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Judges 2 Bible study: Another generation
Judges 2 sets out the pattern the book's stories follow: evil in the LORD's sight, enemies, judges, and then back again, "more corruptly than their fathers" (2:19). No cry comes in it; the LORD raised up judges because "it grieved the LORD because of their groaning" (2:18). And it begins with a generation "who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel" (2:10).
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“After all that generation were gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“Where Joshua 24:31 says the elders had known all the work of the LORD, Judges 2:7 says they had seen it.”
Is that in Judges 2, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
The angel speaks the covenant
"The LORD’s angel came up from Gilgal to Bochim" (2:1) (tap came up). He speaks as the one who made the covenant: "I brought you out of Egypt, and have brought you to the land which I swore to give your fathers" (2:1), and "I will never break my covenant with you" (2:1). Then Israel's side: "You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars" (2:2). These are the LORD's words at Sinai (Exodus 34:2): "Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare among you; but you shall break down their altars" (Exodus 34:12-13). In Hebrew covenant, the inhabitants of the land, break down their altars and snare are all in those two verses, and the angel's words bring them back: "But you have not listened to my voice. Why have you done this?" (2:2). "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’" (2:3). Numbers 33:55 and Joshua 23:13 had spoken of the nations in Israel's sides; Joshua 23 looks at those words. The people's answer: they "lifted up their voice and wept" (2:4) (tap wept), "They called the name of that place Bochim, and they sacrificed there to the LORD" (2:5).
Where it leads to Jesus
Worse than the first
Judges 2:19leads toMatthew 12:43-45
The LORD saved Israel "all the days of the judge" (2:18). "But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers" (2:19). Jesus said, "When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he passes through waterless places seeking rest, and doesn’t find it" (Matthew 12:43), and "when he has come back, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order" (Matthew 12:44). Then he takes seven other spirits with him, and "The last state of that man becomes worse than the first. Even so will it be also to this evil generation" (Matthew 12:45). Jesus doesn't cite Judges 2, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some hear in both the same warning: a rescue that is followed by a turning back ends worse than before. Others read each in its own setting: Judges 2:19 compares Israel with their fathers, while Jesus compares one man's last state with his first, and is answering scribes and Pharisees who had asked him for a sign (Matthew 12:38-39).
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Judges 2
That was a taste
The rest of Judges 2 is waiting in Favor
- Joshua's death, told again
- A generation who didn't know
- The pattern, in the book's own words
- Moses had said it
- Groaning, as in Egypt
- Left to test Israel
- 10 questions as you read
- 11 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Judges 2 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
יָדַעyada'say ya-DA
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "know, learn to know". Strong's: "to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing)". "Another generation arose after them who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel" (2:10). Joshua 24:31 used this verb of the elders, who "had known all the work of the LORD"; Judges 2:7 says instead that they "had seen all the great work of the LORD". Pharaoh had said the same Hebrew words of himself: "I don’t know the LORD" (Exodus 5:2). They are said again of Eli's sons: "They didn’t know the LORD" (1 Samuel 2:12). Moses had told Israel that the forty years were "that you may know that I am the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 29:6).
For your group
Judges 2 Bible study questions
- 1"Another generation arose after them who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel" (2:10). What has God done in your life that you want the people who come after you to know, and how could you tell them?
- 2"When the judge was dead, they turned back" (2:19). Have you seen that pattern in your own walk with God, doing well while someone was beside you and slipping when they weren't? What helps you keep going?
- 3"It grieved the LORD because of their groaning" (2:18), though they kept turning away (2:17). What does that show you about God, and how does it change the way you come to him when you've failed?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Judges 2 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home