Judges 2King James Version
An angel of the Lord comes from Gilgal to Bochim and tells the people they have broken the covenant. The people weep. Then Joshua's generation dies, and a new generation rises up that did not know the Lord. The pattern of the rest of the book begins: the people sin, the Lord hands them over to enemies, they cry out, a judge delivers them, and the land has rest. Then the cycle repeats.
An angel confronts Israel at Bochim, saying God will not drive out the remaining nations because Israel broke covenant. The people weep, but nothing changes. Joshua dies. A new generation rises that does not know God or what he did. The cycle is named plainly: apostasy, oppression, crying out, deliverance, then apostasy again. God's anger burns, yet he raises judges to save them.
The book's entire architecture is stated here: Israel forgets, suffers, cries, is rescued, and forgets again, a wheel that cannot stop itself.
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." The most dangerous gap in any faith is between generations who remember and generations who inherit.
Sometime after 1375 BC, the generation that crossed the Jordan under Joshua is dead. Their children grew up in a land already partially conquered, surrounded by Canaanite neighbors, intermarrying, adopting local gods. The angel's speech at Bochim reads like a funeral announcement for a covenant. The weeping is real. The turning is not.
The angel of the LORD, who delivers the verdict at Bochim; Joshua, who is buried at Timnath-heres; the unnamed new generation who know nothing of Egypt or the wilderness.
Chapter 2 is the lens through which all of Judges must be read. Without it, the book looks like scattered hero stories. With it, every judge's rise and fall is part of a diagnosed spiritual disease with a predictable progression. The grief at Bochim is genuine but shallow, a pattern as recognizable as the cycle it inaugurates.
For when you have heard the stories your whole life and they still feel like someone else's history. The chapter does not rage at the new generation. It simply names the loss.
1And 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.
2And 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?
3Wherefore 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.
4And 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.
5And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD.
6And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land.
7And 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.
8And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old.
9And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash.
10And 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.
11And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim:
12And 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.
13And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.
14And 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.
15Whithersoever 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.
16Nevertheless the LORD raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.
17And 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.
18And 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.
19And 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.
20And 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;
21I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died:
22That 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.
23Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.