Holy Bible

An angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. Judges 2:1-5 The Israelites at Bochim T. Kidd. I. The ASSEMBLY convened: "All the children of Israel." II. The MESSENGER employed. This "angel of the Lord " is said to "come up from Gilgal to Bochim." Gilgal was the scene of interesting transactions between the Lord and the Israelites. The Lord, therefore, in the riches of His mercy, again visits this people; and at Boehim revives the impressions which had been felt and the resolutions which had been formed at Gilgal. III. The ADDRESS delivered. 1. A statement of what the Lord had done for this people: "I made you to go up out of Egypt," that land of slavery, that scene of degradation and toil, "and have brought you unto the land which I aware unto your fathers." This was the completion of His work. It was a proof of the exceeding greatness of His power, and also of His faithfulness; for Canaan was the inheritance which He had engaged to give. 2. Next they are told what the Lord had promised to them: "I said, I will never break My covenant with you." Here was additional favour, and a solemn engagement of fidelity. It had been well if their fidelity had resembled His; then would their peace have been as a river and their prosperity permanent as a rock! 3. They are also reminded of what the Lord required of them: "Ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land." Nothing could be more reasonable. One would naturally have expected their prompt and persevering compliance. 4. But it is affecting to learn what the Lord received from them — the manner in which He was requited for all His favours: "Ye have not obeyed My voice." The charge is express and pointed. They had leagued with the Canaanites, spared their altars, connived at their idolatry; and all this in direct opposition to the command of Jehovah: "Why have ye done this?" Their sin may be accounted for, but it can never be justified. Indolence may partly account for it: to oppose evil required vigilance and exertion. Covetousness, perhaps, had its influence; they might join with the Canaanites in hope of sordid gain. Love of idolatry, a secret inclination to the practices of heathen nations, might induce them to spare their altars and to palliate their sin. But unbelief was the grand cause, and lay at the root of all their disobedience. 5. Lastly is recorded what the Lord threatened against them: "Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out," etc. Here was righteous retribution; they were punished by weapons of their own making; nor can we wonder at this mark of the Divine displeasure. IV. The EFFECT produced (vers. 4, 5). From this remarkable fact let us apply a question to ourselves: what influence has the Word preached among us? In other words, where are your tears, and where are your prayers? Thank God, neither the one nor the other are altogether restrained. But why are they not more frequent? It is owing to the hardness of the human heart, and is an affecting proof of the deep degeneracy of man. Terrors do not move; mercies do not melt; the most attractive truths are often heard without emotion or concern; and when some appearance of penitence does exist, how transient its continuance, and how unfruitful its influence! ( T. Kidd. ) Thy weeper J. B. Brown, B. A. s: — The voice of that weeping echoes through the ages, and Bochim becomes classic ground in the moral history of the world. I. THERE IS A TERRIBLE PHYSICAL AND MORAL CONFUSION PALPABLE ON THE VERY SURFACE OF MAN'S LIFE, which appears darker and deadlier the more you penetrate the depths; while the profound instinct of his being, made in the image of the one God, demands order and unity. All the heathen hecatombs, all the theodicies of philosophy, are attempts to explain the mystery. They are at least man's protests against, his struggle to be free from, the desperate confusions of his physical and moral life. II. THERE IS IN MAN A NATIVE TENDENCY TO MISTAKE THE KIND OF HELP WHICH HE IS TO EXPECT FROM GOD. From the Old and from the New Testament we hear alike the cry of man's natural heart, "The rest is near." There is the undying hope in the heart of humanity that God will give rest. Lamech thought that Noah would give it, Abraham that Isaac would give it, the Jews saw it in Canaan, David in Solomon, Ezra in the restoration, the early Christians in the Church. Suffering is to be destroyed, so runs the human dream, by the destruction of sin. The devil is to be slain, and all things that now tempt man to transgression shall woo him sweetly to virtue and joy. III. GOD'S REST, THE TRUE CANAAN FOR WHICH WE ALL ARE PINING, MUST SPRING FROM WITHIN, AND BE DEPENDENT ON THE VIGOUR OF THE INWARD LIFE. IV. IN THIS SCENE OF DISCIPLINE, WHERE MAN EXISTS OF NECESSITY AS AN IMPERFECT MORAL BEING, HE MUST HAVE THRONGS OF TEMPTERS AROUND HIM. He gives them strength by his want of firmness, by his system of foolish and timid compromise. But you have God's covenant as a rock to stand on, God's promise as a star to cheer, God's strength to nerve the spirit and to harden it to endurance, and God's sword, sharp and gleaming, to cut out before you the path to victory. V. THE BITTER TRUTH, DISCOVERED AT BOCHIM, IS THE DEEP, SAD UNDERTONE OF THE MUSIC OF HISTORY. Perhaps those who are most alive to its higher interests and aims find it saddest. But for them this sadness becomes holy; it is part of the sorrow of Christ, which is the germ of everlasting joy. It is not in anger, in its deepest purpose, but in love, that this weeping is ordained to us. Life is richer, nobler, if sadder, under such conditions, as we shall understand at last when we stand white-robed before the throne. ( J. B. Brown, B. A. ) Thorough-going Christianity R. S. Candlish, D. D. The picture here presented to us is that of the people of God stopping short in their career of triumph, not following up and following out the great salvation which the Lord has wrought. They thus incur His stern rebuke and questioning: "Why have ye done this?" Many reasons, more or less plausible, might be given. They were weary of the wilderness and of war; they had had enough of wandering and fighting; they longed for quiet rest and peace. Motives also of seeming pity and prudence might sway them: how hard to cut off with so fell a swoop, and in one wholesale sacrifice, so many hosts and households, of whom some at least might yet be reclaimed to Jehovah's service, or made useful in some way to His people. Then, as these relentings of tenderness or considerations of expediency occasioned hesitation and delay, their enemies recovered courage and became formidable again. No wonder if, under some such influences as these, proposals of truce and compromise began to be welcome to Israel; and the wisdom of God gave way before the policy of man. It was a policy, however, alike unwarrantable and disastrous; unwarrantable, considering all that God had done for them and the assurance they had that He would not break His covenant with them (ver. 1); and disastrous in the issue, for the error was irretrievable. I. THE SIN. Let me speak to the young Christian, the recent convert. What now have you more urgent on hand than to make good your position and reap the full fruit of the deliverance wrought out for you? What better opportunity for carrying out fully the sternest injunctions of your Lord regarding them? How does He bid you treat these enemies? "Mortify your members that are on the earth." "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Or take another instance. Such a season as I am speaking of is the very season for remodelling your whole plan of life — its pursuits, its habits, its companionship. You come out, O believer, from the secret place of your God, where He has been speaking peace to you — you come out into the world a new man; and now, when all is fresh, and before you have committed yourself, now is the very time for arranging methodically your general course of conduct and all its details. How are you to meet with your former associates? On what terms and with what degree of intimacy? When and how are you to join yourselves to the company commonly called godly, cast in your lot with them, and avow your self partakers of their toils, their trials, and their joys? What, moreover, are to be your rules for the exercise of private devotion and the cultivation of personal piety? What the system of your studious preparation for heaven? You may take your ground, unfurl your standard, and announce your watchword so unequivocally that few ever after will think of trying to shake or to disconcert you. But alas! too generally, as to all these matters, you have no definite plan of life at all. Hence vacillation, fitfulness, inconsistency, excess, and deficiency by turns. The opportunity of setting up a high standard and a high aim is lost; and soon, amid the snares of worldly conformity and the awkwardness of the false shame that will not let you retrace your steps, you deeply sigh for the day of your visitation, when you might have started from a higher platform and run a higher race than you can now hope ever to realise. II. THE INEXCUSABLENESS OF THE SIN. Hear the remonstrance which God addresses to Israel (ver. 1), and consider His threefold appeal. Look back to the past, and call to mind from what a state the Lord has rescued you, at what a price, by what a work of power. Look around on your present circumstances; see how the Lord has performed all that He sware to your fathers; the land is yours; and it is a goodly land. And if, in looking