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Judges 2 · a question people ask

The LORD said, "I will never break my covenant with you" (2:1). Then why does he stop driving out the nations?

In the text

The chapter gives its own answers. It sets the LORD's side, "I will never break my covenant with you" (2:1) (tap break), beside Israel's: "You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land" (2:2), "But you have not listened to my voice" (2:2). The LORD says it again at the end: "Because this nation transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to my voice, I also will no longer drive out any of the nations that Joshua left when he died from before them" (2:20-21). The chapter doesn't say the LORD broke his covenant; it says Israel "transgressed my covenant" (2:20). It also gives a purpose: "that by them I may test Israel" (2:22). The next chapter adds another: "to teach them war" (3:2). Through Moses the LORD had warned, "if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides" (Numbers 33:55), and Joshua had warned that "the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight" (Joshua 23:13). Joshua 23 looks at how 2:20-21 answers that warning.

The verses

“The LORD’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. 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?”
Judges 2:1-2 · World English Bible
“The LORD’s anger burned against Israel; and he said, “Because this nation transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to my voice, I also will no longer drive out any of the nations that Joshua left when he died from before them; that by them I may test Israel, to see if they will keep the LORD’s way to walk therein, as their fathers kept it, or not.””
Judges 2:20-22 · World English Bible
“Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to test Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan; only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before:”
Judges 3:1-2 · World English Bible
““But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land in which you dwell.”
Numbers 33:55 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Judges 2

Judges 2: 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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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions