Outline of Chapter 2:

         vv.     1–5           The Angel of Jehovah Warns Israel

         vv.     6–9           Joshua’s Death

         vv.    10–23         Israel’s Apostasy and Instability Under the Judges: a Summary

Charts, Maps and Short Doctrines:

         Introduction         An Alternative Outline for Judges 2

         Introduction         Matthew Henry Summarizes and Organizes Judges 2

         v.       1              The Angel of Jehovah—A Brief Summary

         v.       1              The Appearances of the Angel of Jehovah

         v.       1              Commentators Discuss the Nature of the Angel of the Lord Here in Judges 2:1

         v.       1              What Form is the Angel of Jehovah in Judges 2:1?

         v.       1              To Whom Does the Angel of Jehovah Speak?

         v.       1              The Movement of the Ark of God and the Tent of Meeting

         v.       1              A Conditional Covenant Versus an Unconditional Covenant

         v.       1              A Summary of Judges 2:1

         v.       2              God’s Commands/Israel’s Disobedience; Past, Present and Future

         v.       2              The Paraphrases Obliterate Judges 2:2d

         v.       4              What is the Manner of the Angel of Jehovah?

         v.       5              The Location of the Tent of God

         v.       6              Exegetes Explain Why this Narrative Suddenly Returns to Joshua

         v.       7              The Parallel Passages of Joshua and Judges

         v.       9              Why Is Joshua’s Death Mentioned Again?

         v.      11              A Listing of Some of the Baalim in Scripture

         v.      11              Israel and the Baalim in Scripture

         v.      11              Israel’s 7 Apostasies in the Book of the Judges

         v.      12              The Anger of Jehovah

         v.      13              A Summary of the Doctrine of Ashtoreth

         v.      15              God Has Clearly Warned Israel

         v.      18              Matthew Henry’s 4 Conclusions and Applications to our Age

         v.      19              Matthew Henry Summarizes Judges 2:17–19

         v.      20              The Structure of Judges 2: the Parenthetical Nature of vv. 13–19

         v.      22              Why God Tests Us

         v.      23              The Parallels of Judges 2: Idolatry

         v.      23              The Parallels of Judges 2:the Covenants

         v.      23              The Parallels of Judges 2: Driving out the Heathen

         v.      23              The Parallels of Judges 2: the Anger of Jehovah

         v.      23              Clarke Explains Why God did not Quickly Remove the Idolaters from the Land

         v.      23              The Linear View

         v.      23              Jewish Logic and the Order of Judges 1–2

         v.      23              Barnes’ Theory of the Flow of Judges 2

         v.      23              A Complete Translation of Judges 2

I ntroduction: The organization of the book of Judges is rather disconcerting. I am expecting that there is a particular author, and that does not appear to be the case. Or, if there is one author of Judges, he does not appear to be necessarily a contemporary of the events which take place. The reason that I say this is, there is some overlap of historical events of chapters 1 and 2. Joshua’s death is mentioned in Judges 1:1 to set the historical time frame; but then, it is mentioned again, and in much greater detail in Judges 2:6–9. Furthermore, the actions of Israel in Judges 1 and 2 seem to almost be contradictory. In Judges 1, the tribes of Judah and Simeon appear to fulfill God’s mandate for their first few years in their inheritance; however, in Judges 2, there seems to be no obedience whatsoever to God’s mandates. Not to worry—all of this will be sorted out and explained. In fact, the two mentions of Joshua’s death, along with the very different actions of Judges 1 and 2 are tied together. The short explanation is, only Joshua’s death is mentioned in Judges 1:1; those who took the land under Joshua continued (at least, those in Judah and Simeon). However, in Judges 2:6–10, not only do we see the death of Joshua, but we also see the deaths of those who served under Joshua—the generation of promise. When they die off, then the events of Judges 2 take place.

The short, abbreviated view of Judges 2 is simple: this book gives us a pattern for what would take place in Israel over the next 300 or so years; and a pattern which will be followed in Judges 3–16. Actually, we get two specific historical events: the Angel speaking to Israel in Bochim; and the death of Joshua and the generation of promise. Beginning in v. 11, we have the historical trends which define the actions of Israel for the next several hundred years.

In Judges 2, we have quite the interesting appearance of the Angel of the Lord, Jesus Christ, Who makes some stern observations of Israel, which helps to explain the lack of progress and success that we observed in the previous chapter. Then we have the dismissal of Joshua to Israel to their inheritance, the death and burial of Joshua, and, most importantly, the death of the generation of promise. Two generations of Israelites left Egypt under Moses: Gen X (20 and older) and the generation of promise (their children and those who would be born to them in the desert). The failures of Gen X were spectacular—so much so that God killed them all in the desert (except for Moses, Aaron, Caleb); but allowed their sons to live and to take the Land of Promise. The generation of promise is seen in Judges 1; the generation of promise have all passed on in Judges 2.

In the latter half of this book, Israel’s idolatry is examined in a general way and their relationship to the judges of Israel is examined in a general way. Chapter 1 gives us an overview of what the troops did after being given their inheritance and chapter 2 gives us a rundown of Israel’s history from their inheritance through the period of the judges. It is almost as though the author of this chapter was the author of the entirety of the book of Judges, who gives us an overview here, knowing what would happen in the subsequent chapters.

The first portion of this chapter is rather surreal and seems to exist without any reference to time. The Angel of Jehovah, Who is Jehovah, travels from Gilgal to Bochim and then speaks, but it is unclear who He speaks to—I should rephrase that—He speaks to all of Israel, but the method is unclear. That is, we do not know whether He spoke through a prophet, through a judge; whether He spoke audibly and exactly who was able to hear Him. We do not even know His relationship to time in the book of Judges (however, we can make some reasonable guesses about all of these things).

In the second portion of this chapter, we deal with the death of Joshua and the his faithfulness and the faithfulness of the elders who died soon after him. The latter portion of this chapter deals with a summary of the book of Judges.

McGee comments: This is the beginning of Israel’s "hoop of history." They repeated the weary round of forsaking God, sinning, being reduced to servitude by the enemy , returning to God in repentance, being delivered by God-appointed judges, back to obedience to God .

What we need to deal with is setting up a time frame for these events. Most of us think in a linear fashion, so we want to think that the incident at Bochim occurred first, then Joshua’s death and then the contents of the book of Judges occurred afterwards. This is not how it works. Bochim gives us a general idea of what is coming in the book of Judges and why. Then we backtrack to explain why. We go back to Joshua’s death, his faithfulness; and the faithfulness of the elders under him. However, after their deaths, we have another generation (this begins the third portion of this book). The third portion of this book acts as a summary of the book of Judges, the second portion gives us the background and foundation for that period of time. The first portion tells us of the judgment which God laid upon Israel. We will go into more details, as well as some justification for this at the end of this book.

Judges is such an unusual book because, so far, we have no clue as to who the author is. The end of Joshua seemed to be undoubtedly written by Phinehas. Despite all of weird opinions that you have read, I would give that a 95% likelihood. And, prior to the study of the book of Judges, I would have given an equal likelihood to Phinehas beginning (but, of course, not completing) the book of Judges. Now, throughout the book of Genesis, we have various writers almost seamlessly picking up the thread of the story from the previous author; and in the books of Moses, without any fanfare, it appears as though Joshua picks up the thread, writing the last couple chapters of Deuteronomy and then launches into his own book. And it is clear that Phinehas picks up the pen and covers the last couple chapters of the book of Joshua as well; however, the writing style of Judges 1 is so simplistic as to seemingly preclude the authorship of Phinehas. In this second chapter, we no longer have the simplistic vocabulary of the first chapter, but we appear to have the writing of a person who is looking back upon this time period—possibly from several hundred years after the events of chapter 3 (I say that because in the latter portion of this chapter, the author gives us an overview of Israel and the judges). The vocabulary of Judges 2 is often very repetitive; but the sentence structure is rather complex; very different from the end of the book of Joshua.

