nerving hands to strike with sharp swords, is the oneness of the principle amid the most diverse manifestations, and the nobleness and strength which the sense of belonging to God and reliance on His help breathe into the rudest life and shed over the wildest scenes.
These judges were raised up indiscriminately from different tribes. They belonged to different ranks, and were of different occupations. One of them was a woman. The when and the where and the how of their appearance were incalculable. They authenticated their commission by no miracles except victory. For a time they started to the front, and then passed, leaving no successors, and founding no dynasty. They were an entirely unique order, plainly raised up by God, and drawing all their power from Him. Let us be thankful for the weaknesses, and even sins, recorded of some of them, and for the boldness with which the book traces the physical strength of a Samson, in spite of his wild animalism, and the bravery of a Jephthah, notwithstanding his savage vow and subsequent lapse into idolatry, to God’s inspiration. Their faith was limited, and acted but imperfectly on their moral nature; but it was true faith, in the judgment of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Their work was rough and bloody, and they were rough tools, as such work needed; but it was God’s work, and He had made them for His instruments, in the judgment of the Book of Judges. If we try to understand the reasons for such judgments, we may learn some useful lessons.
IV. A word only can be given to the last stage in the dreary round. It comes back to the first. The religion of the delivered people lasted as long as the judge’s life. When he died, it died. There is intense bitterness in the remark to that effect in Jdg 2:19. Did God then die with the judge? Was it Samson, or Jehovah, that had delivered? Why should the death of the instrument affect gratitude to the hand that gave it its edge? What a lurid light is thrown back on the unreality of the people’s return to God by their swift relapse! If it needed a human hand to keep them from departing, had they ever come near? We may press the questions on ourselves; for none of us knows how much of our religion is owing to the influence of men upon us, or how much of it would drop away if we were left to ourselves.
This miserable repetition of the same weary round of sin, punishment, respite, and renewed sin, sets in a strong light the two great wonders of man’s obstinate persistency in unfaithfulness and sin, and of God’s unwearied persistency in discipline and patient forgiveness. His charity ‘suffers long and is kind, is not easily provoked.’ We can weary out all forbearance but His, which is endless. We weary Him indeed, but we do not weary Him out, with our iniquities. Man’s sin stretches far; but God’s patient love overlaps it. It lasts long; but God’s love is eternal. It resists miracles of chastisement and love; but He does not cease His use of the rod and the staff. We can tire out all other forbearance, but not His. And however old and obstinate our rebellion, He waits to pardon, and smites but to heal.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v13 Ashtaroth, plural of Ashtoreth 1Ki 11:5 were figures of…
Ashtaroth
Ashtaroth, plural of Ashtoreth 1Ki 11:5 were figures of Ashtoreth the Phoenician goddess (the Astarte of the Greeks), which were worshipped as idols during times of spiritual declension in Israel.; Jdg 10:6; 1Sa 7:3; 1Sa 7:4; 1Sa 12:10; 1Sa 31:10; 1Ki 11:5; 1Ki 11:33; 2Ki 23:13. Jeremiah refers Jer 44:18; Jer 44:19 to Ashtoreth as the "queen of heaven."
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v11 what was evil in the sight of Yahweh
what was evil in the sight of Yahweh
The sight of Yahweh represents Yahweh's judgment or evaluation. AT: "what was evil in Yahweh's judgment" or "what Yahweh considered to be evil" (See: Metaphor)
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Baals
This is the plural of Baal. While "Baal" was generally the name of one false god, the word was also used for various other gods that were often worshiped along with Baal. (See: How to Translate Names)
They broke away from Yahweh
The Israelites no longer obeying Yahweh is spoken of as if they physically broke away from him and left him. (See: Metaphor)
their fathers
"their ancestors" or "their forefathers"
They went after other gods
The Israelites starting to worship false gods is spoken of as if the Israelites walked and went after the false gods. (See: Metaphor)
bowed down to them
This is an act of worship and giving honor to someone. (See: Symbolic Action)
They provoked Yahweh to anger
"They caused Yahweh to become angry"
Ashtoreths
This is the plural of Ashtoroth, who was worshiped as a goddess in many different forms. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
evil
servant
Baal
ancestor
Egypt
false god
bow
anger
worship
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.