June 26, 2019: Day 60 – Judges 2

This is a test, this is only a test.  If you look at vs.22-23 you see that the Lord was testing the loyalty of the Israelites by not driving out all of those nations that were in the land, you know, all those nations that we mentioned last chapter that the Israelites had not driven out of the land.  The reason why he did not drive them out was because he wanted to see if the Israelites would turn back and worship false gods, which seemed to be their default.  So this was a test.

Interestingly enough under Joshua and all of his generation the Lord did marvelous things and they remembered all that He did and worshiped the Lord, and the Lord only did they worship.  But then we see in vs.10 that the generation that came after them: “Did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.”  Then comes the most common phrase that we find in Judges: “Then the Israelites did what was evil in the  sight of the Lord.”  We find this repeated over and over again.  

If you look at vs.16 then you can see what God did as a result of them doing evil in the sight of the Lord.  The  Lord raised up judges.  The responsibility of these judges was to make sure they were delivered from those who plundered them.  By the way, the ones who plundered them were the ones that they had not driven out of the land when they had a chance, as Joshua had commanded them through the Lord.  I told you it wasn’t a good idea to keep them around.  But look at vs. 18-19 and you see  that God was raised to pity because of the state of the Israelites and then he would appoint a judge.  But, once a judge came around, things got back to order, but then once the judge died, what was that phrase again?  “Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  

As a result God says that the Israelites are going to have a hard time, a really hard time keeping the land that they now occupy.  Yeah, that’s a bit of an understatement.