ISRAEL’S UNFAITHFULNESS

OUTLINE OF JUDGES

INTRODUCTION

This is a history of the chosen people during the 400 or 450 years which intervened between the death of Joshua and the time of Eli, Act_13:20. It is not a connected history, but a collection of outstanding incidents, which determined the fortunes of the chosen people, and gave special illustrations of the power of faith in God. The chief lesson of the book is the intimate connection between loyalty or disloyalty to God and the corresponding results in well-being or misery. This is distinctly stated in Jdg_2:11-23.

The judges were extraordinary agents of the divine pity and helpfulness, raised up as the urgency of the people’s need demanded, to deliver Israel from their oppressors, to reform religion, and to administer justice. Their administration was generally local, as Barak among the northern tribes, Samson in the extreme south, and Jephthah across the Jordan in Gilead.

It must not be supposed that Israel perpetrated an unbroken series of apostasies. Though these and their special deliverances occupy the major part of the book, there were evidently long interspaces of fidelity and prosperity. And in the darkest hours, there were probably large numbers who, amid the abominations, sighed and cried for a better day.

There are two appendices, relating events which took place not long after Joshua’s death, and therefore preceding the greater part of the history. We may almost consider the book of Ruth as the third. The touches of human characteristics are very vivid and instinctive, and the book deserves much more attention than it receives from the ordinary reader.

Israel’s Apostasies and Deliverances

INTRODUCTION, Jdg_1:1-36; Jdg_2:1-23; Jdg_3:1-432.

3. The Passing of Joshua and his Generation, Jdg_2:6-10

4. The History in Outline, Jdg_2:11-23; Jdg_3:1-4

3. Why did the people forget Jehovah after, the death of Joshua and Caleb?

Judges 2:6-15

THE DEATH OF JOSHUA

And when Joshua had sent the people away, the [tribes of the] Israelites went each to his inheritance, to take possession of the land.

The people served the LORD all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the LORD which He had done for Israel.

Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten.

And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

Also, all [the people of] that generation were gathered to their fathers [in death]; and another generation arose after them who did not know (recognize, understand) the LORD, nor even the work which He had done for Israel.

Israel’s Unfaithfulness

Then the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD and worshiped and served the Baals,

and they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from the gods of the peoples who were around them, and they bowed down to them, and offended and provoked the LORD to anger.

So they abandoned the LORD and served Baal [the pagan god of the Canaanites] and the Ashtaroth.

So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands (power) of plunderers who robbed them; and He sold them into the hands of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer stand [in opposition] before their enemies.

Wherever they went, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil (misfortune), as the LORD had spoken, and as the LORD had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed. [Lev_26:14-46]

Comments by
F.B.Meyer
On
Judges 2:6-15

What a thrilling experience it must have been to hear Joshua and Caleb talk of Egypt, the Red Sea, and Sinai! The younger men would stand awestruck as the veterans narrated their experiences of God. Open your diaries of the past, ye older saints, and tell what the Lord hath done for you. It will hearten us for the fight, Mal_3:16.

Joshua was carried to his last resting-place in his inheritance-“the portion of the sun”-amid the respect and affection of the entire people. Like Moses, he had deserved to be known as “the servant of the Lord.” The elders, who had witnessed the conquest of Canaan, took up his testimony and told of Jericho and the valley of Ajalon. But these also were “gathered unto their fathers,” which implies more than burial. They joined the great throng of holy ones who are gathering around our Lord, awaiting the hour when, as a radiant throng, they shall issue forth with Him to take up the kingdom of the world. What a gathering that will be! Whatever else we miss, let us see to it that we stand in our lot, “at the end of the days,” Gen_49:33; Gen_50:14; Dan_12:13.

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By Philippus Schutte

New Covenant Israelite! "And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;  Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee."  Rom 11:17 -18