The next problem with authorship is that Joshua’s death is mentioned twice—in Judges 1:1 and in Judges 2:6–9. There are reasons why his death is mentioned twice; however, this by itself suggests different authors for these two chapters. Furthermore, Judges 1 could have been easily written by someone who observed the events of that chapter—that is, he could have been a member of the generation of promise, as all of the events of this chapter reasonably take place immediately after Joshua’s death. However, in Judges 2, we move from some very specific incidents to a generalization over what would happen to Israel over the next several hundred years. Now, of course, a prophet could have written this from the generation after the generation of promise, and prophesied here what would happen in the future. However, it is just as likely that an editor from hundreds of years later gathered the historical documents that he could, and put together a history of the Judges, beginning here with an introductory chapter (Judges 2 better introduces the entire book of Judges than does Judges 1). What further seems to suggest that we have a later author who organizes and includes a variety of historical documents, are the final chapters of this book, which seem to be added on as an addendum, but which cover incidents which took place early on during the period of the Judges.

If I was to take a seat of the pants guess at this time, I would say that Samuel composed the book of Judges from several historical documents which he had at his disposal. Phinehas may have written the first chapter of Judges and possibly the first few verses of Judges 2; however, the summarization that we find in the second half of this chapter seems to have been written by someone who is looking back on the history of Israel for this time period, rather than an author who experienced a short period of time during the Judges. The chapters which follow are separated in time by as much as 300 years; it is reasonable that Samuel had access to the historical documents which covered what happened under each judge and the events leading up to God choosing a man to lead Isarel. Finally, at the very end of this book, we have a few chapters which seem to be tacked on. They don’t fit in with any of the Judges in particular; they describe a period of time where Israel is rejecting God’s authority; and they seem to be placed at the end of the book of Judges under the section heading of, Oh, yeah; I almost forgot—these things also took place during the time of the Judges.

One of the fascinating things about Judges 2 is how many theological topics we will study in this chapter and how many practical applications that we will have, based upon the narrative that we find here.

The Angle of the Lord Warns Israel

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so goes up an Angel of Y^ehowah from the Gilgal unto the Bochim. And so He says, “I bring you up from Egypt and so I will bring you up unto the land which I swore to your fathers. And so I say, ‘I will not break My covenant with you to [the] age.’

Septuagint                              And an angel [or, messenger] 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 swore unto your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you.’

Significant differences:           None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       The LORD's angel went from Gilgal to Bochim and gave the Israelites this message from the LORD: I promised your ancestors that I would give this land to their families, and I brought your people here from Egypt. We made an agreement that I promised never to break,...

The Message                         GOD's angel went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt; I led you to the land that I promised to your fathers; and I said, I'll never break my covenant with you—never!

NJB                                        The Angel of Yahweh [an expression for Yahweh himself in visible form] went up from Gilgal to Bethel and said, ‘I have brought you out of Egypt and led you into this country, which I promised on oath to your ancestors. I said, “I shall never break my covenant with you.

NLT                                        The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim with a message for the Israelites. He told them, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         The Messenger of the LORD went from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, "I brought you out of Egypt into the land that I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, 'I will never break my promise to you.

HCSB                                     The Angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim and said, "I brought you out of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your fathers. I also said: I will never break My covenant with you.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, "I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you,...

Young’s Updated LT             And a messenger of Jehovah goes up from Gilgal unto Bochim, and says, “I cause you to come up out of Egypt, and bring you in unto the land which I have sworn to your fathers, and say, I do not break My covenant with you to the age.

What is the gist of this verse? An Angel of Jehovah goes from Gilgal to Bochum and speaks (we don’t know exactly to whom), and he says, “I have caused you to come out from Egypt and I brought you into the land which I had sworn to your fathers; furthermore, I promised that I would never break my covenant with you.”

Translation: And so the Angel of Jehovah went up from Gilgal to Bochim. We will discuss Bochim later on in this chapter. Gilgal is where the Israelites first came to when they crossed over the Jordan River into the Land of Promise (Joshua 4:19).

I and other commentators will make a lot out of the Angel of Jehovah traveling from Gilgal to Bochim; however, it could be simply that, His last manifestation had been to Joshua in Gilgal; and now He appears to the Israelites in Bochim. Therefore, this portion of the verse is not concentrating so much upon His mode of travel, but simply that the Angel of Jehovah appeared first to Joshua in Gilgal, and now to Israel in Bochim. That is, the emphasis is upon His successive appearances, rather than to any sort of mode of travel or to the route of travel.

Keil and Delitzsch, come to roughly the same conclusion: Just as on that occasion, when Israel had just entered into the true covenant relation to the Lord by circumcision, and was preparing for the conquest of Canaan, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joshua as the prince of the army of Jehovah, to ensure him of the taking of Jericho; so here after the entrance of the tribes of Israel into their inheritances, when they were beginning to make peace with the remaining Canaanites, and instead of rooting them out were content to make them tributary, the angel of the Lord appeared to the people, to make known to all the children of Israel that by such intercourse with the Canaanites they had broken the covenant of the Lord, and to foretell the punishment which would follow this transgression of the covenant. By the fact, therefore, that he came up from Gilgal, it is distinctly shown that the same angel who gave the whole of Canaan into the hands of the Israelites when Jericho fell, had appeared to them again at Bochim, to make known to them the purposes of God in consequence of their disobedience to the commands of the Lord. How very far it was from being the author's intention to give simply a geographical notice, is also evident from the fact that he merely describes the place where this appearance occurred by the name which was given to it in consequence of the event, viz., Bochim, i.e., weepers.

There is a lot which we do not know. We do not know exactly how God spoke to Israel. That is, we do not know if He spoke to them on sort of a loudspeaker from the tent of the God; or whether in a dream to all of Israel, or through the reading of the Word of God. My original leaning would be toward an audible voice heard by all of Israel; however, you may recall that a previous generation of Israel asked that God speak through Moses, and not directly to them. So, another option is, a prophet of God stood up, and spoke as God personified (i.e., he spoke in the 1^st person). Determining how God spoke to Israel here is a matter of speculation.

Furthermore, we do not know when this was said. My thinking is this occurred soon after the death of Joshua; or, at least, soon after the death of the elders who were in positions of authority under Joshua. Barnes places this during the time of Joshua, and I don’t have any concrete evidence to dispute his position, nor do I accept his evidence as undeniable and sufficient. The NIV Study Bible places this early in the period of the Judges, also acknowledging that the time is difficult to pinpoint.

The Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah—generally the second person of the trinity, the revealed person of the trinity, Jesus Christ. Obviously as He speaks, He is speaking for God. The first thing this Angel says is, "I brought you out of Egypt." No mere angel can say that; only God can say that.

Some might be concerned that we have the Angel of Jehovah traveling from Gilgal to Bochim. If He is God, why the heck does he land in Gilgal and then go up to Bochim? Why not just land in Bochim in the first place? This question has a fairly simple answer. What we do not have is, “People of Israel, I have just blown into town by way of Gilgal.” What we have is that God was with the people at Gilgal and has traveled with the people up until this point in Bochim. “Observe, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.” (Ex. 23:20). Gilgal was the place where Israel first became established in the land. The Angel of God moved before the people and He moved with the people. This is the same Angel Who delivered Jericho into the hands of the Israelites and guided them in their attack upon the Land of Canaan. The emphasis here is not upon the Angel’s traveling, but upon the fact that this is the Angel which God sent to Israel.

