Judges 3:4

_ONLY THAT THE GENERATIONS OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MIGHT KNOW, TO TEACH THEM WAR, AT THE LEAST SUCH AS BEFORE KNEW NOTHING THEREOF;_ NO JFB COMMENTARY ON THESE VERSES....

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....

Verse Judges 3:4. _TO KNOW WHETHER THEY WOULD HEARKEN_] This would be the consequence of the Canaanites being left among them: if they should be faithful to God, their enemies would not be able to enslave them; should they be rebellious, the Lord would abandon them to their foes....

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

AND THEY WERE TO PROVE ISRAEL BY THEM,.... They were left in the land, as to inure them to war, and try their courage, so to prove their faithfulness to God: TO KNOW WHETHER THEY WOULD HEARKEN TO THE COMMANDMENTS, OF THE LORD, WHICH HE COMMANDED THEIR FATHERS BY THE HAND OF MOSES; even all the commandments of the Lord delivered to them by Moses, moral, civil, and ceremonial, and particularly those that concerned the destruction of the Canaanites, their altars, and their idols, Deuteronomy 7:1....

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

_to prove Israel_ leads back to the thought of Judges 2:22 and Judges 3:1, and prepares the way for Judges 3:5. The verse seems to be a later editorial adaptation....

_Nations Left to Test Israel Judges 3:1-6_ 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; 2 Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof; 3 Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath. 4 And they were to prove Israel by them, to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. 5 And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites: 6 And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and se

INTRODUCTORY (JUDGES 1:1 TO JUDGES 3:4) Division 1, Judges 1:1 to Judges 2:5. This section of the book contains a brief recapitulation of the early conquest of Palestine, told from a somewhat different point of view from that of Joshua 7-21, and supplying much that is there not mentioned. From these vv. it is clear that Palestine was not conquered in one great invasion; and the whole of the book shows Israel to be only in very precarious possession of the land. The narrative in Joshua emphasises the influence over the whole collection of tribes wielded by the Ephraimite hero, Joshua himself;...