| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Judges Chapter
Two
Judges 2
Chapter Contents
The angel of the Lord rebukes the people. (1-5) The
wickedness of the new generation after Joshua. (6-23)
Commentary on Judges 2:1-5
(Read Judges 2:1-5)
It was the great Angel of the covenant, the Word, the Son
of God, who spake with Divine authority as Jehovah, and now called them to
account for their disobedience. God sets forth what he had done for Israel, and
what he had promised. Those who throw off communion with God, and have
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, know not what they do now,
and will have nothing to say for themselves in the day of account shortly. They
must expect to suffer for this their folly. Those deceive themselves who expect
advantages from friendship with God's enemies. God often makes men's sin their
punishment; and thorns and snares are in the way of the froward, who will walk
contrary to God. The people wept, crying out against their own folly and
ingratitude. They trembled at the word, and not without cause. It is a wonder
sinners can ever read the Bible with dry eyes. Had they kept close to God and
their duty, no voice but that of singing had been heard in their congregation;
but by their sin and folly they made other work for themselves, and nothing is
to be heard but the voice of weeping. The worship of God, in its own nature, is
joy, praise, and thanksgiving; our sins alone render weeping needful. It is
pleasing to see men weep for their sins; but our tears, prayers, and even
amendment, cannot atone for sin.
Commentary on Judges 2:6-23
(Read Judges 2:6-23)
We have a general idea of the course of things in Israel,
during the time of the Judges. The nation made themselves as mean and miserable
by forsaking God, as they would have been great and happy if they had continued
faithful to him. Their punishment answered to the evil they had done. They
served the gods of the nations round about them, even the meanest, and God made
them serve the princes of the nations round about them, even the meanest. Those
who have found God true to his promises, may be sure that he will be as true to
his threatenings. He might in justice have abandoned them, but he could not for
pity do it. The Lord was with the judges when he raised them up, and so they
became saviours. In the days of the greatest distress of the church, there
shall be some whom God will find or make fit to help it. The Israelites were
not thoroughly reformed; so mad were they upon their idols, and so obstinately
bent to backslide. Thus those who have forsaken the good ways of God, which
they have once known and professed, commonly grow most daring and desperate in
sin, and have their hearts hardened. Their punishment was, that the Canaanites
were spared, and so they were beaten with their own rod. Men cherish and
indulge their corrupt appetites and passions; therefore God justly leaves them
to themselves, under the power of their sins, which will be their ruin. God has
told us how deceitful and desperately wicked our hearts are, but we are not willing
to believe it, until by making bold with temptation we find it true by sad
experience. We need to examine how matters stand with ourselves, and to pray
without ceasing, that we may be rooted and grounded in love, and that Christ
may dwell in our hearts by faith. Let us declare war against every sin, and
follow after holiness all our days.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Judges》
Judges 2
Verse 1
[1] And
an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go
up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your
fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.
The angel —
Christ the angel of the covenant, often called the angel of the Lord, to whom
the conduct of Israel out of Egypt into Canaan, is frequently ascribed. He
alone could speak the following words in his own name and person; whereas
created angels and prophets universally usher in their message with, Thus saith
the Lord, or some equivalent expression. And this angel having assumed the
shape of a man, it is not strange that he imitates the motion of a man, and
comes as it were from Gilgal to the place where now they were: by which motion
he signified, that he was the person that brought them to Gilgal, the first
place where they rested in Canaan, and there protected them so long, and from
thence went with them to battle, and gave them success.
Bochim — A
place so called by anticipation; it seems to be no other than Shiloh, where it
is probable, the people were met together upon some solemn festival.
I said —
That is, I promised upon condition of your keeping covenant with me.
Verse 2
[2] And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall
throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this?
Done this —
That is, disobeyed these express commands.
Verse 3
[3]
Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they
shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.
I said —
With myself, I have now taken up this peremptory resolution.
Verse 4
[4] And
it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the
children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept.
Wept —
Some of them from a true sense of their sins; others from a just apprehension
of their approaching misery.
Verse 5
[5] And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there
unto the LORD.
Bochim —
That is, Weepers.
They sacrificed —
For the expiation of their sins, by which they had provoked God to this
resolution.
Verse 6
[6] And
when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto
his inheritance to possess the land.
Let the people go —
When he had distributed their inheritances, and dismissed them severally to
take possession of them. This was done before this time, whilst Joshua lived;
but is now repeated to discover the time, and occasion of the peoples defection
from God, and of God's desertion of them.
Verse 10
[10] And
also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose
another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which
he had done for Israel.
Knew not —
Which had no experimental, nor serious and affectionate knowledge of God, or of
his works.
Verse 11
[11] And
the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:
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.
Verse 13
[13] And
they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
Baal and Ashtaroth —
That is, the sun and moon, whom many Heathens worshipped, tho' under divers
names; and so they ran into that error which God had so expressly warned them
against, Deuteronomy 4:19. Baalim signifies lords, and
Ashtaroth, blessed ones, he-gods and she-gods. When they forsook Jehovah, they
had gods many and lords many, as a luxuriant fancy pleased to multiply them.
Verse 14
[14] And
the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the
hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their
enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their
enemies.
Sold them —
That is, delivered them up, as the seller doth his commodities unto the buyer.
Verse 15
[15]
Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as
the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly
distressed.
Whithersoever they went — That is, Whatsoever expedition or business they undertook; which is
usually signified by going out, and coming in.
Verse 16
[16]
Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of
those that spoiled them.
Raised up — By
inward inspiration and excitation of their hearts, and by outward designation
testified by some extra-ordinary action.
Judges —
Supreme magistrates, whose office it was, under God, and by his particular
direction, to govern the commonwealth of Israel by God's laws, and to protect
and save them from their enemies, to preserve and purge religion, and to
maintain the liberties of the people against all oppressors.
Verse 17
[17] And
yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after
other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way
which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they
did not so.
Their Judges —
Who admonished them of their sin and folly, and of the danger and misery which
would certainly befall them.