What is difficult is, how did Israel perceive this Angel from Jehovah? In the desert, this primarily appears to be cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The only voice that is audible to Israel is that from God in giving the Ten Commandments (which Israel asks to receive through a mediator—Ex. 20:19). Here, I must admit to being stumped. Does this Angel appear to Phinehas (for instance) in the Tent of God, and then does Phinehas relay the message to Israel? Does this Angel make some sort of an appearance before Israel as a whole—perhaps at one of the festive gatherings? Let’s look at a few options below:

Application: I live in a generation which has seriously gone awry; we grew up preaching free love, when this was really a mantra to justify the unbridled function of our own lusts. We protested the war because we did not have enough nerve to fight; and, at least during our own generation, did not see any imminent fear of invasion—so protesting all war simply kept us from serving our own country. The generation which preceded us—those who fought World War II, were great men, whose courage and willingness to fight evil is humbling. Some in my generation believe in Jesus Christ and recognize the incredible courage of the generation which preceded us. We also see the incredibly hedonistic practices of the current generation of youth (which hedonism has been predominant throughout several generations) and we have seen how they are easily influenced by lies (for instance, the lie that our constitution requires that there be no connection whatsoever between any government institution and religion ). In a parallel situation, it would make sense for God to speak to us, and for many of us to cry (for instance, at the idea that we will be attacked by Muslim extremists in the future, because of our faithlessness); and for others of us to remain unmoved and to continue along the same path.

Now, so you don’t misunderstand me: the Angel of Jehovah is not going to suddenly appear and speak to us in the United States. We live in the Church Age, which is marked by historical precedents and historical patterns that we can easily observe and learn from. Whereas, Israel was a theocracy—a nation ruled by God; we are not, and no nation since Israel has ever been a theocracy. However, we can observe historical trends and determine where our generation is heading. We need Bible doctrine to determine what our future will be; we do not require the Angel of God to come down and tell us what to expect.

Application: Now, from time to time, I tend to make statements which may be interpreted as political statements (e.g., the footnote about George W. Bush). I do not want you to be misled here. We are never told in Scripture that politics is our salvation. We are never told that, if we campaign hard enough for the correct political party, or the correct political candidate, that everything is going to be alright. Now, some believers will be called upon to serve God in political campaigns and as political candidates; however, this is not our primary thrust as believers, and should never be our primary thrust as believers. We are to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ—that is our mandate from God. We are to apply the doctrine which we know to whatever situation we find ourselves in, whether it is a time of relative peace or a time of great unrest. We are to determine our spiritual gift or gifts and we are to function in these gifts, guided by God the Holy Spirit and by spiritual maturity. Since we live in a democracy, sure, we should vote. However, do not think that our vote will deliver us. The doctrine in your soul will deliver you; the doctrine in the souls of your children will deliver you. If you campaign tirelessly for a candidate that you perceive as a great Christian; and neglect the spiritual growth of yourself and your family, you are a fool! You and your society are 100X better served by you growing spiritually and by your taking responsibility for the spiritual growth of your family. If there are some politics involved in your life; that is not necessarily a sin. Just put politics in its proper perspective—it is a detail of life, and its importance is dwarfed by your own spiritual growth and by the spiritual growth of your family (for which the husband and wife are responsible).

Application: Let me give you another application here, which is along the same lines. God has set up the family unit as the 3^rd divine institution. If you allow your family unit to crumble, and yet campaign tirelessly for this or that candidate or party, you are a fool! You have ignored one of your greatest responsibilities and have concentrated on a minor detail of life. A Christian husband or a Christian wife should campaign tirelessly to maintain a good, healthy family unit; and if you find enough time to go out and cast your ballot in this or that election, that is fine—but your family is your first priority after Bible doctrine.

I need to point out that there is a big problem between the Hebrew text and the Greek text when it comes to the city of Bethel. So, you are wondering, where’s Bethel? In the Alexaxandrian Septuagint (I assume ), this verse reads: And an angel of the Lord went up from Galgal to [the place of] weeping, and to Bæthel, and to the house of Israel, and said... Now, this makes perfect sense. The Tent of God and the Ark of the Covenant were originally placed in Gilgal when Israel crossed over the Jordan to conquer the Land of Promise (Joshua 4–5). The Ark was carried into battle against Jericho (Joshua 6). Once Joshua gained a clear foothold in the Land of Promise, he tended to spiritual matters, which involved the Ark and taking it to Shechem at Mount Gerizim (Joshua 8:30–35). Once Israel had conquered the land, the Ark and the Tent of Meeting were moved to Shiloh (Joshua 18:1 22:12 Judges 18:31). Eventually, the Ark was moved to Bethel (Judges 20:18, 26–28)—after it was conquered of course (Judges 1:22–26). It was possible that it was disassembled and moved to Bethel as a part of the military action against Benjamin (Judges 19–21). The weeping mentioned here could be an area right outside of Bethel or an area adjacent to the Tent of God where Israel went periodically to cry (compare to Judges 2:15, 18 21:2–4). Now, interestingly enough, the Ark and the Tent of Meeting are not mentioned at all in Judges 21, which could indicate that Phinehas was disgusted with the whole scene and that he moved it. It did end up back in Shiloh (1Sam. 1:3, 9). It may be easier to see this in a chart:

Translation: And then He said, “I brought you up from Egypt... Notice the way God identifies Himself to the prophet or to the people with the phrase: “I am Y^ehowah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.” (Ex. 20:1; see Judges 6:8–9 as well). This clearly indicates that the Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah.

That God had promised the land to Israel has been covered in great detail in the past (see Gen. 12 Deut. 1:7 29:intro). Although God’s covenant to Israel goes back further, we have a good, quick representation of it in Gen. 17:7–8: “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your temporary stays, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession—and I will be their God.”

One of the popular viewpoints of theology is that Israel is some kind of church and has spiritualized into today’s church; and that all of the promises that God made to Abraham and to those who came after him are now applicable to the church and possibly spiritualized in some ways (this is known as Covenant Theology). In fact, quite frankly, a lot of people hold to that. However, God made a promise to Abraham and to Abraham’s children—that is, his children of promise, the heirs to the promise. Those promises were not made to you or to me, but they were made specifically to Abraham and to his progeny. God will keep those promises. Thus proclaims Jehovah, Who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night; Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—Jehovah of hosts is His name. “If this fixed order departs from before Me,” declares Jehovah, “Then the descendants of Israel will also cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Thus said Jehovah, “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the descendants of Israel for all that they have done,” declares Jehovah (Jer. 31:35–37). God’s faithfulness to Israel is as strong as the laws which govern the universe.

One of the things which is theologically humorous to me is, many of those who hold to covenant theology also make some big to-do of the nation Israel and the Jews being in the Land of Promise today. If the church is simply spiritualized Israel, then why worry about the Jews or Israel at all? Israel and the Jews should be meaningless to the covenant theologian; if not, then they are choosing to interpret one handful of promises and prophecies literally and another handful not so literally. That is a very dangerous position to hold. What you should consider is, there are times in Scripture where the language is hyperbole or obviously not literal (the book by Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible is excellent when listing what literary phrases and idioms are found in Scripture. Furthermore, many of them are quite obvious. Jesus Christ is called a Lamb over and over again; this does not mean that He is a literal lamb which came from the womb of Mr. and Mrs. Lamb; He is identified with the lambs which had been slaughtered for hundreds of years—literally millions of lambs without spot and without blemish—which foretold of His coming. This should be obvious to those who have even a precursory knowledge of theology. Even those who don’t rarely interpret Lamb, when applied to Jesus Christ, as being literal. The Bible is filled with similar, non-literal expressions; and, a majority of the time, one can figure out when to take the Bible literally and when not to. However, if we are going to take the (false) theological position that the church is spiritualized Israel, then we do not get to point at the nation Israel or at the Jews scattered throughout the world today and say, “This fulfills prophecy!” It does not necessarily fulfill prophecy if Covenant Theology is true. It puts us in the precarious position of taking something which is symbolic on occasion (Israel; the Jews) and making it literal when we feel like making it literal. If you don’t get my point, let me try to spell it out for you: you don’t get to have it both ways; you don’t get to spiritualize Israel and the Jew in one verse, and take them literally in the next. That is theologically (and intellectually) dishonest.