forward to the future, you have any misgivings, has He not said, "I will never break My covenant with you"? "What can you ask more? Are these considerations not sufficient to bind you to the whole work and warfare of the high calling of God, and to make cowardice and compromise exceeding sinful? III. THE DANGEROUS AND DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES OF THE SIN. Hear the awful sentence of God (ver 3), and then see how the children of Israel ilft up their voice and weep (ver. 4). Well is the place named Bochim: it is indeed a melting scene. The golden opportunity is lost: their error is not to be retrieved; its bitter fruits are to be reaped from henceforth many days. A sad sight truly; but sadder, if possible, is the spectacle of a Christian professor suffering, in after-years, from the insufficiency of his works and the first foundation of his Christianity; from his having allowed some evil thing in his bosom, some Achan in his camp; from his having stopped short when he should have gone on unto perfection. ( R. S. Candlish, D. D. ) From Gilgal to Bochim R. Winterbotham, M. A. Gilgal was the first camp of Israel after Jordan was actually crossed; it was at once a goal and a starting-point. To Christians it represents that position of vantage, that excellence of endowment whence they go forth in obedience and faith to subdue their spiritual foes. Had Israel been wise, they would have abode in Gilgal until their work of conquest was complete and the land all their own. Doubtless the angel first appeared in that deserted camp, doubtless he followed the people thence, in order to remind them that he ought to have found them there. But they had not been wise; they had not extirpated the nations, but had mingled with them and learnt their works; they had abandoned Gilgal, from whence, under the strong restraints of religious and military discipline, they might have carried through the work of conquest, and had settled themselves in some place of their own choosing: therefore, the angel of the Lord followed and found and reproached them; then they wept, and named the place Bochim — "the weepers." "From Gilgal to Bochim?' In nature it is an ascent, but in grace it is a tremendous fall; the one named from what God did, the other from what they felt. And surely it is very expressive of a great deal amongst ourselves; surely many of us are settled in a place of feelings without acts, emotions without results, reproofs which only produce tears. "From Gilgal to Bochim." How often is the story repeated in our spiritual life! Canaan is our kingdom — that kingdom of life and immortality, of light and holiness, which is already ours; not, indeed, for quiet and absolute possession, but for steady and victorious occupation. The seven nations of the Canaanites, alien intruders on the sacred soil, are the seven deadly sins which, with all their evil kith and kin, withstand our entry and dispute our enjoyment of that holy land whereof God hath made us kings and priests in Christ. It is our duty and our charge, as well as our interest, to extirpate these sins — to make a clean sweep of them, great and small. But we do not; we gain some splendid victories, we lay some threatening strongholds low, we deliver some large territories from the dominion of the foe, we do enough to show that we could do all; and then we cease. Because we would not be at the trouble, relying on the grace of God, to cast out all the sins which He detests; because we held our hand and allowed some of them to remain in their old places in our life and character; therefore hath God also restrained the working of His grace, and hath allowed those very faults to become our constant plagues, thorns in our sides, unfailing causes of irritation, self-reproach, and weakness. What we want is to be up and doing, to make a vigorous move, to get back to Gilgal, and from thence to go forth patient and resolved to complete the conquest of our own spiritual realm. Let us occupy once more that place of vantage to which God hath brought us by election and by grace; let us realise the invincible strength which is assured unto those Christians who wait upon their God in prayer and sacraments; let us rely upon that strength not to be the substitute for our own efforts, but to inspire them with supernatural ardour,to crown them with supernatural success. ( R. Winterbotham, M. A. ) Bochim; or, the weepers I. HOW HOPEFUL. One could not desire anything better apparently than this. 1. They were all attentive hearers. There was not one that looked about him, or that forgot the pointed words that were spoken. It is a great thing to win people's attention. 2. They were very feeling people. 3. They were all sorrowful hearers. Alas! that such drops did not precede a shower of grace, but passed away as the morning cloud. 4. Aye, and they all became professing hearers; for as soon as ever that service was over they held another, and "they sacrificed unto Jehovah." Now let me turn to the other side and show you that there was nothing permanently good in Bochim's sudden water-floods. II. Their weeping was VERY DISAPPOINTING. 1. I half suspect that their tears and lamentations were produced as much by the preacher's person as by anything else. It was the Angel of the Lord, and who would not be moved at His presence? It may be a great blessing to you to hear a very useful preacher, but if you depend upon him in the least it will be mischievous to you. Seek that your repentance may be repentance which is wrought by the Spirit of God in your heart and conscience. Sham religion is an injury rather than a benefit. 2. Again, I am afraid that the repentance of these people had a great deal to do with their natural softness. They were tender and excitable because there was little grit in their nature; their manliness was of a degenerate type. They feared to go to battle for God; they dreaded the noise and the slaughter. They were, moreover, easily moved by their fellow-men, and took shape from those who lived near them. One grain of faith is better than a gallon of tears. A drop of genuine repentance is more precious than a torrent of weeping. 3. There is another thing about the weeping of these people, and that is, that it was caused a great deal by threatenings of punishment. Every murderer repents at the gallows, they say; that is, he repents of being hanged, but he does not repent of having killed others. We ought clearly to discern between the natural terrors that come of vivid descriptions of the wrath to come and that real spiritual touch of God the Holy Ghost which breaks and melts the heart and then casts it into another mould. These people were deceived as to the depth and sincerity of their own feelings. Doubtless they reckoned themselves choice penitents when they were only cowardly tremblers, labouring under impressions which were as useless as they were transient. Their feeling was but as a meteor's blaze, shedding strong but momentary day. 4. Next, these people had not repented, for they did not bring their children up rightly. The next generation, it is said, knew not the Lord, neither the mighty works of the Lord. If parents make known the things of God to their children it cannot be said that the children do not know the works of God. If parents teach with affectionate earnestness, their children learn at least the letter of the truth. Woe unto you, with all your tears, if you have no regard for your household, and no care to bring up your children in the fear of God. 5. I know that these people did not repent aright, because they went from bad to worse. They went from weeping before God to worshipping Baal. The more tender you are, if afterwards you harden yourselves, so much the greater will be your guilt; and if you humble yourselves before God in mere appearance, so much the more terrible will be your doom if that humbleness departs and you go back to the sin from which you professed to turn. 6. I know that these people were not penitents, because God did not take away the chastisement. The punishment which He threatened He brought upon them: He gave them over to the spoilers and sold them to their enemies. But where there is a hearty repentance of sin, God will never lay punishment on a man. He will forgive him and receive him to His bosom and restore him. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The failure of obedience L. H. Wiseman, M. A. The accusation against them at Bochim was negative rather than positive. They were not charged with any specific act of avowed rebellion, but with having failed to obey the voice of God. But when the Church has begun to habitually neglect any one of her Lord's known commands — still more when she begins to "break one of these least commandments, and teach men so" — the day is not far distant when, unless arrested in her career by the mercy or the judgments of God, she will be found openly consorting with the mammon-worshippers by whom she is surrounded. Even so it was in the history before us. 1. The Canaanites in this history represent the enemies of the Church of God, and also the inward besetting sins of individual members of that Church. Need we name pride, and lust, and covetousness, and self-conceit, and envy, and worldliness, and impatience, and fretfulness, and revengefulness — a band of brothers, tall sons of Anak, diverse in feature, yet all showing the ancestry and lineaments of the serpent? Need we mention others of the same kindred — jealousy, and sloth, and worldliness, and levity, and procrastination, and presumption, and unbelief? 