Judges 2: Disobedient, Unfaithful

Judges 2: Israel's Disobedience / Death of Joshua / Israel's Unfaithfulness

Israel's Disobedience: Judges 2.1-5
The angel of the Lord comes down to Israel to tell them of what is in store for them. The Israelites were commanded to remain completely separate from the nations residing in the promised land - to avoid making covenants with them and to tear down their altars. This was their agreement with God. However, the Israelites did not keep up their end of the bargain, so the inhabitants of the land will become adversaries, and their gods will ensnare the people.

This explains pretty well the reason for everything that lies ahead, the difficulties of conquering the promised land. In the bible, God is the foremost actor. If something happens, it is probably the doing of the Lord.

Death of Joshua Judges 2.6-10
This takes us back to Joshua's death, with the added information that:

1. Joshua died at age 110
2. After Joshua's generation dies out, a new generation grows up that does not know the Lord or the way he has aided Israel.

This last point is especially important to keep in mind in considering the larger biblical narrative informed by dialectical tensions. These tensions between Israel and God give shape to the bible, and generally do a good job at keeping things interesting.

Israel's UnfaithfulnessJudges 2.11-23
The biblical author here reveals the general framework for the cyclical pattern of judges:

1. The Israelites abandon the Lord, the God of their ancestors, for other gods (also known as apostasy
2. The Lord is angered
3. The Lord gives the Israelites over to their enemies (the Israelites are plundered, enslaved, etc.) as he promised.
4. The Lord raises up a judge to save the Israelites
5. The Israelites
1. Listen to the judge and be delivered from their enemies by the hand of the Lord
2. Do not listen and suffer the consequences
6. The judge dies
7. The people relapse and behave worse than their ancestors.

The Lord therefore stops driving the "foreign" nations from the promised land. In this way the Lord is said to "test" Israel, "whether or not they would take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their ancestors did" (Judg. 2.22).

This wraps up very succinctly the cycle we will see for the rest of the book.