of the rest of the book of Judges. Strikingly, in “all” the days of Joshua, and in “all” the days of the elders of his day (2:7), “all” that generation (2:10) had seen “all” the great work of Yahweh on behalf of Israel (2:7). But now there was a new generation indifferent to Yahweh and his deeds (2:10). What a contrast! Since “knowing” in Hebrew has deeper connotations than simply cognition, and includes covenantal relationships and loyalty thereto (for e.g., Gen 18:19, between God and man; Gen 4:1 [with Mal 2:13–16], between man and wife), “‘not knowing’ involves more than lacking information; it is a refusal to accept the obligations entailed in a [covenant] relationship.”131 Thus, Jdg 2:6–10 is not primarily about Joshua; it is about the new, post-Joshua generation of people and their deplorable failure to follow Yahweh as their predecessors had done.132 Had it been otherwise, had they followed Yahweh wholeheartedly, “Israelite history would have taken a completely different course, the events described in the rest of the book would never have happened, and the Book of Judges would never [have] been written.”133
The only named human in this pericope (excluding the Othniel account, 3:7–11) is Joshua, the exemplar, “the servant of Yahweh” (2:8; also in Josh 24:29), a term also used of Moses (Exod 14:31; Num 12:8; Deut 34:5; Josh 1:1; etc.). In contrast to him are the Israelites, “who did not know Yahweh or the deeds which He had done” (Jdg 2:10), and who “played harlot after other gods and bowed down to them” (2:17), corrupt and stubborn (2:19). The other actant here is, of course, divine: Yahweh. This one is in turn angry (2:14), moved to pity (2:18), and angry again (2:20), with the evil engagements of his people. This cycle of emotions parallels the cycle of wickedness of the Israelites: doing evil and following other gods (2:11–13), groaning about their punitive afflictions (2:18), returning again to evil and to other gods once their oppression has been alleviated (2:19). The first clues of apostasy were seen in Pericope 1, but it is highlighted in 2:11—3:6, so that the bulk of Pericope 2 declares “the author’s fundamental thesis: the nation of Israel has been thoroughly Canaanized; this accounts for and is fundamental to the darkness demonstrated in the rest of the book.”134
And the result? Yahweh had once promised to give Canaan “into the hands” of the Israelites (Josh 6:2; 10:8; 11:6); he had once begun to give the land “into the hands” of the Judah-Simeon alliance (Jdg 1:4). But alas, that was only a partial success (see Pericope 1: Jdg 1:1—2:5). Now we are told in 2:14 that Israel was given/sold “into the hands” of their enemies by Yahweh himself, the result of their unfaithfulness to him (2:11–13). It was no longer a coexistence of Israelites with Canaanites, the latter—divinely ordained enemies—were oppressing the former. All because of a “failure of the community to keep alive its memory of Yahweh’s gracious saving acts. . . . All that follows in the book is a consequence of Israel’s loss of memory” (2:10) and a lack of firsthand experience of God.135
2.1.2 Forsaking the true God and following other idols have disastrous consequences.
Judges 2:11–19 forms the paradigmatic layout of what will be discovered in each of the six major judge accounts.136
That 2:11–19 describes a paradigm or a pattern is clear: “everywhere they went” (2:15), “when[ever] Yahweh raised” (2:18; the temporal sense of yki, ki), and “when[ever] it came about that the judge died” (2:19; the temporal sense of b, b).137 The structure of 2:11–14a, the opening indictment of the Israelites, is illuminating:
Notice the interweaving of the names of deities that literarily demonstrates the Israelites’ syncretism: “Yahweh” in A, C, D, C', and A'; and “Baal(s)”/“gods”/“Ashtaroth” in B, D, B'. “Israel” is symmetrically found in A and A'. Chisholm observes that the eight wayyiqtol verbs in 2:11–13 that depict Israel’s evildoing forms a pattern: one (2:11a, summary) and seven (2:11b–13, details), suggesting a comprehensive and thoroughgoing apostasy.138 So the central element, D (2:12b), though stunning, is not surprising. It was not simply a memory lapse that the Israelites suffered, in forgetting Yahweh and his great deeds (2:10); neither was it merely an inadvertent straying from the straight and narrow. Rather, it was a deliberate going after other gods and worshiping them!139 This was treason!
Not knowing Yahweh firsthand, Yahweh is only “the God of their fathers” to the current generation (2:12)—suggesting distance. But the false gods they were running after now were “the gods of the peoples who were around them” (2:12)—suggesting greater proximity.140
The Canaanites, “the inhabitants of the land” (1:32–33), were practiced at working the land and attributed their success to the worship of these gods. The new generation of Israelites, who had known only desert life, had no such skills, but their survival now depended on adapting to their new situation as quickly as possible. What else could they do but learn from their Canaanite neighbors? It was the way of “common sense” and “necessity.” It was not the way of Yahweh, however; it was the triumph of pragmatics over principle, and a failure to trust the God who had proven himself capable of meeting their needs in the wilderness, and would surely have done so again in the land he had given them if only they had trusted him to do so. But they did not; they abandoned him . . . .141
In the chiastic scheme shown above, first, human actions are depicted (2:11–13): “did evil,” “served” (×2), “forsook” (×2), “went after,” “bowed,” and “angered.”142 Then divine actions, in response to the human ones, are described (2:14–15): “burned,” “gave,” “sold,” “was against.” “Doing evil in the sight of Yahweh” (2:11a) frequently indicates idolatrous practices in the OT: Deut 4:25; 9:18 (referring to the golden calf episode); 17:2–3; 31:29 (where “work of your hands” = idols); and Jdg 2:11; 3:7; 10:6 (though the element occurs in all the narratives in Judges, only here is evildoing specifically linked to idolatry). In several of these references, one also finds the verb “angering” with Yahweh as the subject (Jdg 2:12), also frequently linked with the idolatrous practices of his people (see Deut 4:25; 9:18; 31:29; 32:16, 21). Of course, doing “evil in the sight of Yahweh” is equivalent to each Israelite doing what is “good in his own sight” (Jdg 17:6; 21:25). And so Yahweh’s disgust and outrage at the progressively increasing Canaanization of his people is depicted in the repeated statement: “and the anger of Yahweh burned against Israel” (Jdg 2:12b, 14a; also 2:20a, and later in 3:8; 10:7), bespeaking deity’s emotional and personal involvement with his people. A direct discourse, later in 2:20–22, opens a window into Yahweh’s deep concern. Thus the whole scheme of punishment “is not caused by an automatic deed-consequence nexus.” Rather, it is a sequence of Israelites’ deed → Yahweh’s intense emotion → Israelites’ punishment. In other words, Yahweh has strong feelings towards, and an abiding personal involvement with, his people.143 His giving the Israelites—and selling them—into the “hands” of their enemies (2:14) is equated with the “hand” of Yahweh being against them for evil (2:15): the people fall from the divine “hand” into the human “hand.”144