2. It follows, then, that the believer's warfare is not completed when he has been made a partaker of peace through believing in Christ; for "we are made partakers of Christ" only "if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." "Put off," says the Scripture, "the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." Mighty task! — for this "old man" is not easily ousted from his ancient habitation. He fights hard for possession; and we must "give diligence," even after we have obtained our "calling and election," to "make it sure." 3. We are reminded that many of the spiritual Israel stop short of a full salvation, for it is to be remembered that these men had partially obeyed. They had begun well. 4. The history illustrates the causes of the weakness of the Church and people of God.(1) One of these causes was indolence. "They neglected to destroy the nations, not because of want of inclination, but because they were deficient in strength in consequence of their guilt; not from feelings of compassion, but from want of holy zeal and from slothfulness," The athlete cannot retain his strength without daily exercise; the vocalist cannot retain his power and command of voice without incessant practise; and the child of God cannot go on to perfection without a daily spiritual gymnastic, "exercising himself with a view to godliness," as an athlete with a view to the games. Faith and love, correcting the indolence of our nature, will make this holy toil delightful.(2) Another cause of spiritual weakness is a secret love of sin. In our own day there are degraded Englishmen who have settled among the savages of New Hebrides or Fiji on purpose to be free from all moral restraint, and who outdo the worst of the heathen in every kind of abomination. In religious families there are sons and daughters who, although outwardly restrained by the circumstances of their position, cherish a bitter hatred of religion and a secret love for a dissipated life. And even in the hearts of the faithful what strange occasional lingerings towards evil! What treacherous trifling with things fordidden!(3) Another cause of spiritual weakness is unbelief, if indeed this one cause does not sum up and exhaust the whole subject. Unbelief is vitally connected with that alienation of heart and affections from God in which the deepest ruin of man consists. And is it for this cause, O ye Israel of God, that ye are so slow to believe even in the possibility of being sanctified wholly, and of being preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord? Is this the reason why ye so stoutly contend that although the inbred foe, the spiritual Canaanite, may be humbled and put to tribute, it is impossible he should be utterly destroyed on this side the grave? When the heart pants after the living God, is it pleasant to think that, in this life at least, He will never take full and complete possession, but that some damnable lust will always be there to dispute with Him for the supremacy? ( L. H. Wiseman, M. A. ) The evil of disobedience to God Mark and note right well that it is an evil thing under any pretext whatever to depart in any degree from the commandment of the Most High God. Whatsoever may be the law which God gives, either to the whole race or to His chosen, they will find their safety in keeping close to it. But Israel forgot this. Soldiering was hard work — storming cities and warring with men who attacked them with chariots of iron was heroic service. All this required strong faith and untiring perseverance, and in these virtues the Israelites were greatly deficient; and so, in certain places, they said to the Canaanites, "Let us be neighbours: let us dwell together." At any rate, it could do no harm to study their archaeology, and go to their temples, and see the gods they worshipped, and get a general acquaintance with the advanced thought of the period; for the Canaanites were a greatly advanced people — they were the advanced thinkers of the period. Tolerance led to imitation, and Israel became as vile as the heathen whom the Lord had condemned, and the Israelites became a mixed race, in whose veins there flowed a measure of Canaanite blood. Yes, if you depart from God's Word by a heir's breadth you know not where you will end. I would to God that in these degenerate times we had back again somewhat of the stern spirit of the Cameronians and the Covenanters; for now men play fast and loose with God, and think that anything they please to do will satisfy the Most High. The offal and the refuse will suffice for sacrifice for Him; but as to strict obedience to His Word, they can by no means abide it. Mischief will surely come of this lax state of things to the Churches of this day as surely as affliction came abundantly to Israel of old. Note, next, that whenever one sin is allowed we may say of it, "Gad, a troop cometh." It seemed a pardonable sort of sin to be gentle to these people and not to obey God's severer word; but then, what came next? Why, soon they, the children of Jehovah, were found worshipping before the horrible Baal. Soon they had gone farther, and the unclean goddess Ashtaroth became their delight; and anon they forgot Jehovah altogether amid their deities and demons. With these errors in religion there had come in all sorts of errors in morals, for every fashion of immorality and lewdness defiled the worshippers of Baal-Peor, Baal-Berith, and Baal-Zebub; and the chosen people of God could scarcely be distinguished from the heathen nations among which they dwelt, or if distinguished at all, it was by their greater sin, inasmuch as they were transgressing against superior light, and holding down their consciences which God had rendered by His teaching much more tender than the consciences of those about them. Backslide a little, and you are on the way to utter apostasy. The mother of mischief is small as a midge's egg; hatch it, and you shall see an evil bird larger than an ostrich. The least wrong has in it an all but infinity of evil. So Israel went aside farther and farther from God because they regarded not their way, and did not in all things obey the Lord. But then comes in a truth which, though it may seem black in the telling, is bright in the essence of it. God did not leave His people without chastisement. The Lord laid His blows upon them thick and heavy. But, before He did this, He sent a messenger to rebuke them. It is ever the Lord's way to give space for repentance ere He executes vengeance. The axes which were carried before the Roman magistrates by the lictors were bound up in bundles of rods. It is said that when a prisoner was before the magistrate the lictor began to untie the rods, and with these the culprit was beaten; meanwhile the judge looked in the prisoner's face and heard his defence, and if he saw reason for averting the capital sentence, because of the repentance which the offender expressed, then he only smote him with the rod, but the axe remained unused. But if, when every rod was taken off, the culprit was still hardened, and the crime was a capital one and clearly proven, then the axe was used, and used all the more sternly because space had been given for penitence, and the rods had been used in vain. When the rod is despised the axe is ready. It is certainly so with God: He waiteth to be gracious, but when patience cannot hope for penitence then justice takes her turn, and her stroke is terrible. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) The rushing of tears T. De Witt Talmage. If this hour we could realise God's goodness toward us, and our conduct toward Him, a great grief would seize upon us, and repentance would meet remorse, and remorse would meet ingratitude, and memories of the past would jostle the fears of the future, and silence would be broken by sobs and shrieks. 1. I have first to remark that many Christian people have reason for a good deal of mourning. What have you been doing these ten, twenty, thirty, forty years? Did not God lead you out of Egypt? Did He not part for you the Red Sea of trouble, and has He not rained manna all around about your camp? Did He not divide the Jordan of death for your loved ones, until they went through dry-shod, not wetting even the soles of their feet? Has He not put clusters of blessings upon your table, and fed you with the finest of the wheat? And yet, we must confess, we have, like the Israelites, made a league with the world. Three-fourths of our Christian life has been wasted. Oh, weep for our derelictions! weep for our wanderings! weep for our lost opportunities that will never return! There is great reason for sadness on the part of some parents when they look over their families. You know that there must be a mighty change in your household before you can all live together in eternity. Can you placidly contemplate an eternal separation from any of your loved ones? Things are looking that way. Their opportunities of salvation less and less; your opportunities of plying them with religious motives less and less. The prospect that God's invitation will continue to them, less and less. The day of their mercy almost gone, yet they have not put up one earnest prayer, or repented of one sin, and not given one hopeful sign, and death coming to snap the conjugal bond, and break up the fraternal and the filial tie. An aged woman came to me. I said, "Are you seeking the salvation of your soul?" She said, "No, I have sought and found. I came in to ask your prayers for my sons. They are on the wrong road." O Lord Jesus, are