Verse 18
[18] And
when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and
delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for
it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that
oppressed them and vexed them.
It repented the Lord — That is, the Lord changed his course and dealings with them, as penitent
men use to do; removed his judgments, and returned to them in mercy.
Verse 19
[19] And
it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted
themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and
to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their
stubborn way.
Returned — To
their former, and usual course.
Their fathers — In
Egypt, or in the wilderness.
Their own doings —
That is, from their evil practices, which he calls their own, because they were
agreeable to their own natures, which in all mankind are deeply and universally
corrupted, and because they were familiar and customary to them.
Verse 22
[22] That
through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to
walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not.
May prove —
That I may try and see whether Israel will be true and faithful to me, or
whether they will suffer themselves to be corrupted by the counsels and
examples of their bad neighbours.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Judges》
02 Chapter 2
Verses 1-5
An angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim.
The Israelites at Bochim
I. The Assembly
convened: “All the children of Israel.”
II. The messenger
employed. This “angel of the Lord “ is said to “come up from Gilgal to Bochim.”
Gilgal was the scene of interesting transactions between the Lord and the
Israelites. The Lord, therefore, in the riches of His mercy, again visits this people;
and at Boehim revives the impressions which had been felt and the resolutions
which had been formed at Gilgal.
III. The address
delivered.
1. A statement of what the Lord had done for this people: “I made you
to go up out of Egypt,” that land of slavery, that scene of degradation and
toil, “and have brought you unto the land which I aware unto your fathers.”
This was the completion of His work. It was a proof of the exceeding greatness
of His power, and also of His faithfulness; for Canaan was the inheritance
which He had engaged to give.
2. Next they are told what the Lord had promised to them: “I said, I
will never break My covenant with you.” Here was additional favour, and a
solemn engagement of fidelity. It had been well if their fidelity had resembled
His; then would their peace have been as a river and their prosperity permanent
as a rock!
3. They are also reminded of what the Lord required of them: “Ye
shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land.” Nothing could be more
reasonable. One would naturally have expected their prompt and persevering
compliance.
4. But it is affecting to learn what the Lord received from them--the
manner in which He was requited for all His favours: “Ye have not obeyed My
voice.” The charge is express and pointed. They had leagued with the
Canaanites, spared their altars, connived at their idolatry; and all this in
direct opposition to the command of Jehovah: “Why have ye done this?” Their sin
may be accounted for, but it can never be justified. Indolence may partly
account for it: to oppose evil required vigilance and exertion. Covetousness,
perhaps, had its influence; they might join with the Canaanites in hope of
sordid gain. Love of idolatry, a secret inclination to the practices of heathen
nations, might induce them to spare their altars and to palliate their sin. But
unbelief was the grand cause, and lay at the root of all their disobedience.
5. Lastly is recorded what the Lord threatened against them:
“Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out,” etc. Here was righteous
retribution; they were punished by weapons of their own making; nor can we
wonder at this mark of the Divine displeasure.
IV. The effect
produced (Judges 2:4-5). From this remarkable fact
let us apply a question to ourselves: what influence has the Word preached
among us? In other words, where are your tears, and where are your prayers?
Thank God, neither the one nor the other are altogether restrained. But why are
they not more frequent? It is owing to the hardness of the human heart, and is
an affecting proof of the deep degeneracy of man. Terrors do not move; mercies
do not melt; the most attractive truths are often heard without emotion or
concern; and when some appearance of penitence does exist, how transient its
continuance, and how unfruitful its influence! (T. Kidd.)
Thy weepers
The voice of that weeping echoes through the ages, and Bochim
becomes classic ground in the moral history of the world.
I. There is a
terrible physical and moral confusion palpable on the very surface of man’s
life, which appears darker and deadlier the more you penetrate the depths;
while the profound instinct of his being, made in the image of the one God,
demands order and unity. All the heathen hecatombs, all the theodicies of
philosophy, are attempts to explain the mystery. They are at least man’s
protests against, his struggle to be free from, the desperate confusions of his
physical and moral life.
II. There is in man
a native tendency to mistake the kind of help which he is to expect from God.
From the Old and from the New Testament we hear alike the cry of man’s natural
heart, “The rest is near.” There is the undying hope in the heart of humanity
that God will give rest. Lamech thought that Noah would give it, Abraham that
Isaac would give it, the Jews saw it in Canaan, David in Solomon, Ezra in the
restoration, the early
Christians in the Church. Suffering is to be destroyed, so runs the human
dream, by the destruction of sin. The devil is to be slain, and all things that
now tempt man to transgression shall woo him sweetly to virtue and joy.
III. God’s rest, the
true Canaan for which we all are pining, must spring from within, and be
dependent on the vigour of the inward life.
IV. In this scene
of discipline, where man exists of necessity as an imperfect moral being, he
must have throngs of tempters around him. He gives them strength by his want of
firmness, by his system of foolish and timid compromise. But you have God’s covenant
as a rock to stand on, God’s promise as a star to cheer, God’s strength to
nerve the spirit and to harden it to endurance, and God’s sword, sharp and
gleaming, to cut out before you the path to victory.
V. The bitter
truth, discovered at Bochim, is the deep, sad undertone of the music of
history. Perhaps those who are most alive to its higher interests and aims find
it saddest. But for them this sadness becomes holy; it is part of the sorrow of
Christ, which is the germ of everlasting joy. It is not in anger, in its
deepest purpose, but in love, that this weeping is ordained to us. Life is
richer, nobler, if sadder, under such conditions, as we shall understand at
last when we stand white-robed before the throne. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
Thorough-going Christianity
The picture here presented to us is that of the people of God
stopping short in their career of triumph, not following up and following out
the great salvation which the Lord has wrought. They thus incur His stern
rebuke and questioning: “Why have ye done this?” Many reasons, more or less
plausible, might be given. They were weary of the wilderness and of war; they
had had enough of wandering and fighting; they longed for quiet rest and peace.
