Judges 2:6–3:11

June 7th, 2022| Topic: aBeLOG, Judges | 0

Personal experience of God produces unwavering commitment to him and gives him glory.

Judges 2:6–10 is almost identical to Josh 24:28–31, but it weaves the story in its own way for a different theological purpose. Unfortunately, as was seen in Jdg 1:1–2:5, the post-Joshua generation went but did not possess the land for, as 2:10 declares, they did not “know Yahweh, or the deeds which he had done.” And what they did in their abysmal ignorance—and what they kept on doing—is the burden of the rest of the book of Judges. Rather than follow God, “they lusted after other gods and bowed down to them” (2:17), corrupt and stubborn (2:19).

God is in turn angry (2:14), moved to pity (2:18), and angry again (2:20), with the evil engagements of his people. This cycle of emotions parallels the cycle of wickedness of the Israelites: doing evil and following other gods (2:11–13), groaning about their punitive afflictions (2:18), returning again to evil and to other gods once their oppression has been alleviated (2:19). And the outcome? Yahweh had once promised to give Canaan “into the hands” of the Israelites (Jdg 1:4). Now we are told in 2:14 that Israel was given/sold “into the hands” of their enemies, and that by Yahweh himself, because of their unfaithfulness to him (2:11–13).

Judges 2:11–19 forms the paradigmatic layout of what will be discovered in each of the six major judge accounts later in the book (where that paradigm shows up in Othniel’s story is also shown): there is evildoing (2:11–13; 3:7); God is angered and the Israelites are given into the hands of their enemies (2:14–15; 3:8); the people groan (2:18; 3:9); God has mercy and a judge is raised (2:16–18; 3:9–10) who delivers the nation from oppression (3:10); the land has rest (2:19; 3:11); and the evildoing starts all over again!

Yes, the Israelites “groaned” when they were given over to oppression by the enemy. But there is no indication anywhere that this crying was accompanied by repentance. Though “return” (frequently denoting repentance in the OT) occurs in 2:19, it certainly did not constitute repentance towards Yahweh. It was actually the other way round—a deeper plunge of the Israelites into apostasy, their “return” to idolatry. It was as if they had repented of Yahwism! And they “continued to do evil” (3:12; 4:1; 10:6; 13:1): i.e., they had never stopped! That, of course, makes God’s compassion even more remarkable as, time and again, he sends deliverers/judges to relieve his people from their enemies (2:18; 3:9, 15; 4:6–7; 6:12, 14, 16; 13:3–5).

Although we are led to expect a consistent and regular pattern, what happens is that the framework itself breaks down after Othniel’s account. The political and moral instability depicted in Judges is reflected in the textual instability. The framework deconstructs itself, so to speak, and the cycle of apostasy and deliverance becomes increasingly murky. Everything falls apart from this point, each leader worse than the previous one.

This spiral downwards is visible even here at the beginning. Earlier, in 2:12, the Israelites were said to have “gone after” false gods; later, in 2:17, they have “lusted after” those gods: they had gone from bad to worse! In fact, they were “turning aside quickly” from the obedient ways of their fathers (2:17), each succeeding generation “being more corrupt” than the previous (2:19), with a greater intentionality about their apostasy—“they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways” (2:19). It gets worse: First, they were living among the Canaanites (3:5); then they intermarried with Canaanites (3:5); and finally they served Canaanite gods (3:6). This was a wholesale defection! Nope, Yahweh’s compassion and deliverance (2:18) had no effect on a people who had no knowledge of him!

[For more details, see my Judges commentary.]