Judges 2:6

_AND WHEN JOSHUA HAD LET THE PEOPLE GO, THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WENT EVERY MAN UNTO HIS INHERITANCE TO POSSESS THE LAND._ And when Joshua had let the people go. This passage is a repetition of Josh. 24:39-31 , and it was inserted here to put the reader in possession of the reasons which called forth so strong and severe a rebuke from the angel of the Lord. During the lifetime of the first occupiers, who retained a vivid recollection of all the miracles and judgments which they had witnessed in Egypt and the desert, the national character stood high for faith and piety. But in course of time a new race arose, who were strangers to all the hallowed and solemnizing experience of their fathers - "knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel" - i:e., considered not, at least acted as if they had never heard of the marvelous interpositions of Yahweh in behalf of their nati...

6-23 We have a general idea of the course of things in Israel, during the time of the Judges. The nation made themselves as mean and miserable by forsaking God, as they would have been great and happy if they had continued faithful to him. Their punishment answered to the evil they had done. They served the gods of the nations round about them, even the meanest, and God made them serve the princes of the nations round about them, even the meanest. Those who have found God true to his promises, may be sure that he will be as true to his threatenings. He might in justice have abandoned them, but he could not for pity do it. The Lord was with the judges when he raised them up, and so they became saviours. In the days of the greatest distress of the church, there shall be some whom God will find or make fit to help it. The Israelites were not thoroughly reformed; so mad were they upon their...

Verse Judges 2:6. _WHEN JOSHUA HAD LET THE PEOPLE GO_] The author of this book is giving here a history of the people, from the division of the land by Joshua to the time in which the angel speaks. Joshua divided the land to them by lot; recommended obedience to God, which they solemnly promised: and they continued faithful during his life, and during the lives of those who had been his contemporaries, but who had survived him. When all that generation who had seen the wondrous works of God in their behalf had died, then the succeeding generation, who _knew not the Lord _- who had not seen his wondrous works - forsook his worship, and worshipped _Baalim_ and _Ashtaroth_, the gods of the nations among whom they lived, and thus the Lord was provoked to anger; and this was the reason why they were delivered into the hands of their enemies. This is the sum of their history to the t...

EXPOSITION It is often extremely difficult to make out the _sequence_ of a Hebrew narrative, the narrator going back and travelling over the same ground in respect _of time _which he had already traversed, in order to introduce some circumstances which had been omitted (see Judges 7:25, note, and Judges 7:4, note). This appears to be the ease With this section. The mention of Gilgal in Judges 2:1 seems to point distinctly to the early time of the entrance into Canaan under Joshua, because it was quite in the beginning of the Israelite occupation that the camp was at Gilgal, and it was there that the angel of the Lord spake to Joshua (Jos

AND WHEN JOSHUA HAD LET THE PEOPLE GO,.... This is not to be connected with what goes before, as if that was done in Joshua's lifetime; for during that, as is after testified, the people of Israel served the Lord; whereas the angel, in the speech to them before related, charges them with disobeying the voice of the Lord, making leagues with the inhabitants of the land, and not demolishing their altars, all which was after the death of Joshua; but this refers to a meeting of them with him before his death, and his dismission of them, which was either when he had divided the land by lot unto them, or when he had given them his last charge before his death, see Joshua 24:28; and this, and what follows, are repeated and introduced here, to connect the history of Israel, and to show them how they fell into idolatry, and so under the divine displeasure, which brought them into distress, from w...

2. THE ANGEL AT BOCHIM AND THE HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE BOOK Chapter S 2:1-3:4 _ 1. The angel at Bochim (Judges 2:1)_ 2. Israel's obedience remembered (Judges 2:6) 3. Israel's strange gods (Judges 2:11) 4. Israel's history under the judges outlined (Judges 2:16) 5. The nations left to prove Israel (Judges 2:19; Judges 3:1) The opening event of this chapter is significant. The Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. This Angel is J

JUDGES 2:6 TO JUDGES 3:6. THE DEUTERONOMIST'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF JUDGES PROPER (Judges 3:5 to Judges 16:31). In the view of this interpreter of sacred history, the whole era of the Judges falls into longer or shorter times of national prosperity, in which Yahweh protects and blesses His faithful people, alternating with times of national calamity, in which He withdraws His favour and blessing from apostates. On the beneficent strength of the Judge the pillars of state rest secure for a whole generation, and his decease is like the removal of the key-stone of an arch. The writer's general principle his philosophy of history is based on sound prophetic

LET THE PEOPLE GO. Compare Joshua 24:28....

_had sent the people away and_ J _._ SENT _the people away_(exactly as Joshua 24:28) from the great assembly at Shechem, at which the covenant had been renewed, and Joshua had delivered his parting exhortations, Joshua 24:1-27 E. The words were allowed to stand here in spite of their inconsistency with Judges 1:1; Judges 2:6-9 = Joshua 24:28; Joshua 24:31; Joshua 24:29-30

AND WHEN JOSHUA HAD LET THE PEOPLE GO— This is an important passage, and by some interpreters misunderstood; they have fancied, that in it the historian continues the relation of what had happened since the death of Joshua: upon this foundation, Houbigant conceives that there is a transposition; and accordingly he begins this chapter with Judges 2:6, following them with Judges 2:1, and then goes on with Judges 2:11; an alteration, for which, says Mr. Chais, there appears no necessity: the series of the chapter evidently destroys the supposition above advanced. The sacred writer, having just related the reproaches delivered by the angel of the Lord against the Israelites, would now shew his readers how and when the nation had incurred t