Motives also of seeming pity and prudence might sway them: how hard to cut off
with so fell a swoop, and in one wholesale sacrifice, so many hosts and
households, of whom some at least might yet be reclaimed to Jehovah’s service,
or made useful in some way to His people. Then, as these relentings of tenderness
or considerations of expediency occasioned hesitation and delay, their enemies
recovered courage and became formidable again. No wonder if, under some such
influences as these, proposals of truce and compromise began to be welcome to
Israel; and the wisdom of God gave way before the policy of man. It was a
policy, however, alike unwarrantable and disastrous; unwarrantable, considering
all that God had done for them and the assurance they had that He would not
break His covenant with them (Judges 2:1); and disastrous in the issue,
for the error was irretrievable.
I. The sin. Let me
speak to the young Christian, the recent convert. What now have you more urgent
on hand than to make good your position and reap the full fruit of the
deliverance wrought out for you? What better opportunity for carrying out fully
the sternest injunctions of your Lord regarding them? How does He bid you treat
these enemies? “Mortify your members that are on the earth.” “They that are
Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” Or take
another instance. Such a season as I am speaking of is the very season for
remodelling your whole plan of life--its pursuits, its habits, its companionship.
You come out, O believer, from the secret place of your God, where He has been
speaking peace to you--you come out into the world a new man; and now, when all
is fresh, and before you have committed yourself, now is the very time for
arranging methodically your general course of conduct and all its details. How
are you to meet with your former associates? On what terms and with what degree
of intimacy? When and how are you to join yourselves to the company commonly
called godly, cast in your lot with them, and avow your self partakers of their
toils, their trials, and their joys? What, moreover, are to be your rules for
the exercise of private devotion and the cultivation of personal piety? What
the system of your studious preparation for heaven? You may take your ground,
unfurl your standard, and announce your watchword so unequivocally that few
ever after will think of trying to shake or to disconcert you. But alas! too
generally, as to all these matters, you have no definite plan of life at all.
Hence vacillation, fitfulness, inconsistency, excess, and deficiency by turns.
The opportunity of setting up a high standard and a high aim is lost; and soon,
amid the snares of worldly conformity and the awkwardness of the false shame
that will not let you retrace your steps, you deeply sigh for the day of your
visitation, when you might have started from a higher platform and run a higher
race than you can now hope ever to realise.
II. The
inexcusableness of the sin. Hear the remonstrance which God addresses to Israel
(Judges 2:1), and consider His threefold
appeal. Look back to the past, and call to mind from what a state the Lord has
rescued you, at what a price, by what a work of power. Look around on your
present circumstances; see how the Lord has performed all that He sware to your
fathers; the land is yours; and it is a goodly land. And if, in looking forward
to the future, you have any misgivings, has He not said, “I will never break My
covenant with you”? “What can you ask more? Are these considerations not
sufficient to bind you to the whole work and warfare of the high calling of
God, and to make cowardice and compromise exceeding sinful?
III. The dangerous
and disastrous consequences of the sin. Hear the awful sentence of God (Judges 2:3), and then see how the
children of Israel ilft up their voice and weep (Judges 2:4). Well is the place named
Bochim: it is indeed a melting scene. The golden opportunity is lost: their
error is not to be retrieved; its bitter fruits are to be reaped from
henceforth many days. A sad sight truly; but sadder, if possible, is the
spectacle of a Christian professor suffering, in after-years, from the
insufficiency of his works and the first foundation of his Christianity; from
his having allowed some evil thing in his bosom, some Achan in his camp; from
his having stopped short when he should have gone on unto perfection. (R. S.
Candlish, D. D.)
From Gilgal to Bochim
Gilgal was the first camp of Israel after Jordan was actually
crossed; it was at once a goal and a starting-point. To Christians it
represents that position of vantage, that excellence of endowment whence they
go forth in obedience and faith to subdue their spiritual foes. Had Israel been
wise, they would have abode in Gilgal until their work of conquest was complete
and the land all their own. Doubtless the angel first appeared in that deserted
camp, doubtless he followed the people thence, in order to remind them that he
ought to have found them there. But they had not been wise; they had not
extirpated the nations, but had mingled with them and learnt their works; they
had abandoned Gilgal, from whence, under the strong restraints of religious and
military discipline, they might have carried through the work of conquest, and
had settled themselves in some place of their own choosing: therefore, the
angel of the Lord followed and found and reproached them; then they wept, and
named the place Bochim--“the weepers.” “From Gilgal to Bochim?’ In nature it is
an ascent, but in grace it is a tremendous fall; the one named from what God
did, the other from what they felt. And surely it is very expressive of a great
deal amongst ourselves; surely many of us are settled in a place of feelings
without acts, emotions without results, reproofs which only produce tears.
“From Gilgal to Bochim.” How often is the story repeated in our spiritual life!
Canaan is our kingdom--that kingdom of life and immortality, of light and
holiness, which is already ours; not, indeed, for quiet and absolute
possession, but for steady and victorious occupation. The seven nations of the
Canaanites, alien intruders on the sacred soil, are the seven deadly sins
which, with all their evil kith and kin, withstand our entry and dispute our
enjoyment of that holy land whereof God hath made us kings and priests in
Christ. It is our duty and our charge, as well as our interest, to extirpate
these sins--to make a clean sweep of them, great and small. But we do not; we
gain some splendid victories, we lay some threatening strongholds low, we
deliver some large territories from the dominion of the foe, we do enough to
show that we could do all; and then we cease. Because we would not be at the
trouble, relying on the grace of God, to cast out all the sins which He
detests; because we held our hand and allowed some of them to remain in their
old places in our life and character; therefore hath God also restrained the
working of His grace, and hath allowed those very faults to become our constant
plagues, thorns in our sides, unfailing causes of irritation, self-reproach,
and weakness. What we want is to be up and doing, to make a vigorous move, to
get back to Gilgal, and from thence to go forth patient and resolved to
complete the conquest of our own spiritual realm. Let us occupy once more that
place of vantage to which God hath brought us by election and by grace; let us
realise the invincible strength which is assured unto those Christians who wait
upon their God in prayer and sacraments; let us rely upon that strength not to
be the substitute for our own efforts, but to inspire them with supernatural
ardour,to crown them with supernatural success. (R. Winterbotham, M. A.)