The easiest approach is, we interpret most of Scripture as literal unless there is overwhelming evidence that it is not (e.g., the example of Jesus Christ being called the Lamb of God).

What does God say about Israel in the New Testament? Rom. 11:1–6, 11, 25: I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace...So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous...So that you are not wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery [Church Age doctrine], brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. The fullness of the Gentiles will be the completion of the Church Age; and Israel will be partially hardened until then. Heb. 8:8–10: For he finds fault with them when he says: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Does this sound like God has simply cast the nation Israel aside, and now the Church is spiritualized Israel? Of course not! Rev. 7:4 (and vv. 5–8 summarized: And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes. Revelation is about the end times; who is God speaking about here? The Church? After Jesus Christ speaks to the churches in Rev. 2–3, we no longer hear anything about the church in the book of Revelation, which speaks of the end times. Where is the church? We have been raptured; we are face to face with Jesus Christ. We do not appear in the Great Tribulation, which is the bulk of what the book of Revelation is about. You will notice: all I have to do is just read these passages the way they stand; I don’t have to put some kind of a spin on them; I don’t have to say, well, this is not literal Israel here, but spiritual Israel, the church, which Paul is writing about. And there is no specific language which indicates that indicates that any of what we have here is figurative or spiritual.

Now, I will fully agree that there are some passages, even those dealing with narrative, which are difficult to understand or difficult to unravel. Even in this chapter, we will spend a lot of time talking through this and that theory. However, these passages quoted above are fairly easy to understand. God has not cast Israel aside; there is a remnant within Israel right now (when Paul wrote Romans; in the Church Age) as there was during the time of Elijah (during the Age of Israel). And Israel has a definite future with God, which includes a New Covenant and a real function from specific tribes during the Tribulation. To interpret these passages any differently requires one to put a spin on this or that; to make a weird interpretation of this or that verse; and to completely bollocks up what is clearly written here.

I fully understand that some theologian might come along and think, hmmm, how can we interpret Israel and the church? Let’s try this theory of Covenant Theology. And, it should be clear that, some things seem to make sense using this particular theory; and some things do not. When I exegete passages—even this verse that we are in, I approach it from a couple different angles, and try this or that theory out on it; but, when all is said and done, I apply the theory which makes the most sense and causes the least amount of damage to the text. What I am saying is, it is fine that a theologian came along, proposed the theory of Covenant Theology as one explanation; however, it should be just as clear that, this theory just does not wash; it does not work; it requires us to make grand, sweeping changes to passages which are otherwise fairly easy to understand.

Translation: ...and I brought you up into the land which I swore to your fathers. God had taken Abraham to a mountain, after he and Lot had split up; and God pointed out all of the land which was going to belong to Abraham and to his children. God renewed this promise on several occasions.

Gill: ...and I have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers: into the land of Canaan, now for the most part conquered, and divided among them, and in which they were settled.

And again, not to harp on this, but God made literal promises to Israel which He fulfilled literally (although He has not yet given Israel all of the land which He promised them).

Translation: And so I said, ‘I will not break My covenant with you forever. It was never a surprise when Israel went out of fellowship and became apostate. Even before going into the land, God had predicted that this would happen. “If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—I was also acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart become humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land.” (Lev. 26:40–42). And most importantly, God’s covenant is for all time: “Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am Jehovah their God. But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations that I might be their God—I am Jehovah.” (Lev. 26:44–45). “Know therefore that Jehovah your God, He is god, the faithful God, Who keeps His covenant and His grace to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” (Deut. 7:9). “My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness, I will not lie to David.” (Psalm 89:34–35).

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown: The burden of the angel's remonstrance was that God would inviolably keep His promise; but they [Israel], by their flagrant and repeated breaches of their covenant with Him, had forfeited all claim to the stipulated benefits. Having disobeyed the will of God by voluntarily courting the society of idolaters and placing themselves in the way of temptation, He left them to suffer the punishment of their misdeeds.

Let me get to some specifics: this reads And so I said, “I will not break My covenant with you forever.” When and where did Jesus Christ, the Angel of Jehovah, Jehovah, say this, and to whom? We actually do not have a specific passage that we could point to. Therefore, we have two options: (1) God did say this; those hearing Him were aware of this (for the most part); and it was never recorded in the Word of God. (2) God never did say these exact words, but they can be inferred from the following passages: Gen. 17:7–8 (“And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God." ); Lev. 26:42 (“Then [after Israel has suffered maximum discipline] I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land”).

In the future, God will make similar promises to David and to Israel: Psalm 89:34–36 (“I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. His offspring shall endure forever, his throne as long as the sun before me.”); Jer. 33:20–22 ("Thus says the LORD: If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical priests my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the offspring of David my servant, and the Levitical priests who minister to me."—You may find this a little confusing, but God is telling them that He will not break His covenant with David).

That God fulfill His covenant delivered to Israel is closely tied to His character: “We [this is Israel speaking to God] acknowledge our wickedness, O LORD, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against you. Do not spurn us, for your name's sake; do not dishonor your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us.” (Jer. 14:20–21).

At this point in time, as a reader of millenniums later, we do not know where Bochim is. For this reason, some have gone along with the one reading of the Alexandrian Septuagint, that this is Bethel. However, it is reasonable to suppose that wherever Israel heard the Word of God (which, again, suggests that Israel was gathered when they heard this), that they wept, as we will find out later, and that this particular place, not necessarily a city, but a place where they gathered, was then named Bochim, or weepers.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And you—you [all] will not cut a covenant to those inhabiting the land the this; their altars, you will break down. And you have not hearkened in My voice. What [is] this you [all] have done?

Septuagint                              And you will make no league with the inhabitants of this land; you will throw down their altars: but you have not obeyed my voice: why have you done this?

Significant differences:           The difference of the second verb could simply be one of interpretation. The difference in the interrogatives is also one of interpretation.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       ...and you promised not to make any peace treaties with the other nations that live in the land. Besides that, you agreed to tear down the altars where they sacrifice to their idols. But you didn't keep your promise.

The Message                         And you're never to make a covenant with the people who live in this land. Tear down their altars! But you haven't obeyed me! What's this that you're doing?

NJB                                        You for your part must make no covenant with the inhabitants of this country; you will destroy their altars.” But you have not listened to my voice. What is the reason for this?

NLT                                        For your part you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. Why, then, have you disobeyed my command?

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         You must never make a treaty with the people who live in this land. You must tear down their altars.' But you didn't obey me. What do you think you're doing?

HCSB                                     You are not to make a covenant with the people who are living in this land, and you are to tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed Me. What is this you have done?

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       ...and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done?

Young’s Updated LT             And you—you make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land—their altars you break down; and you have not listened to My voice—what is this you have done?

What is the gist of this verse? The angel of God reminds them of what they were supposed to do; there were to be no covenants between themselves and the inhabitants of the land; and they were to tear down all of their altars. However, Israel had not obeyed God, and he plaintively asks, “Why haven’t you done this?”

Translation: And [to] you [I said], ‘You will not make a covenant with those inhabiting this land;... The Angel of Jehovah, Who is Jehovah (manifestation of Jehovah), is speaking to the people of Israel, and He continues to quote Himself. That is, He first says, “This is what I said to you before.” and then He quotes Himself.

