Judges · chapter 2 of 21
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Judges 2 explains why Israel fell into idolatry and oppression. The angel of the Lord rebukes the people at Bochim, Joshua dies, a generation rises that does not know the Lord, and the cycle begins in which Israel sins, God allows oppression, and then sends judges to deliver them. God leaves the remaining nations to test Israel's faithfulness.
Judges 1 ended with tribes that did not drive out the Canaanites. This chapter gives God's own interpretation of that reality and works as the key to the whole book. In a few verses the narrator describes a pattern that will repeat again and again, from Othniel to Samson.
The angel of the Lord goes up from Gilgal to Bochim and reminds Israel that God brought them out of Egypt and promised never to break his covenant, but that they were to tear down the altars of the land and make no treaty with its people. Because they disobeyed, God will not drive those peoples out before them, and they will be a snare and adversaries. The people weep, and the place is called Bochim, meaning weepers, and they offer sacrifices there.
The text then looks back: Joshua dismisses the people, each tribe goes to its inheritance, and Joshua dies at 110 years old and is buried at Timnath-heres. As long as Joshua and the elders who had seen the Lord's works lived, Israel served him. But another generation arose that did not know the Lord or what he had done for Israel, and it did evil, forsook God and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
The Lord becomes angry and hands the people over to raiders, but when Israel cries out he raises up judges who deliver them. Even so, when the judge died the people turned back and became more corrupt than their fathers. So the Lord decides to stop driving out the nations Joshua left, to test whether Israel would keep his way.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
After Joshua a generation rises that did not know the Lord or his works for Israel. The problem is not just a forgotten rule but a faith that did not pass from one generation to the next.
The Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. This verse opens the cycle of unfaithfulness that will repeat throughout the book.
The Lord raises up judges who deliver Israel from their raiders. Even in the middle of disobedience God does not abandon his people, and his grace comes before any merit.
The Lord was with the judge and saved the people as long as he lived, moved to pity by their groaning. Deliverance springs from his mercy, not from Israel's steady faith.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: From Gilgal to Bochim. — Judges 2:1
Answer: Bochim, meaning weepers. — Judges 2:4-5
Answer: At Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim. — Judges 2:9
Answer: They did not know the Lord or the work he had done for Israel. — Judges 2:10
Answer: The Baals and the Ashtaroth. — Judges 2:11-13
Answer: He raised up judges who delivered them from their oppressors. — Judges 2:16-18
Judges 2 is a warning for families and churches: faith is not inherited automatically. One generation can see God's works and the next know nothing of them. In Sunday school, this chapter invites us to ask how we are telling children and teenagers what God has done, so that they come to know him personally.
It also comforts. The Lord has compassion on his people even when they sin again. That is no excuse for disobedience, but it is a reason to return to him with confidence when we fail, remembering that our salvation rests on his mercy.
Judges 2 explains the root of the problem and gives the pattern the book will follow: sin, oppression, cry and deliverance. In Judges 3 the first specific judges begin, starting with Othniel, and we will see these ideas take shape in Israel's history.
He is a messenger who speaks in the first person for God, saying that he brought Israel out of Egypt. Many Christians see him as an appearance of the Lord himself before the incarnation, while others understand him as a heavenly messenger speaking with God's authority.
Baal was the Canaanite god of storm and fertility, and Ashtoreth a goddess linked to fertility. Settled in an agricultural land, the Israelites were tempted to ask those gods for rain and harvests instead of trusting the Lord.
The text gives two reasons: to discipline Israel's unfaithfulness and to test whether the people would keep the Lord's way as their fathers did. God uses even the presence of those peoples to shape and reveal Israel's heart.