Bochim; or, the weepers
I. How hopeful.
One could not desire anything better apparently than this.
1. They were all attentive hearers. There was not one that looked
about him, or that forgot the pointed words that were spoken. It is a great
thing to win people’s attention.
2. They were very feeling people.
3. They were all sorrowful hearers. Alas! that such drops did not
precede a shower of grace, but passed away as the morning cloud.
4. Aye, and they all became professing hearers; for as soon as ever
that service was over they held another, and “they sacrificed unto Jehovah.”
Now let me turn to the other side and show you that there was nothing
permanently good in Bochim’s sudden water-floods.
II. Their weeping
was very disappointing.
1. I half suspect that their tears and lamentations were produced as
much by the preacher’s person as by anything else. It was the Angel of the
Lord, and who would not be moved at His presence? It may be a great blessing to
you to hear a very useful preacher, but if you depend upon him in the least it will be mischievous
to you. Seek that your repentance may be repentance which is wrought by the
Spirit of God in your heart and conscience. Sham religion is an injury rather
than a benefit.
2. Again, I am afraid that the repentance of these people had a great
deal to do with their natural softness. They were tender and excitable because
there was little grit in their nature; their manliness was of a degenerate
type. They feared to go to battle for God; they dreaded the noise and the
slaughter. They were, moreover, easily moved by their fellow-men, and took
shape from those who lived near them. One grain of faith is better than a
gallon of tears. A drop of genuine repentance is more precious than a torrent
of weeping.
3. There is another thing about the weeping of these people, and that
is, that it was caused a great deal by threatenings of punishment. Every
murderer repents at the gallows, they say; that is, he repents of being hanged,
but he does not repent of having killed others. We ought clearly to discern
between the natural terrors that come of vivid descriptions of the wrath to
come and that real spiritual touch of God the Holy Ghost which breaks and melts
the heart and then casts it into another mould. These people were deceived as
to the depth and sincerity of their own feelings. Doubtless they reckoned
themselves choice penitents when they were only cowardly tremblers, labouring
under impressions which were as useless as they were transient. Their feeling
was but as a meteor’s blaze, shedding strong but momentary day.
4. Next, these people had not repented, for they did not bring their
children up rightly. The next generation, it is said, knew not the Lord, neither
the mighty works of the Lord. If parents make known the things of God to their
children it cannot be said that the children do not know the works of God. If
parents teach with affectionate earnestness, their children learn at least the
letter of the truth. Woe unto you, with all your tears, if you have no regard
for your household, and no care to bring up your children in the fear of God.
5. I know that these people did not repent aright, because they went
from bad to worse. They went from weeping before God to worshipping Baal. The
more tender you are, if afterwards you harden yourselves, so much the greater
will be your guilt; and if you humble yourselves before God in mere appearance,
so much the more terrible will be your doom if that humbleness departs and you
go back to the sin from which you professed to turn.
6. I know that these people were not penitents, because God did not
take away the chastisement. The punishment which He threatened He brought upon
them: He gave them over to the spoilers and sold them to their enemies. But
where there is a hearty repentance of sin, God will never lay punishment on a
man. He will forgive him and receive him to His bosom and restore him. (C.
H. Spurgeon.)
The failure of obedience
The accusation against them at Bochim was negative rather than
positive. They were not charged with any specific act of avowed rebellion, but
with having failed to obey the voice of God. But when the Church has begun to
habitually neglect any one of her Lord’s known commands--still more when she
begins to “break one of these least commandments, and teach men so“--the day is
not far distant when, unless arrested in her career by the mercy or the
judgments of God, she will be found openly consorting with the
mammon-worshippers by whom she is surrounded. Even so it was in the history
before us.
1. The Canaanites in this history represent the enemies of the Church
of God, and also the inward besetting sins of individual members of that
Church. Need we name pride, and lust, and covetousness, and self-conceit, and
envy, and worldliness, and impatience, and fretfulness, and revengefulness--a
band of brothers, tall sons of Anak, diverse in feature, yet all showing the
ancestry and lineaments of the serpent? Need we mention others of the same kindred--jealousy,
and sloth, and worldliness, and levity, and procrastination, and presumption,
and unbelief?
2. It follows, then, that the believer’s warfare is not completed
when he has been made a partaker of peace through believing in Christ; for “we
are made partakers of Christ” only “if we hold the beginning of our confidence
steadfast unto the end.” “Put off,” says the Scripture, “the old man, which is
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” Mighty task!--for this “old man“ is
not easily ousted from his ancient habitation. He fights hard for possession;
and we must “give diligence,” even after we have obtained our “calling and
election,” to “make it sure.”
3. We are reminded that many of the spiritual Israel stop short of a
full salvation, for it is to be remembered that these men had partially obeyed.
They had begun well.
4. The history illustrates the causes of the weakness of the Church
and people of God.
The evil of disobedience to God
Mark and note right well that it is an evil thing under any pretext
whatever to depart in any degree from the commandment of the Most High God.
Whatsoever may be the law which God gives, either to the whole race or to His
chosen, they will find their safety in keeping close to it. But Israel forgot
this. Soldiering was hard work--storming cities and warring with men who
attacked them with chariots of iron was heroic service. All this required
strong faith and untiring perseverance, and in these virtues the Israelites
were greatly deficient; and so, in certain places, they said to the Canaanites,
“Let us be neighbours: let us dwell together.” At any rate, it could do no harm
to study their archaeology, and go to their temples, and see the gods they
worshipped, and get a general acquaintance with the advanced thought of the
period; for the Canaanites were a greatly advanced people--they were the
advanced thinkers of the period. Tolerance led to imitation, and Israel became
as vile as the heathen whom the Lord had condemned, and the Israelites became a
mixed race, in whose veins there flowed a measure of Canaanite blood. Yes, if
you depart from God’s Word by a heir’s breadth you know not where you will end.