From the very beginning, God made it clear that Israel was not to make a covenant with any of the people in the land. “You will make no covenant with them or with their gods. They will not live in your land, so that they will not cause you to sin against Me; for you will serve their gods and it [their living in the land] will be a snare to you.” (Ex. 23:32–33). “And when Jehovah your God delivers them before you, then you will strike them down, and you will completely destroy them. You will make no covenant with them and you will show them no grace.” (Deut. 7:2; see also Ex. 23:24 34:12–13).

Translation: ...you will break down their altars.’ This completes God quoting Himself. In the past, God also told them: “And you will completely destroy all the places where the nations whom you will dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You will tear down their altars and you will smash their pillars and you will burn their Asherim with fire, and you will cut down the engraved images or their gods, and you will obliterate their name from that place.” (Deut. 12:3–4; see also Deut. 7:5).

Application: You must recall that Israel was a client nation to God and a theocracy; this means that God ruled this nation. Therefore, God could call for the destruction of a people, and Israel would have to comply. God is not the ruler over any nation. The US is certain a client nation to God (i.e., we participate in preserving and teaching the Word of God; and we are heavily involved in missionary activity); and other nations participate to a more limited degree in these activities. However, at this time in world history, Israel alone had the truth, and the nations which surrounded Israel did not. For this reason, God is not speaking to any president telling him to go out and destroy this or that nation.

Translation: But you have not listened to [lit, in] My voice. The verb here means to listen and to obey. God gave Israel clear commands; and Israel was not obeying these commands.

Gill: [You have not obeyed] the command of God, but on the contrary had made leagues and covenants with several inhabitants of the land, allowing them to dwell among them on paying a certain tax or tribute to them; and had suffered their altars to continue, and them to sacrifice upon them to their idols, according to their former customs.

And just in case I left any of these passages out, above or below, God made it extremely clear to the Israelites that they were to destroy the heathen who remained in the land of promise, and that they were not to ally themselves with them, or especially, they were not to worship their gods: Ex. 23:32–33 34:12–16 Num. 33:52–53 Deut. 7:2–4, 16, 25–26 12:2–3 20:16–18 2Cor. 6:14–17 (many of these passages will be quoted below). The point of listing all these passages here is to indicate that, this was not some small, minor, hidden commandment which some inhabitants of Israel may have missed.

The principle here is carried into the New Testament (a principle which has been widely misapplied): Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? (2Cor. 6:14). The way the Old Testament passages have been misapplied is to forbid marriage between different races; now, you may not want to marry someone from this race or that, and that is fine and reasonable; that is your choice. However, there is nothing inherently wrong or evil about an Eskimo marrying an Afrikaner (or whatever other combination you want to come up with). If one is a believer in Jesus Christ and the other worships Allah of the Muslim faith, that is the problem. Inevitably, in the Old Testament, when intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews was spoken of in a negative light, the end result was, the one tied to Jehovah of the Old Testament would go negative toward the God of his fathers and worship some heathen god—that is the true problem. Their skin colors, the differences between their noses or eyes are not in view and never spoken of in Scripture.

One of the great ironies of our history is, the Ku Klux Klan, which did originally have some ties to Christianity, would have strongly objected to one of their members marrying an African-American, even if the latter was a mature believer. Their emphasis was all wrong. It is not the racial difference which should be a factor with regards to marriage, but the spiritual differences. Believers should marry believers; and mature believers should marry other mature believers.

Application: Let me give you a simple example: if you are the whitest person on this planet, and you are enamored of a Thai, there is no problem of marrying and having children—unless the Thai goes to a Buddhist temple and worships Buddha. You may have come across the loveliest person from the Philippines, but if they are steeped in Catholicism, then marriage is out of the question. If they believe in Jesus Christ, are not associated with the Catholic church, and are growing in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, then if you marry, you have not sinned. When Paul speaks of marriage, he clearly forbids the believer to marry the unbeliever (2Cor. 6:14; see also Deut. 7:3); but also forbids the casual separation of a mixed marriage (1Cor. 7:12–16).

Application: A misapplication of 2Cor. 6:14 (Do not be unequally yoked) is, some believers try to deal with other believers exclusively. First of all, let me make it clear that some of the biggest liars, crooks and cheats that I have ever dealt with are Bible-believing Christians (for whatever reason, most of my experience here is with charismatics). And let me quickly add that I have had some great business relationships with some believers (and unbelievers). I can think of 4 people right off the top of my head, a Catholic; a charismatic; someone who has possibly believed, but I am not sure; and someone I think is a believer, but I don’t know what kind; and these 4 people, I would trust them implicitly. To any one of these people, I would trust them with the keys to my house, even if I had a bucket of $100 bills sitting in the middle of the living room. I’ve gone off topic here; but my point is, you do not withdraw yourself from all relationships (personal, business, profession) with unbelievers. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one (1Cor. 5:9–11). You cannot completely disassociate yourself from those in this world who are corrupt, otherwise you would have to go out of the world. In fact, it is important that we have personal contact with these unbelievers, as we are a witness to them (1Cor. 4:9 2Cor. 5:19 Philip. 2:15 1John 2:2 4:14, 17). Most of the separation spoken of in Scripture is between believers.

Application: If you are a believer in Jesus Christ and you lie, cheat and./or steal as a part of your personal and business practices, then do not ever spout out that you are a believer. Keep this a secret. When you give your personal testimony and then cheat someone out of their money, you are not letting your light shine as a lamp in a dark place; you are proving yourself to be an embarrassment to Jesus Christ, and your testimony does nothing but confirm to others that Christians are hypocrites and cheats and liars.

Translation: What is this you have done? According to Rotherham, this last sentence maybe alternately translated “What now have ye done?” What has happened is that Israel has not gone in and eradicated the people of the land of Palestine, even though God had commanded them to do so. Although, there were several times when the Israelites could have destroyed their enemies, they chose not to, and placed them into slavery instead (Judges 1:28, 30, 33). Apparently, when placing them into slavery, the Israelites did not remove their altars and their vestiges of heathenism, although such things were abhorrent to God. The psalmist testifies to this: They did not destroy the peoples as Jehovah commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and they learned their practices and they served their idols, who became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons and they shed innocent blood—the blood of their sons and their daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. And the land was polluted with the blood (Psalm 106:34–39).

Another reasonable understanding of this question is, “Why have you done this?” After all that God has done for Israel; after all of His blessing and His protection, and Israel completely blows off God’s commandments. I would like to scream and shout at Israel at this time; but there are many times when I have done the same thing. I know what is right; I know what God expects; and I come far, far short of His clear expectations.

Keil and Delitzsch: The words “and you have not listened to [and obeyed] my voice” recall to mind Ex. 19:5 (Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine). “What have ye done” (literally “what is this that ye have done”), in sparing the Canaanites and tolerating their altars? 

Now, let’s put all of this together: “I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done?” (Judges 2:1b–2). “You are not supposed to intermarry; you are not suppose to go to the heathen churches, and you are to tear down their heathen altars; and yet, you have completely disobeyed My voice. Do you see what you have done?” This is the gist of what the Angel of Jehovah is saying to the people, and He is pointing out to them that they have failed and have not followed His word. The final phrase indicates that there are those in his audience who have disobeyed Him; they should look at their behavior, their lives, and it is clear that they have rejected His Word, and not only taken heathen wives to themselves, but embraced the godless worship as well. This final phrase emphatically tells us that there were listeners that day who were now clearly aware of their evil practices.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Latin Vulgate                          Wherefore I would not destroy them from before your face; that you may have enemies, and their gods may be your ruin.