we to be parted from any we have loved? Will some of us be saved and some of us be lost? Which one will it be missing, missing, missing, for eternity? I say farther: there are impenitent souls who ought to be sad from the fact that there are sins they have committed that cannot be corrected either in this world or the world to come. Suppose a man at fifty years of age becomes a Christian, but he has been all his life on the other side. He is a father. He comes to Christ now; but can he arrest the fact that for twenty or thirty years over his children he was wielding a wrong influence, and they have started in the wrong direction? And if you come to God in the latter part of your life, when you have given your children an impulse in the wrong direction, those ten, or fifteen, or twenty years of example in the wrong direction will be mightier than the few words you can utter now in the right direction. So it is with the influence you have had anywhere in community. If you have all these years given countenance to those who are neglecting religion, can you correct that? Your common sense says "No." Here is an engineer on a locomotive. He is taking a long train of cars loaded with passengers. He comes on and sees a red flag. He says, "What do I care for the red flag?" He pushes on the train, and comes to another red flag. He says, "I don't care for the red flag." After a while he sees that the bridge is down; but he is by a marsh, and he leaps and is not damaged. Does that stop the train? No! It goes on crash! crash! crash! That is the history of some men who have been converted. I congratulate them, but I cannot hide the fact that they started a train of influences in the wrong direction; and though, in the afternoon of their life, they may leap off the train, the train goes on, So, also, there is occasion for sadness in the peril that surrounds every unforgiven soul. And so you may go on placidly, smoothly, gaily for a while in your sin, but the hurricane will swoop upon your souls. Without God, without hope! Oh, what an orphanage, what an exile, what a desolation! Moan! moan! for thy lost estate. Have you not had a chance for heaven? "Ah," you say, "that is the worst of it. That is what makes me weep." Was your father bad? Was your mother wicked? "No," you say. "Say nothing against my mother. If there was ever a good woman, she was one; and I remember how, in her old days, and when bent with years, and in her plain frock she knelt down and prayed for my soul, and with her apron wiped away the tears. Oh, I have trampled on her broken heart. I am a wretch undone. Who will pray for me? I am so sick of sin. I am so weary of the world! "No wonder you weep, for the greatest condemnation of the last day will be for those who had pious parents and who resisted their admonition. But what is a sadder thought is, that some of these people not only stay out of the kingdom of God themselves, but they will not let their children come in. "You never invited me to Christ. You stood in my way. You gave a wrong example. Father, mother, you ruined my soul!" 2. But I remember that there are tears of joy as well as tears of sorrow, and how the foundations of the deep would break up if one hundred or one thousand souls would march up and take the kingdom of heaven! But there are some who have not come. They will not come. They will not repent. ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) Sorrow not repentance De Witt S. Clark. "Bochim" might be widely inscribed in the land of Palestine, if thereby to mark the place where universal lamentations have been heard. Crying was a frequent sight and sound there. It was sometimes uncontrollable. It was often mechanical and artificial. Trouble usually provokes it, and fears and tears are closely related. But sobbings and penitence are not so nearly allied as we might expect. The vain Xerxes, as he sat on his silver throne, overlooking his vast fleet and outstretched army, and weeping to think how in a hundred years every life before him woul

Benson Commentary Judges 2:1 And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. Jdg 2:1 . An angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal — This, no doubt, was the Angel of the covenant, the same divine being that appeared to Joshua near Jericho, Joshua 5:13-14 ; to whom the conduct of Israel out of Egypt into Canaan, and their conquests and success there, are frequently ascribed. He alone could speak the following words in his own name and person; whereas created angels and prophets universally usher in their message with, Thus saith the Lord, or some equivalent expression. And, having assumed the shape of a man, he imitates the motion of a man, and appears to come from Gilgal to the place where they now were, probably in order to remind the Israelites of his appearing to Joshua near that place, of the assurance he then gave them of his intended presence with them in the conquest of the country, and of the solemn covenant they made with him by the renewal of circumcision. This was a reproof to them for their base ingratitude to God, and their pusillanimous sloth in not endeavouring to expel the Canaanites. To Bochim — A word signifying weepers. This was not the name of the place before, but was given it on this occasion, on account of the lamentations of the children of Israel for what the angel said to them, Jdg 2:5 . It seems to have been no other than Shiloh, where, it is probable, the people were met together upon some solemn festival occasion. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you — That is, upon condition of your keeping covenant with me. Judges 2:2 And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? Jdg 2:2-5 . Ye shall make no league, &c. — These express and frequently-repeated commands of God they had disobeyed. Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out, &c. — That is, I have now taken up this peremptory resolution. They shall be as thorns in your sides, &c. — This signifies what they were assuredly to expect in breaking the covenant on their part; and the sentence here pronounced, or prediction uttered, soon began to take effect and be accomplished. The people lift up their voice and wept — Some of them, it is probable, from a true sense of their sins; others from a just apprehension of their approaching misery. They sacrificed there — For the expiation of their sins, by which they had provoked the Lord to this resolution, and in order to regain his compassion and favour. Judges 2:3 Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. Judges 2:4 And it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept. Judges 2:5 And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD. Judges 2:6 And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. Jdg 2:6 . And when Joshua — It should rather be rendered, Now when Joshua, &c. For it does not relate to the preceding story, but is a repetition of what was declared Joshua 24:28-31 , and is here recorded by way of introduction to the following account of the people’s defection and punishment, contained in the subsequent parts of the book. Let the people go — When he had distributed their inheritances, and dismissed them severally to take possession of them. “The sacred writer,” says Dr. Dodd, “having just related the reproaches delivered by the angel of the Lord against the Israelites, would now show his readers how and when the nation had incurred those reproaches. To this end he carries the matter as far back as possible; and, first, he ascends to that happy period when, Joshua having finished the division of the conquered country of the Canaanites, the Israelites went each to his inheritance, and possessed it, and dwelt in the portion of the land which had fallen to his lot. This division was in fact the immediate work of Providence. Lots were cast before the Lord: he had presided over them, and without doubt Joshua, who had used such fine exhortations to the two tribes and a half beyond Jordan, when they set out to take possession of their territories, failed not strongly to recommend religion and obedience to the other tribes, in settling them in the lands that had been assigned to them; which he repeated before his death in the most affecting manner. See on Joshua 24. All of them, therefore, equally instructed, and impressed with gratitude, had entered upon their estates with intentions promising a constant fidelity. But the love of this world seduced them. They soon thought only of their private interest, how to extend and aggrandize themselves; and speedily losing sight of the public good, shamefully neglected the sacred duties of religion.” Judges 2:7 And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that he did for Israel. Judges 2:8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. Judges 2:9 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. Judges 2:10 And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. Jdg 2:10 . And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers — Not only those who had beheld the wonderful works of God in Egypt, and in the wilderness, but those also who had seen Jordan dried up, the walls of Jericho fall down, the sun stand still at the word of Joshua, and their enemies overwhelmed with hail-stones, &c., which had created such impressions in their hearts, that they generally continued in the service of God while they lived, and kept others in obedience to him. Another generation, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel — Which had no serious and affectionate knowledge of God or