I would to God that in these degenerate times we had back again somewhat of the
stern spirit of the Cameronians and the Covenanters; for now men play fast and
loose with God, and think that anything they please to do will satisfy the Most
High. The offal and the refuse will suffice for sacrifice for Him; but as to
strict obedience to His Word, they can by no means abide it. Mischief will
surely come of this lax state of things to the Churches of this day as surely
as affliction came abundantly to Israel of old. Note, next, that whenever one
sin is allowed we may say of it, “Gad, a troop cometh.” It seemed a pardonable
sort of sin to be gentle to these people and not to obey God’s severer word;
but then, what came next? Why, soon they, the children of Jehovah, were found
worshipping before the horrible Baal. Soon they had gone farther, and the
unclean goddess Ashtaroth became their delight; and anon they forgot Jehovah
altogether amid their deities and demons. With these errors in religion there
had come in all sorts of errors in morals, for every fashion of immorality and
lewdness defiled the worshippers of Baal-Peor, Baal-Berith, and Baal-Zebub; and
the chosen people of God could scarcely be distinguished from the heathen
nations among which they dwelt, or if distinguished at all, it was by their
greater sin, inasmuch as they were transgressing against superior light, and
holding down their consciences which God had rendered by His teaching much more
tender than the consciences of those about them. Backslide a little, and you
are on the way to utter apostasy. The mother of mischief is small as a midge’s
egg; hatch it, and you shall see an evil bird larger than an ostrich. The least
wrong has in it an all but infinity of evil. So Israel went aside farther and
farther from God because they regarded not their way, and did not in all things
obey the Lord. But then comes in a truth which, though it may seem black in the
telling, is bright in the essence of it. God did not leave His people without
chastisement. The Lord laid His blows upon them thick and heavy. But, before He
did this, He sent a messenger to rebuke them. It is ever the Lord’s way to give
space for repentance ere He executes vengeance. The axes which were carried
before the Roman magistrates by the lictors were bound up in bundles of rods.
It is said that when a prisoner was before the magistrate the lictor began to
untie the rods, and with these the culprit was beaten; meanwhile the judge
looked in the prisoner’s face and heard his defence, and if he saw reason for
averting the capital sentence, because of the repentance which the offender
expressed, then he only smote him with the rod, but the axe remained unused.
But if, when every rod was taken off, the culprit was still hardened, and the
crime was a capital one and clearly proven, then the axe was used, and used all
the more sternly because space had been given for penitence, and the rods had
been used in vain. When the rod is despised the axe is ready. It is certainly
so with God: He waiteth to be gracious, but when patience cannot hope for
penitence then justice takes her turn, and her stroke is terrible. (C. H.
Spurgeon.)
The rushing of tears
If this hour we could realise God’s goodness toward us, and our
conduct toward Him, a great grief would seize upon us, and repentance would
meet remorse, and remorse would meet ingratitude, and memories of the past
would jostle the fears of the future, and silence would be broken by sobs and
shrieks.
1. I have first to remark that many Christian people have reason for
a good deal of mourning. What have you been doing these ten, twenty, thirty,
forty years? Did not God lead you out of Egypt? Did He not part for you the Red
Sea of trouble, and has He not rained manna all around about your camp? Did He
not divide the Jordan of death for your loved ones, until they went through
dry-shod, not wetting even the soles of their feet? Has He not put clusters of
blessings upon your table, and fed you with the finest of the wheat? And yet,
we must confess, we have, like the Israelites, made a league with the world.
Three-fourths of our Christian life has been wasted. Oh, weep for our derelictions!
weep for our wanderings! weep for our lost opportunities that will never
return! There is great reason for sadness on the part of some parents when they
look over their families. You know that there must be a mighty change in your
household before you can all live together in eternity. Can you placidly
contemplate an eternal separation from any of your loved ones? Things are
looking that way. Their opportunities of salvation less and less; your
opportunities of plying them with religious motives less and less. The prospect
that God’s invitation will continue to them, less and less. The day of their
mercy almost gone, yet they have not put up one earnest prayer, or repented of
one sin, and not given one hopeful sign, and death coming to snap the conjugal bond,
and break up the fraternal and the filial tie. An aged woman came to me. I
said, “Are you seeking the salvation of your soul?” She said, “No, I have
sought and found. I came in to ask your prayers for my sons. They are on the
wrong road.” O Lord Jesus, are we to be parted from any we have loved? Will
some of us be saved and some of us be lost? Which one will it be missing,
missing, missing, for eternity? I say farther: there are impenitent souls who
ought to be sad from the fact that there are sins they have committed that
cannot be corrected either in this world or the world to come. Suppose a man at
fifty years of age becomes a Christian, but he has been all his life on the
other side. He is a father. He comes to Christ now; but can he arrest the fact
that for twenty or thirty years over his children he was wielding a wrong
influence, and they have started in the wrong direction? And if you come to God
in the latter part of your life, when you have given your children an impulse
in the wrong direction, those ten, or fifteen, or twenty years of example in
the wrong direction will be mightier than the few words you can utter now in
the right direction. So it is with the influence you have had anywhere in
community. If you have all these years given countenance to those who are
neglecting religion, can you correct that? Your common sense says “No.” Here is
an engineer on a locomotive. He is taking a long train of cars loaded with
passengers. He comes on and sees a red flag. He says, “What do I care for the
red flag?” He pushes on the train, and comes to another red flag. He says, “I
don’t care for the red flag.” After a while he sees that the bridge is down;
but he is by a marsh, and he leaps and is not damaged. Does that stop the
train? No! It goes on crash! crash! crash! That is the history of some men who
have been converted. I congratulate them, but I cannot hide the fact that they
started a train of influences in the wrong direction; and though, in the
afternoon of their life, they may leap off the train, the train goes on, So,
also, there is occasion for sadness in the peril that surrounds every
unforgiven soul. And so you may go on placidly, smoothly, gaily for a while in
your sin, but the hurricane will swoop upon your souls. Without God, without hope!
