A Generation That Didn't Know Yahweh
1 Yahweh’s angel came up from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, “I brought you out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to give your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you. 2 You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars.’ But you have not listened to my voice. Why have you done this? 3 Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.’” 4 When Yahweh’s angel spoke these words to all the children of Israel, the people lifted up their voice and wept. 5 They called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there to Yahweh. 6 Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel each went to his inheritance to possess the land. 7 The people served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of Yahweh that he had worked for Israel. 8 Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Yahweh, died, being one hundred ten years old. 9 They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash. 10 After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know Yahweh, nor the work which he had done for Israel. 11 The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals. 12 They abandoned Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; and they provoked Yahweh to anger. 13 They abandoned Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. 14 Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 15 Wherever they went out, Yahweh’s hand was against them for evil, as Yahweh had spoken, and as Yahweh had sworn to them; and they were very distressed.
An angel delivers the verdict on chapter one, and then the book's darkest sentence: the generation after Joshua did not know God or what he had done.
Yahweh’s angel came up from Gilgal to Bochim. He said, “I brought you out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to give your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you.
The verdict on chapter one is delivered from heaven, and it opens with what God has done and what he will not do — the covenant is not in question from his side. Then the charge: you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars. But you have not listened to my voice Judges 2:2. Chapter one's forced labor arrangements were exactly the covenants forbidden here.
Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.’”
The sentence fits the crime with unsettling precision. Israel chose to leave the nations; the nations are left. What was a policy becomes a punishment, and the danger is named exactly — not the peoples' armies but their gods. The whole book proves the diagnosis.
4 When Yahweh’s angel spoke these words to all the children of Israel, the people lifted up their voice and wept. 5 They called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there to Yahweh.
They weep, name the place Weepers, and sacrifice. Nothing is said about their conduct changing, and the tears are the first instance of a pattern the book will repeat: real distress, and no reformation Judges 10:10–16.
The people served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of Yahweh that he had worked for Israel.
The qualification is the whole point: who had seen. Their loyalty rested on memory, and memory is not transferable. This is the sentence Joshua's book had ended on Joshua 24:31, and here it becomes a warning rather than a commendation, because what follows is the failure to hand it on.
After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know Yahweh, nor the work which he had done for Israel.
The darkest verse in the book, and the one that explains everything after it. Two things were not known: God himself, and the work which he had done. Israel's faith was founded on events — a sea opened, a wilderness fed, a river stopped — and those events were within living memory of the people who now knew nothing about them. Which means the failure was not the children's; the law had told the previous generation, repeatedly and in detail, to tell them Deuteronomy 6:6–7 Deuteronomy 6:20–21 Psalms 78:5–7 Joshua 4:21–22.
The children of Israel did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals.
The formula that will sound seven times in the book Judges 3:7 Judges 3:12 Judges 6:1 Judges 13:1, and its object is agricultural religion: Baal was believed to give rain and harvest, which is what farmers in a new land most wanted secured. They abandoned Yahweh is said twice in two verses Judges 2:12–13, and the consequence is a military one — plunderers, and an inability to stand Judges 2:14. One generation is all it took.
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