of his works. Judges 2:11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: Jdg 2:11 . The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord — Which marks the heinousness and impudence of their sins, above other people’s; because God’s presence was with them, and his eye upon them in a peculiar manner, which also they were not ignorant of, and therefore were guilty of more contempt of God than other people. And served Baalim — False gods, which were called by this general name Baalim, which signifies lords. For among the pagans, as St. Paul observes, there were gods many and lords many, and the gods of the Canaanites and the neighbouring nations, which Israel worshipped, were most of them called by the name of Baal; as Baal of the Sidonians, and Baal of the Amorites, Moabites, Ammonites. Judges 2:12 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. Judges 2:13 And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. Jdg 2:13 . They served Baal and Ashtaroth — By Baal or lord here, it is probable, we are to understand the sun, and by Ashtaroth, the same, it seems, with Astarte, the moon, worshipped in different countries under the names Juno and Venus. So that they had he-gods and she-gods, and gods of all kinds, as many as a luxuriant fancy pleased to make and multiply them. It may not be improper to observe here, that “the reason why the Israelites so often lapsed into idolatry, may easily be deduced from the common notion of tutelary deities, which they had imbibed during their residence in Egypt, which was the fruitful parent of science and idolatry. One generally-received consequence of this opinion was, that the peculiar or tutelary deity of any country could not be neglected, even by the conquerors of that country, without impiety, and that their impiety would certainly meet with punishment from the deity whom they thus neglected. The Israelites, therefore, unwilling to expose themselves to the resentment which the tutelary deity was supposed to take on those who, inhabiting his land, yet slighted his worship; unwilling likewise to leave their paternal God, they incorporated the worship of both; and served not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but likewise the Baalim, or local tutelary deities of the countries wherein they were settled. In process of time this weakness increased to such a degree, that the rights of the tutelary deity of the country were acknowledged to be superior to those of the Gentilitial God of the conquerors. This might arise from the common opinion, that the favours of the local deity were particularly attached and confined to one certain spot; or from an apprehension of the strength of the inhabitants among whom they were settled, who would not have endured to have their god slighted, without vindicating his honour, and endeavouring to extirpate the offenders. This piece of complaisance and condescension the Israelites seem to have been guilty of, when they are said to have forsaken the Lord God of their fathers, and to have followed other gods, the gods of the people that were round about them. Their defection from the God of Israel did not, however, consist in rejecting him as a false god, or in renouncing the law of Moses as a false religion: but only in joining foreign worship and idolatrous ceremonies to the ritual of the true God.” Div. Leg., vol. 4. p. 44. Judges 2:14 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Jdg 2:14-15 . Sold them — That is, delivered them up, as the seller doth his commodities, unto the buyer. Whithersoever they went out — That is, whatsoever expedition or business they undertook, which is equally signified by going out and coming in; the hand of the Lord was against them for evil — Disappointing their expectations, opposing and thwarting their designs, and blasting all their prospects. They were greatly distressed — Thus is sin uniformly followed by suffering. Judges 2:15 Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed. Judges 2:16 Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. Jdg 2:16-17 . Nevertheless the Lord raised up — By inward inspiration and excitement of their hearts, and by outward designation, testified by some extraordinary action. Judges — Supreme magistrates, whose office it was, under God, and by his particular direction, to govern the commonwealth of Israel by God’s laws, and to protect and save them from their enemies, to preserve and purge religion, and to maintain the liberties of the people against all oppressors. Yet they would not hearken to their judges — Who admonished them of their sin and folly, and of the danger and misery which would certainly befall them. Judges 2:17 And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the LORD; but they did not so. Judges 2:18 And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the LORD because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. Jdg 2:18-19 . For it repented the Lord — That is, the Lord changed his course and dealings with them, as penitent men use to do; removed his judgments, and returned to them in mercy. When the judge was dead they returned — To their former and usual course. More than their fathers — In Egypt, or in the wilderness. Their own doings — That is, from their evil practices, which he calls their own, because they were agreeable to their own natures, which in all mankind are deeply and universally corrupted, and because they were familiar and customary to them. Judges 2:19 And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. Judges 2:20 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; Judges 2:21 I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died: Judges 2:22 That through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it , or not. Jdg 2:22 . That through them I may prove Israel — That I may try and see whether Israel will be true and faithful to me, or whether they will suffer themselves to be corrupted by the counsels and examples of their bad neighbours. Judges 2:23 Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Judges 2:1 And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. AT BOCHIM: THE FIRST PROPHET VOICE Jdg 2:1-5 FROM the time of Abraham on to the settlement in Canaan the Israelites had kept the faith of the one God. They had their origin as a people in a decisive revolt against polytheism. Of the great Semite forefather of the Jewish people, it has been finely said, "He bore upon his forehead the seal of the Absolute God, upon which was written, This race will rid the earth of superstition." The character and structure of the Hebrew tongue resisted idolatry. It was not an imaginative language; it had no mythological colour. We who have inherited an ancient culture of quite another kind do not think it strange to read or sing: "Hail, smiling morn, that tip’st the hills with gold, Whose rosy fingers ope the gates of day, Who the gay face of nature dost unfold, At whose bright presence darkness flies away." These lines, however, are full of latent mythology. The "smiling morn" is Aurora, the darkness that flies away before the dawn is the Erebus of the Greeks. Nothing of this sort was possible in Hebrew literature. In it all change, all life, every natural incident are ascribed to the will and power of one Supreme Being. "Jehovah thundered in the heavens and the Highest gave His voice, hailstones and coals of fire." "By the breath of God ice is given, and the breadth of the waters is straitened." "Behold, He spreadeth His light around Him; He covereth His hands with the lightning." "Thou makest darkness and it is night." Always in forms like these Hebrew poetry sets forth the control of nature by its invisible King. The pious word of Fenelon, "What do I see in nature? God; God everywhere; God alone," had its germ, its very substance, in the faith and language of patriarchal times. Christ its finest radiance flashes upon the world. While the Hebrews were in Egypt, the faith inherited from patriarchal times must have been sorely tried, and, all circumstances considered, it came forth wonderfully pure. "The Israelites saw Egypt as the Mussulman Arab sees pagan countries, entirely from the outside, perceiving only the surface and external things." They indeed carried with them into the desert the recollection of the sacred bulls or calves of which they had seen images at Hathor and Memphis. But the idol they made at Horeb was intended to represent their Deliverer, the true God, and the swift and stern repression by Moses of that symbolism and its pagan incidents appears to have been effectual. The tribes reached Canaan substantially free from idolatry, though teraphim or fetishes may have been used in secret with magical ceremonies. The religion of the people generally was far from spiritual, yet there was a real faith in Jehovah as the protector of the national life, the guardian of justice and truth. From this there was no falling away when the Reubenites and Gadites on the east of Jordan erected an altar for themselves. "The Lord God of gods," they said, "He knoweth, and Israel he shall know if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord." The altar was called Ed, a witness between east and west that the faith of the one Living God was still to unite the tribes. But the danger to Israel’s fidelity came when there began to be intercourse with the people of Canaan, now sunk from the purer thought of early times. Everywhere in the land of the Hittites and Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites, there were altars and sacred trees, pillars and