Oh, what an orphanage, what an exile, what a desolation! Moan! moan! for thy
lost estate. Have you not had a chance for heaven? “Ah,” you say, “that is the
worst of it. That is what makes me weep.” Was your father bad? Was your mother
wicked? “No,” you say. “Say nothing against my mother. If there was ever a good
woman, she was one; and I remember how, in her old days, and when bent with
years, and in her plain frock she knelt down and prayed for my soul, and with
her apron wiped away the tears. Oh, I have trampled on her broken heart. I am a
wretch undone. Who will pray for me? I am so sick of sin. I am so weary of the
world! “No wonder you weep, for the greatest condemnation of the last day will
be for those who had pious parents and who resisted their admonition. But what
is a sadder thought is, that some of these people not only stay out of the
kingdom of God themselves, but they will not let their children come in. “You
never invited me to Christ. You stood in my way. You gave a wrong example.
Father, mother, you ruined my soul!”
2. But I remember that there are tears of joy as well as tears of
sorrow, and how the foundations of the deep would break up if one hundred or
one thousand souls would march up and take the kingdom of heaven! But there are
some who have not come. They will not come. They will not repent. (T. De
Witt Talmage.)
Sorrow not repentance
“Bochim” might be widely inscribed in the land of Palestine, if
thereby to mark the place where universal lamentations have been heard. Crying
was a frequent sight and sound there. It was sometimes uncontrollable. It was
often mechanical and artificial. Trouble usually provokes it, and fears and
tears are closely related. But sobbings and penitence are not so nearly allied
as we might expect. The vain Xerxes, as he sat on his silver throne,
overlooking his vast fleet and outstretched army, and weeping to think how in a
hundred years every life before him would have perished, yet who arrayed his
thousands for needless and speedy slaughter, might have better spared his
grief, while curbing his pride. Sentiment is not sanctity. Sorrow is not
sobriety. In the abodes of shame there are burning tears and pitiful groans
without a wish for a better life. The trappings of woe are common; the resolve
to remove its cause is not as common. Reformatories are full of victims of
their own evil choices, and many a sigh they heave over a wicked past, but it
is only because of the ills it has brought upon them. They like the sin as well
as ever. Could it be separated from its penalty they would be only too willing
to commit it. There are three classes of weepers: the repentant, mourning both
over the wrong done and the result it has necessitated, and determined never to
offend again; the regretful, intending to keep from the like in future, but
only slightly moved because of its evil character; the suffering, thinking only
of the disaster, but ready to repeat the deed so soon as it is safe. To the
second class, for the most part, the “Bochimites” belong. They wish for
prosperity and ease, and are more sorry for the “thorning” and “snaring” in
store than for having disobeyed the word of Jehovah. (De Witt S. Clark.)
Bochim
I. Observe, first,
that the reprover of the people is termed “an angel.” “An angel of the Lord
came up from Gilgal.” But the first utterance carries us to the thought of One
higher than angel or archangel. The speaker describes Himself as the deliverer
of Israel out of Egypt, and He finishes with the denunciation, “Ye have not
obeyed My voice.” The burden of His prophecy is worthy of the Divine speaker,
for it is the simple enunciation of the fundamental truth of all religion--man
in covenant with God, and bound to comply with the terms of that covenant.
II. Consider the
result of the prophesying. The general result was but transitory. The people
wept and sacrificed unto the Lord. But no amendment ensued. The whole effect
was a momentary outburst of feeling and a hasty sacrifice. Most true picture of
the reception of the Word of God in after-time. It is sensational or emotional
religion against which Bochim is our warning. There are two principal elements
of this fruitless sorrow.
1. The first is want of depth of soul.
2. The second is the “after revolt of the human mind against the
supernatural.” Godly sorrow issues in a repentance not to be repented of, in
that thorough turning of the life to God’s service from which, in the hottest
fire of temptation, there is never a turning back to the way of evil again. (Bp.
Woodford.)
Wasted emotion
In California, where so much of the land requires
irrigation, there is a serious effort being made to devise some scheme by which
the water that goes to waste in times of flood can be stored up and used in
times of drought. It has long been known that enough flood water flows back to
the sea in the rainy season to more than multiply the state’s resource for
irrigation. Therefore it is felt that if some system is workable whereby flood
waters can be impounded and saved from waste, hundreds of thousands of acres of
now useless lands would be made fruitful. What a wonderful thing it would be if
some such scheme could be devised in the higher realm of human emotion! There
is enough real heart-benevolence stirred up to fill the land with kindness and
bring about human brotherhood everywhere. But it often goes to waste without
producing any practical result. Many people are moved to tears by a novel or
the story of some suffering fellow-being, and for a time there is a flood of
charitable feeling that surges through the soul; but it runs to waste, and when
opportunity for real helpfulness comes the emotion has passed away. (L. A.
Banks.)
The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua.
Joshua and “another generation”
I. The power of a
great man to adapt himself to changing circumstances, and to be equally great
under varying conditions. Many a man great in conquest is a nonentity in
peaceful times. The great warrior does not always make a great statesman.
Joshua, on the contrary, was the moral ruler of the nation in peace as well as
the military commander of the army in war. The Romans are said to have
conquered like savages and ruled like philosophic statesmen. Joshua, too,
excelled in war and peace. Perhaps he was greatest in peace, because “he that
ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.” Contrast Napoleon in
St. Helena with Joshua at Timnath Heres.
II. The formative
influence of one great life in giving character to an age. Such men as Joshua
are necessarily exceptional, There is a Divine economy in the sending of great
men. Like miracles, they must not be allowed to degenerate into commonplaces.
There is a reserve in producing great leaders: they come one in a century--in
some instances, one in a millennium. Men of the Joshua type are sent to give a
character to their time. The history of the world is largely the history of
single champions.