Masoretic Text                       And furthermore I have said, ‘I will not drive them out from your faces and they have been to you for [thorns in your] sides and their gods are to you for a snare.’ ”

Peshitta                                  Wherefore I also said, ‘:I will not destroy them from before you; but they will become vanity, and their gods will be a stumbling block to you.”

Septuagint                              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.

Significant differences:           The LXX appears to be identical to the MT. The Latin tells us that God did not remove these people, so that there would be enemies for Jews in the land; and the Syriac tells us that their enemies would be a vacuum to them (vanity) and that their gods would cause them to stumble. Given that the Greek and Hebrew are identical, then we might reasonably assume that the Syriac and Latin clearly do not reflect the Hebrew, but, probably interpret what they read.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       And so, I'll stop helping you defeat your enemies. Instead, they will be there to trap you into worshiping their idols.

The Message                         "So now I'm telling you that I won't drive them out before you. They'll trip you up and their gods will become a trap."

NLT                                        Since you have done this, I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.’

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

HCSB                                     Therefore, I now say: I will not drive out these people before you. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap to you."

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

MKJV                                     And I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.

Young's Literal Translation     And I also have said, I do not cast them out from your presence, and they have been to you for adversaries, and their gods are to you for a snare.'

What is the gist of this verse? God chose not to cast Israel’s enemies out of the land; but that they would remain there as (1) enemies or as (2) thorns in the sides of the Jews; and that their gods would become a trap for them.

Translation: Moreover, I promise [lit., say], I will not drive them out from your faces... There is obviously a choice that God could make—God could have driven out each and every one of the itinerant groups of people who also occupied the Land of Promise; or He could have left them all there. God gave Israel the land, but Israel was supposed to continue to take the land. Israel could offers terms of unconditional peace, which would have included their enemies believing in the God of Israel. However, only the Gibeonites appear to have done that (and they did so dishonestly). This option which the Jews were to offer to a city which they invaded is given in Deut. 20:10–11 (however, you will need the exegesis of this verse to fully understand this passage).

Translation: ...and they will be to you for [thorns] in [your] sides... What they will be to Israel is the masculine plural of tsad (ד ַצ) [pronounced tzahd ], which means sides. I don’t know if we have the implication that they would be thorns in their sides, or whether that word was dropped out, either due to a copyist’s error or a messtup manuscript. Young and Rotherham render this adversaries, the KJV, the NASB and the NIV render this as thorns in your sides. The LXX has distresses to you and the vulgate has enemies [or, adversaries] to you. I used this passage when comparing the various English translations. As was mentioned several times in the previous chapter, the Israelites did not do just as God had instructed them, but they allowed their enemies to continue to live side-by-side, and allowed their enemies apparently to continue in their heathen worship. Because of this, their enemies would be thorns in their sides and their gods would be traps for the Israelites, as the remainder of this book will bear out.

You may or may not recognize this quote, but God is paraphrasing Himself. “But if you drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it will come to pass that those whom you allow to remain will be thorns in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they will trouble you in the law in which you live.” (Num. 33:55). Maybe what we read in Judges 2:3 is an abbreviated version of Num. 33:55, or a passage where a word or 3 was dropped out due to ancient manuscript problems. I do want you to notice that the LXX version (which would have been translated from Hebrew manuscripts from the 3^rd through 5^th centuries b.c.) is almost identical to the Masoretic text; so it this was a manuscript problem, then it goes way, way back.

The word found here is the masculine plural noun for sides; and we do not find it used any differently in Scripture. This means that, either there is another meaning for tsad which has been lost to us (e.g., adversaries, enemies); or there is a missing word or two; or the missing words were understood to the Jews. Context seems to indicate that these heathen left in the land will be thorns in the sides of the Jews.

Translation: ...and their gods will be to you for a snare.” Joshua also warned: “Know with certainty that Jehovah your god will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which Jehovah your God has given you.” (Joshua 23:13). The book of Judges is essentially about how Israel did fall prey to the people of the land and their women and their gods. For the next several hundred years, Israel will be on a downhill slide. The reason for this is, they will intermarry with the heathen of the land, and they will embrace the religions and gods of the godless heathen who live among them.

I want you to notice that there is a careful interaction here. Had Israel continued to take the cities in their possession, as Judah and Simeon began to do (Judges 1:1–20), then God would have allowed them to do so; and, probably within a generation or two, all of their land would be cleared of heathen. However, Israel did not move forward as a whole. There were heathen who, for all intents and purposes, lived right next door to them in their cities, and they made arrangements with these heathen, they married their daughters, and they even were very liberal and worshiped in their churches. For this reason, they were taken further and further away from the God of their fathers; and drawn into worship of the demons who were represented by statues and idols in their worship. It is the freewill choice of the people of Israel to embrace their enemies, and to desert the God Who brought them into the Land of Promise. As they further disregarded God’s mandates, the lure of the indigenous heathen pulled them further and further into idolatry.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown: The burden of the angel's remonstrance was that God would inviolably keep His promise; but they, by their flagrant and repeated breaches of their covenant with Him, had forfeited all claim to the stipulated benefits. Having disobeyed the will of God by voluntarily courting the society of idolaters and placing themselves in the way of temptation, He left them to suffer the punishment of their misdeeds.

The psalmist takes up this particular historical period, writing: They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons; they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds. Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage; he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them (Psalm 106:34–41).

We have seen many false applications of passages like this. One false application which I mentioned earlier is a social stigma against racially mixed marriages. Another false application is, any believer who thinks that the United States, as a Christian nation, needs to wipe out the heathen nations around us. This is a false application, because, first of all, there is no Christian nation, per se; and secondly, God no longer speaks audibly to the leaders of a nation, as He did to Israel, and tell them to wipe out this or that group of people. God did do this with ancient Israel—particularly when Israel took the Land of Promise. However, these are requirements given at a very specific point in time, to a very specific nation, under very specific circumstances.

Application: Now, I must admit that I like some of the things done by the nation Israel today. At the time that I am writing this, the Palestinians kidnaped an Israeli soldier, so Israel went into Palestine territory and took captive many of the high-ranking, Palestinian officials. I must admit, I’d love to see the United States function more like this, rather than the continual prosecution of our own soldiers for following rules of engagement. On the other hand, neither we nor Israel are called upon to pick this or that Muslim nation, despite its religious depravity, and to bomb it out of existence. We live in a different era, and there is no indication whatsoever that we should act in a similar fashion to the way Israel was supposed to act 3400 years ago. That is, we have no mandate to gather up the heathen in our land and wipe them out; and we have no mandate to find the most godless nation on earth, and bomb them out of existence.

Application: We need to properly divide the Word of Truth. This is one reason you need to be under a pastor teacher. It is too easy for you to get your mind all wrapped around this passage or that, and misinterpret it. I recall listening to a liberal Baptist Sunday School teacher (yes, these do exist), who got very emphatic when teaching, “You will not kill” and said, “And there are no exceptions to this. It says, ‘You will not kill’ period.” All this man had to do was to flip one or two pages forward or backward from Ex. 20, and he would have found a myriad of passages where killing was not only justified, but required of Israel (including many of the passages I have already quoted). However, this particular man was a product of his culture (he lived in Berkeley, California), and simply applied one verse out of the Bible in such a way as to justify his own point of view, which was the result of his cultural influences, and not a result of the inculcation of God’s Word. You get under a pastor who teaches verse by verse, line by line; who has a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Hebrew, history and culture, as well as a good theological background, and you are not going to hear a couple dozen passages touted over every other passage of Scripture.

Application: One of the biggest problems with any denomination or cult is, their Bibles are about 20 pages long. It would be very simple for them to take 20 pages out of the Bible, and to base all of their doctrines upon these 20 pages. They don’t need the rest of the Bible. All they need are their proof texts (which, in many cases, are even far less than 20 pages).