images used in idolatrous worship. The ark and the altar of Divine religion, established first at Gilgal near Jericho, afterwards at Bethel and then at Shiloh, could not be frequently visited, especially by those who settled towards the southern desert and in the far north. Yet the necessity for religious worship of some kind was constantly felt; and as afterwards the synagogues gave opportunity for devotional gatherings when the Temple could not be reached, so in the earlier time there came to be sacred observances on elevated places, a windy threshing floor, or a hilltop already used for heathen sacrifice. Hence, on the one hand, there was the danger that worship might be entirely neglected, on the other hand the grave risk that the use of heathen occasions and meeting places should lead to heathen ritual, and those who came together on the hill of Baal should forget Jehovah. It was the latter evil that grew; and while as yet only a few Hebrews easily led astray had approached with kid or lamb a pagan altar, the alarm was raised. At Bochim a Divine warning was uttered which found echo in the hearts of the people. There appears to have been a great gathering of the tribes at some spot near Bethel. We see the elders and heads of families holding council of war and administration, the thoughts of all bent on conquest and family settlement. Religion, the purity of Jehovah’s worship, are forgotten in the business of the hour. How shall the tribes best help each other in the struggle that is already proving more arduous than they expected? Dan is sorely pressed by the Amorites. The chiefs of the tribe are here telling their story of hardship among the mountains. The Asherites have failed in their attack upon the seaboard towns Accho and Achzib; in vain have they pressed towards Zidon. They are dwelling among the Canaanites and may soon be reduced to slavery. The reports from other tribes are more hopeful; but everywhere the people of the land are hard to overcome. Should Israel not remain content for a time, make the best of circumstances, cultivate friendly intercourse with the population it cannot dispossess? Such a policy often commends itself to those who would be thought prudent; it is apt to prove a fatal policy. Suddenly a spiritual voice is heard, clear and intense, and all others are silent. From the sanctuary of God at Gilgal one comes whom the people have not expected; he comes with a message they cannot choose but hear. It is a prophet with the burden of reproof and warning. Jehovah’s goodness, Jehovah’s claim are declared with Divine ardour; with Divine severity the neglect of the covenant is condemned. Have the tribes of God begun to consort with the people of the land? Are they already dwelling content under the shadow of idolatrous groves, in sight of the symbols of Ashtoreth? Are they learning to swear by Baal and Melcarth and looking on while sacrifices are offered to these vile masters? Then they can no longer hope that Jehovah will give them the country to enjoy; the heathen shall remain as thorns in the side of Israel and their gods shall be a snare. It is a message of startling power. From the hopes of dominion and the plans of worldly gain the people pass to spiritual concern. They have offended their Lord; His countenance is turned from them? A feeling of guilt falls on the assembly. "It came to pass that the people lifted up their voice and wept." This lamentation at Bochim is the second note of religious feeling and faith in the Book of Judges. The first is the consultation of the priests and the oracle referred to in the opening sentence of the book. Jehovah Who had led them through the wilderness was their King, and unless He went forth as the unseen Captain of the host no success could be looked for. "They asked of Jehovah, saying, Who shall go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?" In this appeal there was a measure of faith which is neither to be scorned nor suspected. The question indeed was not whether they should fight at all, but how they should fight so as to succeed, and their trust was in a God thought of as pledged to them, solely concerned for them. So far accordingly there is nothing exemplary in the circumstances. Yet we find a lesson for Christian nations. There are many in our modern parliaments who are quite ready to vote national prayer in war time and thanksgiving for victories, who yet would never think, before undertaking a war, of consulting those best qualified to interpret the Divine will. The relation between religion and the state has this fatal hitch, that however Christian our governments profess to be, the Christian thinkers of the country are not consulted on moral questions, not even on a question so momentous as that of war. It is passion, pride, or diplomacy, never the wisdom of Christ, that leads nations in the critical moments of their history. Who then scorn, who suspect the early Hebrew belief? Those only who have no right; those who as they laugh at God and faith shut themselves from the knowledge by which alone life can be understood; and, again, those who in their own ignorance and pride unsheathe the sword without reference to Him in Whom they profess to believe. We admit none of these to criticise Israel and its faith. At Bochim, where the second note of religious feeling is struck, a deeper and clearer note, we find the prophet listened to. He revives the sense of duty, he kindles a Divine sorrow in the hearts of the people. The national assembly is conscience stricken. Let us allow this quick contrition to be the result, in part, of superstitious fear. Very rarely is spiritual concern quite pure. In general it is the consequences of transgression rather than the evil of it that press on the minds of men. Forebodings of trouble and calamity are more commonly causes of sorrow than the loss of fellowship with God; and if we know this to be the case with many who are convicted of sin under the preaching of the gospel, we cannot wonder to find the penitence of old Hebrew times mingled with superstition. Nevertheless, the people are aware of the broken covenant, burdened with a sense that they have lost the favour of their unseen Guide. There can be no doubt that the realisation of sin and of justice turned against them is one cause of their tears. Here, again, if there is a difference between Israel and Christian nations, it is not in favour of the latter. Are modern senates ever overcome by conviction of sin? Those who are in power seem to have no fear that they may do wrong. Glorifying their blunders and forgetting their errors, they find no occasion for self-reproach, no need to sit in sackcloth and ashes. Now and then, indeed, a day of fasting and humiliation is ordered and observed in state; the sincere Christian for his part feeling how miserably formal it is, how far from the spontaneous expression of abasement and remorse. God is called upon to help a people who have not considered their ways, who design no amendment, who have not even suspected that the Divine blessing may come in still further humbling. And turning to private life, is there not as much of self-justification, as little of real humility and faith? The shallow nature of popular Christianity is seen here, that so few can read in disappointment and privation anything but disaster, or submit without disgust and rebellion to take a lower place at the table of Providence. Our weeping is so often for what we longed to gain or wished to keep in the earthly and temporal region, so seldom for what we have lost or should fear to lose in the spiritual. We grieve when we should rather rejoice that God has made us feel our need of Him, and called us again to our true blessedness. The scene at Bochim connects itself very notably with one nine hundred and fifty years later. The poor fragments of the exiled tribes have been gathered again in the land of their fathers. They are rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple. Ezra has led back a company from Babylon and has brought with him, by the favour of Artaxerxes, no small treasure of silver and gold for the house of God. To his astonishment and grief he hears the old tale of alliance with the inhabitants of the land, intermarriage even of Levites, priests and princes of Israel with women of the Canaanite races. In the new settlement of Palestine the error of the first is repeated. Ezra calls a solemn assembly in the Temple court-"every one that trembles at the words of the God of Israel." Till the evening sacrifice he sits prostrate with grief, his garment rent, his hair torn and dishevelled. Then on his knees before the Lord he spreads forth his hands in prayer. The trespasses of a thousand years afflict him, afflict the faithful. "After all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, shall we again break Thy commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples that do these abominations? wouldest not Thou be angry with us till Thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant nor any to escape? Behold we are before Thee in our guiltiness; for none can stand before Thee because of this." The impressive lament of Ezra and those who join in his confessions draws together a great congregation, and the people weep very sore. Nine centuries and a half appear a long time in the history of a nation. What has been gained during the period? Is the weeping at Jerusalem in Ezra’s time, like the weeping at Bochim, a mark of no deeper feeling, no keener penitence? Has there been religious advance commensurate with the