III. The limitations
of a personal influence--even one of the most powerful kind; for we see here
the strange capacity of one age to prove untrue to the best traditions of that
which preceded it: “There arose another generation,” etc.
1. This generation suffered from the lack of direct personal
testimony. They could not say, “We speak that which we do know, and testify
that which we have seen.” All they knew was by hearsay, and spirituality must
be very vigorous and intense to breathe life into hearsay.
2. These people sadly under-estimated, and therefore ignored, the
value of historic record--“knew not,” etc. They severed themselves from the
past.
3. This was an age of ease, and, as such, the least productive of
noble manhood. These were poverty-stricken times. The nation was no longer
braced by one common ambition, or bent upon one object. They had lapsed into a
state of indolence and indifference. Moreover, there was no central supreme
power, for they had leaders only in times of war, and the old leader and his
subordinates were dead. This was a time when a great character was most needed
to save the nation from degeneracy. Such ages often succeed the iron ages of
history. I am not sure that we, as Christians, have not lost much of the
robustness of the past age.
IV. What a
responsibility is involved in this succession of ages to maintain the
continuity, to be worthy followers of those who through faith and patience have
inherited the promises; to be, of a truth, successors of the apostles and of
other holy men!
V. Thank God, the
record in our text is only fragmentary. That age was not a final break upon the
progress of revelation. History is progressive after all. Span the centuries.
Don’t let the point of observation be too narrow or near. Ascending from
lowlands to highlands there are undulations; but take a span large enough, and
you will find that it is an ascent all the way. So in the history of our race.
God has been advancing throughout all time in spite of the ”dark ages“of the
world, and in spite of human relapses into sin. (D. Davies.)
Man
I. The moral
obligation of every member of our race (Judges 2:7).
1. All creatures are the servants of God, but they serve Him in
different ways.
2. To serve Him in this way is the obligation of the race. But there
is one condition indispensable to this--supreme love for Him as the Sovereign.
This will--
II. The service of
one good man to our race.
1. That a man can induce his race to serve the Lord. Joshua did.
2. That a man, to do this, must himself be a servant of the Lord.
Joshua was.
3. That, however useful a man may be to his race in this respect, he
must die. Joshua died.
III. The melancholy
succession of our race (verse 10).
1. The succession involves no extinction. The mighty generations that
are gone live on some other shore.
2. The mode of the succession involves a moral cause. We say the
“mode,” not the “fact.” If the race continue to multiply as now, the limitation
of the world’s area and provisions would require a succession. This planet was
probably intended as a stepping-stone to another. Had there been no sin,
however, instead of the succession taking place through the grave, it might
have been through a “chariot of fire,” as in the case of Elijah.
IV. The
degenerating tendency of our race.
1. This degenerating tendency is often found stronger than the most
elevating influences of truth. Peter fell in the very presence of Christ.
2. This degenerating tendency indicates the necessity of a conscious
reliance upon the gracious help of God. (Homilist.)
Israel’s apostasy
I. The character
of the Jews at the death of Joshua.
II. The apostasy of
the succeeding generation.
1. The nature of their apostasy. God is jealous of His own honour;
and to unite His name with idols, and to His worship to join the revolting
orgies of Ashtoreth, was diabolism, and must be judged and punished.
2. Their apostasy was intensified by all the distinguishing
privileges and blessings they had enjoyed. As virtue is proportioned in vigour
to the temptations resisted, so transgression is proportioned to the forces of
conscience, education, example and blessing which have been fought with and
conquered. Nor was this all their sin. To the list must be added disobedience.
They refused to execute the Divine command to expel the Canaanites from the land.
It was terrible surgery, and not murder, that the Israelites were commanded to
perform as touching the heathen idolators--a true and just surgery, cutting
away unflinchingly the diseased part, that themselves might remain sound.
Stopping short in the operation, they became infected with the moral leprosy
which made the Canaanites loathsome to heaven and earth (Leviticus 18:21-30; Deuteronomy 12:30-32).
III. The punishment
of their apostasy.
1. No two ideas are more inseparably linked together than these two
of sin and suffering. The one follows the other by a law as fixed and
imperative as the agony of a burning hand. They are the “twin serpents” of the
race, inseparable companions.
2. But all suffering is not penal. With respect to God’s people it is
remedial and corrective. Moses Browne truly saith, “A great deal of rust
requires a rough file.”
IV. God’s merciful
provision for Israel’s deliverance. God answered the cries of distress by
sending them Judges--men chosen and qualified to act as His vicegerents in the
emergencies of the nation. Let no Christian despair or be discouraged even in
the most adverse circumstances. Evermore it is true that “Man’s extremity is
God’s opportunity.” (W. G. Moorehead, D. D.)
There arose another
generation after them, which knew not the Lord.
Israel forsaking God
With ages of schooling, and always the same lessons, mankind is
slow to learn the absolute and unalterable conditions of prosperity; equally
slow to note and steer clear of the reefs and shoals on which nationality after
nationality has gone to wreck.
I. The drift of
human nature. It is towards sin, and away from God. The Israelites were men no
better and no worse than other men. Sentimental philosophers of the modern type
may write out in soft phrase their exalted estimates of human nature; they may
enlarge upon its beauties and excellences; but, in spite of their fancies and
ecstacies, here the fact asserts itself in the record, as it does on every page
of history, that human nature, left to itself, gravitates downward.
II. The influence
of men in high station. The significant fact is recorded that “the people served
the Lord all the days of Joshua,” etc. A great responsibility rests upon those
who occupy prominent places in society or in the State--a responsibility that
is not discharged by fidelity to the specific duties of their position. There
is that undefined, incalculable something of influence which is inseparable
from their station, which they are to guard and direct.
III. The danger of
religious insensibility. It is twofold. There is danger that men will come into
a state of mind and heart where they will be unmoved by Divine truth, and there
is great danger in that state. The children of Israel did not sweep over at
once and in a body into idolatry. They drifted, by slow and unrecognised
gradations, from the service of God to the worship of Baal and Ashtaroth.
