Judges 3:1

_NOW THESE ARE THE NATIONS WHICH THE LORD LEFT, TO PROVE ISRAEL BY THEM, EVEN AS MANY OF ISRAEL AS HAD NOT KNOWN ALL THE WARS OF CANAAN;_ These are the nations which the Lord left, to prove Israel. This was the special design of these nations being left, and it evinces the direct influence of the Theocracy under which the Israelites were placed. These nations were left for a double purpose; in the first instance, to be instrumental, by their inroads, in promoting the moral and spiritual discipline of the Israelites, and also to subserve the design of making them acquainted with war, in order that the young, more especially, who were total strangers to it, might learn the use of weapons and the art of wielding them. Thus, as Graves has well remarked, 'the Providence of God observed in this, as in every other supernatural dispensation, a due analogy to the regular course of nature and the...

1-7 As the Israelites were a type of the church on earth, they were not to be idle and slothful. The Lord was pleased to try them by the remains of the devoted nations they spared. Temptations and trials detect the wickedness of the hearts of sinners; and strengthen he graces of believers in their daily conflict with Satan, sin, and this evil world. They must live in this world, but they are not of it, and are forbidden to conform to it. This marks the difference between the followers of Christ and mere professors. The friendship of the world is more fatal than its enmity; the latter can only kill the body, but the former murders many precious souls....

CHAPTER III _An account of the nations that we left to prove Israel_, 1-4. _How the people provoked the Lord_, 5-7. _They are delivered into the power of the king of Mesopotamia,_ _by whom they are enslaved eight years_, 8. _Othniel is raised up as their deliverer; he discomfits the king_ _of Mesopotamia, delivers Israel, and the land enjoys peace for_ forty _years_, 9-11. _They again rebel, and are delivered into the hand of the king_ _of Moab, by whom they are enslaved_ eighteen _years_, 12-14. They are delivered by Ehud,

EVEN AS MANY OF ISRAEL ... - These words show that the writer has especially in view the generation which came to man’s estate immediately after the close of the wars with the Canaanites Joshua 23:1. Compare Judges 2:10....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 3:1 NOW THESE ARE THE NATIONS, etc. We are now told in detail what was stated in general in Judges 2:22, Judges 2:23, after the common method of Hebrew narrative. TO PROVE ISRAEL. This word _to prove _is_ _used here in a somewhat different sense from that which it bears in Judges 2:4 and in Judges 2:22. In those passages it is used of their moral probation, of proving or testing their faith and obedience; but here it is rather in the sense of "to exercise" or "to accustom them

NOW THESE [ARE] THE NATIONS WHICH THE LORD LEFT TO PROVE ISRAEL BY THEM,.... Which are later mentioned, Judges 3:3; [EVEN] AS MANY [OF ISRAEL] AS HAD NOT KNOWN ALL THE WARS OF CANAAN; those that Joshua, and the people of Israel under him, had with the Canaanites, when they first entered the land and subdued it; being then not born, or so young as not to have knowledge of them, at least not able to bear arms at that time....

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

THE LORD. Hebrew. _Jehovah._ App-4....

Judges 3:1-3 explain why _Jehovah left_ THESE _nations_(Judges 2:23); _it was merely to teach succeeding generations of Israelites the practice of war_(Judges 3:2 in the main). The idea is obviously an ancient one, and belongs to the same historical stand-point as ch. 1. This nucleus has been adapted (Judges 3:1) and commented on (Judges 3:2 in part, Judges 3:3) by later hands, which it is difficult to specify more exactly. The editorial process has left the text of...