discipline of suffering, defeat, slaughter and exile, dishonoured kings, a wasted land? Have the prophets not achieved anything? Has not the Temple in its glory, in its desolation, spoken of a Heavenly power, a Divine rule, the sense of which entering the souls of the people has established piety, or at least a habit of separateness from heathen manners and life? It may be hard to distinguish and set forth the gain of those centuries. But it is certain that while the weeping at Bochim was the sign of a fear that soon passed away, the weeping in the Temple court marked a new beginning in Hebrew history. By the strong action of Ezra and Nehemiah the mixed marriages were dissolved, and from that time the Jewish people became, as they never were before, exclusive and separate. Where nature would have led the nation ceased to go. More and more strictly the law was enforced; the age of puritanism began. So, let us say, the sore discipline had its fruit. And yet it is with a reservation only we can enjoy the success of those reformers who drew the sharp line between Israel and his heathen neighbours, between Jew and Gentile. The vehemence of reaction urged the nation towards another error-Pharisaism. Nothing could be purer, nothing nobler than the desire to make Israel a holy people. But to inspire men with religious zeal and yet preserve them from spiritual pride is always difficult, and in truth those Hebrew reformers did not see the danger. There came to be, in the new development of faith, zeal enough, jealousy enough, for the purity of religion and life, but along with these a contempt for the heathen, a fierce enmity towards the uncircumcised, which made the interval till Christ appeared a time of strife and bloodshed worse than any that had been before. From the beginning the Hebrews were called with a holy calling, and their future was bound up with their faithfulness to it. Their ideal was to be earnest and pure, without bitterness or vainglory; and that is still the ideal of faith. But the Jewish people like ourselves, weak through the flesh, came short of the mark on one side or passed beyond it on the other. During the long period from Joshua to Nehemiah there was too little heat, and then a fire was kindled which burned a sharp narrow path, along which the life of Israel has gone with ever-lessening spiritual force. The unfulfilled ideal still waits, the unique destiny of this people of God still bears them on. Bochim is a symbol. There the people wept for a transgression but half understood and a peril they could not rightly dread. There was genuine sorrow, there was genuine alarm. But it was the prophetic word, not personal experience, that moved the assembly. And as at Florence, when Savonarola’s word, shaking with alarm a people who had no vision of holiness, left them morally weaker as it fell into silence, so the weeping at Bochim passed like a tempest that has bowed and broken the forest trees. The chiefs of Israel returned to their settlements with a new sense of duty and peril; but Canaanite civilisation had attractions, Canaanite women a refinement which captivated the heart. And the civilisation, the refinement, were associated with idolatry, The myths of Canaan, the poetry of Tammuz and Astarte, were fascinating and seductive. We wonder not that the pure faith of God was corrupted, but that it survived. In Egypt the heathen worship was in a foreign tongue, but in Canaan the stories of the gods were whispered to Israelites in a language they knew, by their own kith and kin. In many a home among the mountains of Ephraim or the skirts of Lebanon the pagan wife, with her superstitious fears, her dread of the anger of this god or that goddess, wrought so on the mind of the Jewish husband that he began to feel her dread and then to permit and share her sacrifices. Thus idolatry invaded Israel, and the long and weary struggle between truth and falsehood began. We have spoken of Bochim as a symbol, and to us it may be the symbol of this, that the very thing which men put from them in horror and with tears, seeing the evil, the danger of it, does often insinuate itself into their lives. The messenger is heard, and while he speaks how near God is, how awful is the sense of His being! A thrill of keen feeling passes from soul to soul. There are some in the gathering who have more spiritual insight than the rest, and their presence raises the heat of emotion. But the moment of revelation and of fervour passes, the company breaks up, and very soon those who have won no vision of holiness, who have only feared as they entered into the cloud, are in the common world again. The finer strings of the soul were made to thrill, the conscience was touched; but if the will has not been braced, if the man’s reason and resoluteness are not engaged by a new conception of life, the earthly will resume control and God will be less known than before. So there are many cast down today, crying to God in trouble of soul for evil done or evil which they are tempted to do, who tomorrow among the Canaanites will see things in another light. A man cannot be a recluse. He must mingle in business and in society with those who deride the thoughts that have moved him and laugh at his seriousness. The impulse to something better soon exhausts itself in this cold atmosphere. He turns upon his own emotion with contempt. The words that came with Divine urgency, the man whose face was like that of an angel of God, are already subjects of uneasy jesting, will soon be thrust from memory. Over the interlude of superficial anxiety the mind goes back to its old haunts, its old plans and cravings. The religious teacher, while he is often in no way responsible for this sad recoil, should yet be ever on his guard against the risk of weakening the moral fibre, of leaving men as Christ never left them, flaccid and infirm. Again, there are cases that belong not to the history of a day, but to the history of a life. One may say, when he hears the strangely tempting voices that whisper in the twilight streets, "Am I a dog that from the holy traditions of my people and country I should fall away to these?" At first he flies the distasteful entreaty of the new nature cult, its fleshly art and song, its nefarious science. But the voices are persistent. It is the perfecting of man and woman to which they invite. It is not vice, but freedom, brightness, life and the courage to enjoy it they cunningly propose. There is not much of sweetness; the voices rise, they become stringent and overbearing. If the man would not be a fool, would not lose the good of the age into which he is born, he will be done with unnatural restraints, the bondage of purity. Thus entreaty passes into mastery. Here is truth; there also seems to be fact. Little by little the subtle argument is so advanced that the degradation once feared is no longer to be seen. It is progress now; it is full development, the assertion of power and privilege, that the soul anticipates. How fatal is the lure, how treacherous the vision, the man discovers when he has parted with that which even through deepest penitence he may never regain. People are denying, and it has to be reasserted, that there is a covenant which the soul of man has to keep with God. The thought is "archaic," and they would banish it. But it stands the great reality for man; and to keep that covenant in the grace of the Divine Spirit, in the love of the holiest, in the sacred manliness learned of Christ, is the only way to the broad daylight and the free summits of life. How can nature be a saviour? The suggestion is childish. Nature, as we all know, allows the hypocrite, the swindler, the traitor, as well as the brave, honest man, the pure, sweet woman. Is it said that man has a covenant with nature? On the temporal and prudential side of his activities that is true. He has relations with nature which must be apprehended, must be wisely realised. But the spiritual kingdom to which he belongs requires a wider outlook, loftier aims and hopes. The efforts demanded by nature have to be brought into harmony with those diviner aspirations. Man is bound to be prudent, brave, wise for eternity. He is warned of his own sin and urged to fly from it. This is the covenant with God which is wrought into the very constitution of his moral being. It would be a mistake to suppose that the scene at Bochim and the words which moved the assembly to tears had no lasting effect whatever. The history deals with outstanding facts of the national development. We hear chiefly of heroes and their deeds, but we shall not doubt that there were minds which kept the glow of truth and the consecration of penitential tears. The best lives of the people moved quietly on, apart from the commotions and strifes of the time. Rarely are the great political names even of a religious community those of holy and devout men, and, undoubtedly, this was true of Israel in the time of the judges. If we were to reckon only by those who appear conspicuously in these pages, we should have to wonder how the spiritual strain of thought and feeling survived. But it did survive; it gained in clearness and force. There were those in every tribe who kept alive the sacred traditions of Sinai and the desert, and Levites throughout the land did much to maintain among the people the worship of God. The great names of Abraham and Moses, the story of their faith and deeds, were the text of many an impressive lesson. So the light of piety did not go out; Jehovah was ever the Friend of Israel, even in its darkest