Carelessness about single duties, indifference to single truths--here were the
causes of their final detection. The process has been often repeated, is still
in progress. Men and women walk our streets to-day utterly indifferent to the
most solemn truths of religion, to whom all the truths of God were once
intensely real. There was a time when conscience was quick, and the least
wandering from duty brought sorrow and repentance. There was a time when
immortality, with its heaven of blessedness and its land of infinite sorrow,
loomed colossal on the horizon of thought. There was such a time, but it has
passed, perhaps for ever. Neglect of duty, lack of watchfulness against sin,
disobedience to many a heavenly calling--things like these, slight and unnoticed
in themselves, have swept them away from the moorings of faith and interest,
and they are adrift on the dark sea of unbelief and indifference.
IV. The secret of
prosperity. The Israelites had all the human factors of success--a fruitful
country, a genial climate, experience in the arts of war and peace, and the
prestige of a triumphant march from Egypt to Canaan. These were seemingly
enough to make them a power among the nations. But one thing, the indispensable
thing, was missing--the Divine favour which they had forfeited by their sin. Is
God for us or against us? is the decisive question. If He frown, empires with
the glow of centuries of art and culture transfiguring them may crumble to
dishonoured dust, and the shame of their defeat become greater than the
splendour of their conquests. From the tawny sands that cover the old-time
magnificence of Babylon and Nineveh, and the scores of historic centres that
have faded out of sight, comes one and the same declaration, voiced by the
desert wind that moans over their graves, “Even so shall it be with the nations
that forget God.” And what is true of men in the mass is true of individuals.
The conditions of real and enduring success in life are always the same.
“If God be for us, who can be against us?” Many things are rightly estimated as
elements in what is called a successful life. Enterprise, thrift, patience,
energy--all these are helpful and desirable forces; but it still remains
unalterably and everlastingly true that the sovereign maxim of political and
social economy is that given long ago by Jesus on the mount: “Seek ye first the
kingdom of God,” etc. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
Verses 11-15
They forsook the Lord God of their fathers.
Israel’s obstinacy and God’s 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
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 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 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 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. God’s 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 judge’s 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.
God’s methods with nations
I. Some
characteristics of national sins (Judges 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 (Judges 2:16-18). It is God’s 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 God’s 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 (Judges 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 Cromwell’s 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 God’s design for us.
V. The probation
and discipline of nations by trial (Judges 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 Lord raised up Judges.
The judges, their choice, function, and administration
I. These men, in
some of whom the miraculous operations of the Holy Spirit were singularly
manifested, were not chosen, like the suffetes of Carthage, with regal powers
for a year; nor like the archons of Athens, with divided and carefully defined
responsibilities; nor like the dictators of Rome, chosen to exercise
uncontrolled power during extraordinary emergencies. They were not chosen by
the people at all. They were sent forth by the Divine King of Israel--impelled
by an inward inspiration, which was in several instances confirmed by outward
miraculous signs to act in His great name. They were raised up as the
exigencies of the times required; and their presence and their absence were
alike calculated to keep alive in the nation a sense of dependence upon its
invisible King.
II. The functions
which the judges were called upon to discharge may be partly understood by
referring to the position in which Moses and Joshua stood in relation to the
twelve tribes. The judges were God’s vicegerents. The parallel between the
office of the judges and that of Moses or Joshua was not, however, complete. In
so far as they were specially raised up to be God’s vicegerents in Israel, it
holds good; yet it was a separate and distinct form of government, and is
recognised as such by St. Paul. Moses and Joshua was called, each of them, to
introduce a new order of things. But during the period of the judges, nothing,
in respect of God’s covenant, was put upon a new footing. The history of the
people is a succession of various fortunes, afflictions, and deliverances,
alternating according to their public sin or their repentance: but no change
occurred, permanently or deeply affecting their public condition. As often as
the sins of the people brought down God’s chastisements, and chastisement
produced repentance, judges were raised up to repel the invader, and to restore
peace and tranquillity. Hence they are frequently called, in the sacred
history, “deliverers and saviours.” The judges were the chief magistrates of
the Hebrew commonwealth. As such, they had to deal with religious, no less than
with civil, affairs; for the sharp line of separation between these which
modern ingenuity has invented did not then exist. It became the duty of the
judges to stir up the people to return to the Lord; and hence they needed to be
themselves men of faith.
III. With regard to
the effect of their administration upon the nation of the Jews, I think the
period of the judges was, upon the whole, a period of national advancement.
For, in the first place, the rule of the judges secured long periods of public
tranquillity. Gloomy and fearful as are some of the details furnished in the
Book of Judges, the Hebrew nation was nevertheless in a better state during
that period, morally, politically, and spiritually, than it became afterwards during
the reigns of the later kings. Not only the intervals of repose, but also the
periods of warfare, must be taken into account in estimating the benefits of
their rule. In general, they exerted themselves to prevent idolatry, dissuading
the people from their besetting sin; but there were times when the people
“would not hearken unto their judges”; and further, “when the judge was dead,”
they took advantage of the interregnum which sometimes occurred, and “returned,
and corrupted themselves more than their fathers.” These apostasies were
followed by chastisements. The Lord forsook them; He permitted their enemies to
oppress and torment them; “the east wind from the wilderness” dried up the
fountain of their strength, until, at the point to die, they bethought
themselves of His holy name. Miserable and forsaken, their name might have been
blotted out for ever but for the “saviours”--figures of a greater Saviour--whom
their God raised up to deliver them. Nor was success denied to these men in
that which they undertook. The kings of Mesopotamia, of Moab, and of Canaan,
the fierce mountaineers of Ammon: the innumerable hordes of the Bedouin; the
lordly and persistent Philistines, were in turn humbled and subdued by these
men who, through faith, “quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the
sword, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the ninnies of the aliens.” (L.
H. Wiseman, M. A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》