For me, it would be incredible if I lived long enough to exegete the entire Old Testament; this would be like a dream come true. However, I realize that, there are only so many hours a day that I can work before I become stale; and that I have only so many hours left in my life. However, in any case, I feel blessed by God to be able to do what I have done so far.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so he is as to speak an angel of Y^ehowah the words the these unto all sons of Israel; and so lift up the people their voices and so they wept.

Septuagint                              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.

Significant differences:           None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       The Israelites started crying loudly,...

The Message                         When GOD's angel had spoken these words to all the People of Israel, they cried out--oh! how they wept!

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         While the Messenger of the LORD was saying this to all the people of Israel, they began to cry loudly.

HCSB                                     When the Angel of the LORD had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people wept loudly.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       As soon as the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept.

WEB                                      It happened, when the angel of Yahweh spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept.

Young's Updated LT              And it came to pass, when the messenger of Jehovah spoke these words unto all the sons of Israel, that the people lift up their voice and weep.

What is the gist of this verse? While the Angel of Jehovah speaks these words, then many of the people listening began to cry.

Translation: And it came to pass as the angel of Y^ehowah spoke these words to all the sons of Israel... Again, the mechanics are unclear. This is more than can be determined through Urim and Thummim; obviously God did speak in some way to the people. Whether it was through a prophet or a priest or audibly to all of the people, this is not recorded. This passage sounds as though this was spoken audibly to all of the people, and that the One speaking to them was in the form of a man (all of this was covered carefully in v. 1).

Recall that on Mount Sinai, the people begged God not to speak to them directly but to speak through Moses. God agreed; but Moses has died, Joshua has retired, neither is followed by a particular leader (except possibly Phinehas). Furthermore, this is a different generation altogether; and therefore, it would not be out of character for God to in some way speak to all of Israel. And, as we have already studied, there are a few instances where it appears as though the Angel of Jehovah speaks to Israel as a whole.

At Mount Sinai, Israel reasonably asked God to speak through a mediator, and it is not unreasonable to assume that this was done from thereon out. Functioning through a mediator would also stress the importance of the Mediator Jesus Christ. However, as previously noted, under the Appearances of the Angel of Jehovah, the Angel of Jehovah apparently appeared to the Israelites in the desert and spoke to them on two occasions, and in the time of Isaiah, will speak to those in Jerusalem. Even though it is possible that the Angel of Jehovah spoke to someone, who then spoke to Israel; there is no clear clue or hint that happened. Furthermore, Moses was very keen on distinguishing when God spoke to him and when he spoke to Israel.

Gill suggests that the reason for the gathering of Israel is one of the 3 solemn feasts where the men of Israel are to gather at the Tabernacle of God. Henry suggests that they could be gathered to go to war, but we have already been told that only Judah and Simeon had moved forward with that. Like Gill, he also thinks that this may be one of the 3 feasts given at Shiloh. The name Bochim could be applied specifically to where the congregation of Israelites gathered this one time and is not necessarily some established city.

The Bible does indicate a relationship between the appearances of the Angel of Jehovah and the offering up of sacrifices to Him: Judges 6:20, 26, 28 13:16 2Sam. 24:25 Deut. 12:5–14.

Translation: ...that the people lifted up their voices and wept. Whoever this was who speaks to the people—and, again, I believe that this is the Angel of Jehovah in the form of a man whose spiritual authority is accepted—it is clear that the people there believe him. They clearly believe that these are the words of God being spoken to them, and they react very demonstrably.

As we have noted, the Israelites are a very demonstrative people. Whereas, I have a hard time picturing myself at a public weep-in, this was apparently not an unusual event for Israel. God had given Israel certain responsibilities and He had promised to support them if they carried out their responsibilities. The problem was not that Israel was trying to remove the Canaanites from the land, but that they did not make any sort of real effort to do so and therefore God would not longer support their armies. Therefore, they went from being king of the hill to one who barely ruled over the hill. Some of the tribes had an even less exalted position than that. The remainder of the history of Israel will be God trying to speak to Israel through His prophets. Yet Jehovah warned Israel and Judah, through all of His prophets and through all His seers, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments. My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.” However, they did not listen, but they stiffened their neck, like their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God (2Kings 17:13–14).

Now, I have spent a great deal of time—perhaps too much—discussing the form of this theophany; and, even though I have expressed a strong opinion on this matter, I would not be completely thrown for a loop spiritually if it turns out that the Angel of Jehovah spoke to Phinehas, for example, who then spoke to the people. Why would it not bother me? The reason is simple: it is not the man, but the message. These are the words of God. The people recognized them as such. We can wonder and even argue as to the immediate source of these words; but, what God had to say to the Jews is what is important to us.

Gill: that the people lift up their voice, and wept: being affected with what the angel said, and convicted in their consciences of their sins, and so fearing the bad consequences thereof, they wept because of the sins they had been guilty of, and because of the evils that were like to befall them on account of them.

Jamieson, Fausset and Brown: The angel's expostulation made a deep and painful impression. But the reformation was but temporary, and the gratifying promise of a revival which this scene of emotion held out, was, ere long, blasted by speedy and deeper relapses into the guilt of defection and idolatry. What Jamieson, Fausset and Brown don’t take into account is, (1) weeping and great sorrow does not indicate that any sort of lasting change will take place; and (2) it is not all the people who are said to weep here; so it is reasonable that the generation of promise and some of their children wept; while the next generation did not.

There is definitely a relationship between contact with the Lord or missing the mark and realizing it: 1Sam. 7:6 Ezra 10:1 Prov. 17:10 Jer. 31:9 Zech. 12:10 Luke 6:21 7:38 2Cor. 7:10 James 4:9. We may go into the details of these passages in the future sometime.

We have discussed the audience previously, but let me speak to it again. It seems unlikely that God is speaking strictly to the Generation of Promise, who took the land, simply because they have done nothing particularly wrong. Furthermore, there is nothing in the message here where they are denigrated by God for not, for instance, teaching the next generation. There is a generation which would arise after them, who did not see any of the great works of God, but knew second hand of the struggle of Israel, and how God led them out of Israel into the Land of Promise, and how God further let them take the Land of Promise. However, the generation below them just found themselves being born in the land, to parents who were either born in the land or who came into the land, but were shielded from the warfare which took place. My opinion is, this is the audience of the Angel of Jehovah—these three generations. We would expect the generation of promise to weep and some of their children as well. However, there is every indication that there were Jews in the land who had intermarried, who had tolerated their heathen neighbors, who made contracts with their heathen neighbors, and who even went to their religious ceremonies. I suspect this is mostly true of this third generation, and that they listened, but were probably not as moved as the previous two generations.

Application: God has grabbed the attention of us in the United States, both with the Great Depression and then with the incarnate evil of World War II. However, many generations have come into this world since then, and there are a number of people out there who have no spiritual understanding, no relationship to God, and that they somehow think that they deserve all the wonderful material blessings which they have. God again, in 2001, called out to us with the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11^th. Some of us recognized, in that event, the horrendous evil which pervades the world, and will continue to act. There are a lot of appropriate responses; but the most appropriate response is turning toward God, turning away from our own lusts and evil, and growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The spiritual changes which our nation goes through this next decade will determine how many more similar incidents that we will face. In my final few years of teaching, I must say that I witnessed little if any spiritual impact of the students that I dealt with. I have also observed a great willingness by many to believe historical and current lies. To me, this does not bode well for our country.