day, for in the heart of the nation there never ceased to be a faithful remnant maintaining the fear and obedience of the Holy Name. Judges 2:7 And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that he did for Israel. AMONG THE ROCKS OF PAGANISM Jdg 2:7-23 "AND Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old. And 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." So, long after the age of Joshua, the historian tells again how Israel lamented its great chief, and he seems to feel even more than did the people of the time the pathos and significance of the event. How much a man of God has been to his generation those rarely know who stand beside his grave. Through faith in him faith in the Eternal has been sustained, many who have a certain piety of their own depending, more than they have been aware, upon their contact with him. A glow went from him which insensibly raised to something like religious warmth souls that apart from such an influence would have been of the world worldly. Joshua succeeded Moses as the mediator of the covenant. He was the living witness of all that had been done in the Exodus and at Sinai. So long as he continued with Israel, even in the feebleness of old age, appearing, and no more, a venerable figure in the council of the tribes, there was a representative of Divine order, one who testified to the promises of God and the duty of His people. The elders who outlived him were not men like himself, for they added nothing to faith; yet they preserved the idea at least of the theocracy, and when they passed away the period of Israel’s robust youth was at an end. It is this the historian perceives, and his review of the following age in the passage we are now to consider is darkened throughout by the cloudy and troubled atmosphere that overcame the fresh morning of faith. We know the great design that should have made Israel a singular and triumphant example to the nations of the world. The body politic was to have its unity in no elected government, in no hereditary ruler, but in the law and worship of its Divine King, sustained by the ministry of priest and prophet. Every tribe, every family, every soul was to be equally and directly subject to the Holy Will as expressed in the law and by the oracles of the sanctuary. The idea was that order should be maintained and the life of the tribes should go on under the pressure of the unseen Hand, never resisted, never shaken off, and full of bounty always to a trustful and obedient people. There might be times when the head men of tribes and families should have to come together in council, but it would be only to discover speedily and carry out with one accord the purpose of Jehovah. Rightly do we regard this as an inspired vision; it is at once simple and majestic. When a nation can so live and order its affairs it will have solved the great problem of government still exercising every civilised community. The Hebrews never realised the theocracy, and at the time of the settlement in Canaan they came far short of understanding it. "Israel had as yet scarcely found time to imbue its spirit deeply with the great truths which had been awakened into life in it, and thus to appropriate them as an invaluable possession: the vital principle of that religion and nationality by which it had so wondrously triumphed was still scarcely understood when it was led into manifold severe trials." Thus, while Hebrew history presents for the most part the aspect of an impetuous river broken and jarred by rocks and boulders, rarely settling into a calm expanse of mirror-like water, during the period of the judges the stream is seen almost arrested in the difficult country through which it has to force its way. It is divided by many a crag and often hidden for considerable stretches by overhanging cliffs. It plunges in cataracts and foams hotly in cauldrons of hollowed rock. Not till Samuel appears is there anything like success for this nation, which is of no account if not earnestly religious, and never is religious without a stern and capable chief, at once prophet and judge, a leader in worship and a restorer of order and unity among the tribes. The general survey or preface which we have before us gives but one account of the disasters that befell the Hebrew people-they "followed other gods, and provoked the Lord to anger." And the reason of this has to be considered. Taking a natural view of the circumstances, we might pronounce it almost impossible for the tribes to maintain their unity when they were fighting, each in its own district, against powerful enemies. It seems by no means wonderful that nature had its way, and that, weary of war, the people tended to seek rest in friendly intercourse and alliance with their neighbours. Were Judah and Simeon always to fight, though their own territory was secure? Was Ephraim to be the constant champion of the weaker tribes and never settle down to till the land? It was almost more than could be expected of men who had the common amount of selfishness. Occasionally, when all were threatened, there was a combination of the scattered clans, but for the most part each had to fight its own battle, and so the unity of life and faith was broken. Nor can we marvel at the neglect of worship and the falling away from Jehovah when we find so many who have been always surrounded by Christian influences drifting into a strange unconcern as to religious obligation and privilege. The writer of the Book of Judges, however, regards things from the standpoint of a high Divine ideal-the calling and duty of a God-made nation. Men are apt to frame excuses for themselves and each other; this historian makes no excuses. Where we might speak compassionately he speaks in sternness. He is bound to tell the story from God’s side, and from God’s side he tells it with puritan directness. In a sense it might go sorely against the grain to speak of his ancestors as sinning grievously and meriting condign punishment. But later generations needed to hear the truth, and he would utter it without evasion. It is surely Nathan, or some other prophet of Samuel’s line, who lays bare with such faithfulness the infidelity of Israel. He is writing for the men of his own time and also for men who are to come; he is writing for us, and his main theme is the stern justice of Jehovah’s government. God bestows privileges which men must value and use, or they shall suffer. When He declares Himself and gives His law, let the people see to it; let them encourage and constrain each other to obey. Disobedience brings unfailing penalty. This is the spirit of the passage we are considering. Israel is God’s possession, and is bound to be faithful. There is no Lord but Jehovah, and it is unpardonable for any Israelite to turn aside and worship a false God. The pressure of circumstances, often made much of, is not considered for a moment. The weakness of human nature, the temptations to which men and women are exposed, are not taken into account. Was there little faith, little spirituality? Every soul had its own responsibility for the decay, since to every Israelite. Jehovah had revealed His love and addressed His call. Inexorable therefore was the demand for obedience. Religion is stern because reasonable, not an impossible service as easy human nature would fain prove it. If men disbelieve they incur doom, and it must fall upon them. Joshua and his generation having been gathered unto their fathers, "there arose another generation which knew not the Lord, nor yet the work which He had wrought for Israel. And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baalim." How common is the fall traced in these brief, stern words, the wasting of a sacred testimony that seemed to be deeply graven upon the heart of a race! The fathers felt and knew; the sons have only traditional knowledge and it never takes hold of them. The link of faith between one generation and another is not strongly forged; the most convincing proofs of God are not recounted. Here is a man who has learned his own weakness, who has drained a bitter cup of discipline-how can he better serve his sons than by telling them the story of his own mistakes and sins, his own suffering and repentance? Here is one who in dark and trying times has found solace and strength and has been lifted out of horror and despair by the merciful hand of God-how can he do a father’s part without telling his children of his defeats and deliverance, the extremity to which he was reduced and the restoring grace of Christ? But men hide their weaknesses, and are ashamed to confess that they ever passed through the Valley of Humiliation. They leave their own children unwarned to fall into the sloughs in which themselves were well nigh swallowed up. Even when they have erected some Ebenezer, some monument of Divine succour, they often fail to bring their children to the spot, and speak to them there with fervent recollection of the goodness of the Lord. Was Solomon when a boy led by David to the town of Gath, and told by him the story of his cowardly fear, and how he fled from the face of Saul to seek refuge among Philistines? Was Absalom in his youth ever taken to the plains of Bethlehem and shown where his father fed the flocks, a poor shepherd lad, when the prophet sent for him to be anointed the coming King of Israel? Had these young princes learned in frank conversation with their father all he had to tell of temptation and transgression, of danger and redemption, perhaps the one would never have gone astray in his pride nor t