Application: On the other hand, where I was once aware of one very doctrinal church; now I am aware of a half dozen doctrinal churches which are spread throughout the US. Unfortunately, in my church, the missionaries seem to be older—my age; and I don’t see any coming up to replace them. I hope that things are better in these other churches. We need to have a significant number of believers who are growing and maturing. From this group, we need to have those who teach and we need to have those who evangelize and those who are missionaries. This will be the key to our continuation as a client nation to God. We need in this nation a pivot, as Bob Thieme Jr. has said—this is a significant percentage of believers who are growing and their spiritual gift or gifts are functioning. This is the hope—and the only hope—of our nation.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so they call a name of the place the that, Bochim; and so they slaughter [animal sacrifices] there to Y^ehowah.

Septuagint                              And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD.

Significant differences:           None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       ...and they offered sacrifices to the LORD. From then on, they called that place "Crying."

The Message                         They named the place Bokim (Weepers). And there they sacrificed to GOD.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         So they called that place Bochim [Those Who Cry]. They offered sacrifices there to the LORD.

HCSB                                     So they named that place Bochim and offered sacrifices there to the LORD.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

MKJV                                     And they called the name of that place The Place of Weeping. And they sacrificed there to Jehovah.

Young's Literal Translation     And they call the name of that place Bochim, and sacrifice there to Jehovah.

What is the gist of this verse? The Israelites name the place where they have cried before God Bochiim, which means weepers; and they offer up sacrifices to God there.

Translation: And so they called the name of that place Bochim,... In the Hebrew, Bochim is Bôkîym (םי  ̣כֹ) [pronounced boh-KEEM], and this proper noun is only found in Judges 1:1, 5. It comes from the verb bâkâh (ה ָכ ָ) [pronounced baw-KAW], which means to weep, to cry, to bewail. The im in Hebrew is the plural ending, so this means weepers or crybabies. Bâkâh was the last word in the previous verse (it was in the Qal imperfect). There are several ideas as to where Bochim is. ZPEB suggests that it is close to Gilgal (because of v. 1—as though, if it were a long distance, God might not have made the trip). They also suggest that there is a tree of weeping near Bethel (Gen. 35:8), but that assumes that there was nowhere else in the Land of Promise which was associated with weeping. However, in Gen. 35:8, this is associated with the death of Rebekah’s nurse. So, even though the words are similar, this is incorrect.

As we have covered most recently, the Ark was definitely in Shiloh, then Bethel, and then back in Shiloh during the early time of the judges (see the Movement of the Ark of God and the Tent of Meeting). The designation Bochum may have simply referred to where the Angel of Jehovah met and spoke with them. It would be more of a large open area, and designated Bochim; and not necessarily the name of some newly established city.

Apparently, the Alexandrian Septuagint has Bethel here instead, so that Bochim is often associated with Bethel. Since this is not the general reading, it could be that a scholar involved in translating the Hebrew into Greek, knew of the movement of the Ark, and concluded that the place we are speaking of is Bethel. Although it is possible and even reasonable that those who translated the Septuagint were believers (or became believers as a result); but this does not mean that some may have taken some unwarranted liberties with the text (again, we do not find Bethel in the Hebrew, the beta LXX, the Latin or in the Syriac—strong evidence to indicate that the Alexandrian Septuagint reading is incorrect.

Translation: ...and they sacrificed there to Y^ehowah. My first guess is, we are now at Shiloh; God would go up with Israel from Gilgal to Shiloh (which was their progression—Joshua 14:6 18:1). At that point, the tabernacle seems to be in Shiloh, although this is not something that we can state with absolute certainty. Furthermore, we cannot state with absolute certainty that the sacrificing of animals means that this is done at the altar outside the Tent of God. We have times during which animals were sacrificed apart from Tent worship (Judges 6:20, 26, 28 13:16–20 2Sam. 24:25). The fact that anyone in the book of Judges offered a sacrifice apart from the Tent of Meeting does not prove that this was acceptable, although it would make sense that where the Angel of God appears, that an animal sacrifice would be in order, regardless of where the Tent of Meeting was.

However, the problem with that interpretation is, the adverb there, which seems to clearly indicate that we are in Bochim, when the Angel of the Lord spoke to them, and where they wept. This would not be a matter of the Israelites to just start sacrificing anywhere (despite Joshua 22). You see, still we have God speaking to the people, and that would imply that He spoke to them from the tabernacle or in the vicinity of the tabernacle. God would not just appear in some miscellaneous spot in His dealings with Israel—particularly since the laws concerning sacrifice are so stringent.

Again, there is no reason to suppose that the name Bochim refers to the name of a city, but simply to the meeting place where these Israelites encountered Jesus Christ. Given that the Tabernacle would have been far too small for such a meeting would indicate that God spoke to them in an adjacent large clearing or valley.

One of the possibilities that we should explore is whether this incident is equivalent to what occurs in Judges 20. We read in Judges 20:24–28, which deals, in part, with a small civil war. Then the sons of Israel came against the sons of Benjamin the second day and Benjamin went out against them from Gibeah the second day and destroyed to the ground again 18,000 men of the sons of Israel, all whom drew the sword. Then all the sons of Israel and all the people went up and came to Bethel and wept; thus they remained there before Jehovah and fasted that day until evening. And they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before Jehovah. And the sons of Israel inquired of Jehovah (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, and Phinehas ben Eleazar, Aaron’s son, stood before it to minister in those days), saying, “Should I still again go out to battle against the sons of my brother Benjamin or should I cease?” And Jehovah said, “Go up, for tomorrow, I will deliver them into your hand.” It is clear that this is a different situation, but there are certainly parallels. Furthermore, the incident recorded in this first portion of Judges 2 does not have to be in any sort of order. The vocabulary and sentence structure of Judges 1 and 2 and completely different (and it is more than just a difference in subject matter), indicating that we have different authors. The death of Joshua mentioned in the beginning of Judges 1 and in the middle of Judges 2 means that we are not dealing with linear thinkers here. Finally, this chapter 2 of the Book of Judges seems to provide us with an overview of what is to come, meaning that this incident could have occurred anytime during the time of the judges (however, I have given compelling reasons why the Angel of Jehovah probably spoke to the generation of promise and to the 2 generations which followed them).

Joshua’s Death

It may seem weird that we are suddenly mentioning Joshua’s death, given that it is mentioned at the end of the book of Joshua and at the beginning of this book; however, just bear with me on this, and I will explain what is going on, and, for most of you, it will make perfect sense. Also, this is continued in the next section about Israel’s apostasy. That is, there is a hard break between this and the previous section; but not between this section and the next.

Here is how others have translated this verse:

Ancient texts:

Masoretic Text                       And so dismisses Joshua the people and so go sons of Israel a man to his inheritance to possess the land.

Septuagint                              And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.

Significant differences:           None.

Thought-for-thought translations; paraphrases:

CEV                                       Joshua had been faithful to the LORD. And after Joshua sent the Israelites to take the land they had been promised, they remained faithful to the LORD until Joshua died at the age of one hundred ten. He was buried on his land in Timnath-Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash. Even though Joshua was gone, the Israelites were faithful to the LORD during the lifetime of those men who had been leaders with Joshua and who had seen the wonderful things the LORD had done for Israel. [This is vv. 6–9).

The Message                         After Joshua had dismissed them, the People of Israel went off to claim their allotted territories and take possession of the land.

Mostly literal renderings (with some occasional paraphrasing):

God’s Word™                         Now, Joshua sent the people of Israel home. So each family went to take possession of the territory they had inherited.

HCSB                                     Joshua sent the people away, and the Israelites went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance.

Literal, almost word-for-word, renderings:

ESV                                       When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land.

MKJV                                     And when Joshua had let the people go, the sons of Israel left, each man to his inheritance, to possess the land.

Young's Updated LT              And Joshua sent the people away, and the sons of Israel go, each to his inheritance, to possess the land.

What is the gist of this verse? After distributing the land to the sons of Israel, Joshua sends the people to their inheritance and they go to take it.