Judges. Abraham Kuruvilla

As seen above, Joshua 24:31 is shifted forwards in the Judges report (making it Jdg 2:7), to which 2:10 is added (that has no parallel in Joshua 24).127 This distinguishes the generation before (2:7) the death of Joshua (2:8–9)128 from the generation after (2:10). Another change worthy of note: Josh 24:31 uses the verb “know” to describe the generation before Joshua’s death—they knew the deeds of Yahweh.129 Judges 2:7 changes that to “see”—this earlier generation did not just know the “great deeds of Yahweh,” they had actually seen them!130 Judges 2:6 also has “the sons of Israel went each to his inheritance to possess the land” (Josh 24:28 simply has “each to his inheritance”). These additions in Jdg 2:6 underscore the responsibility of the Israelites: they had to go and possess the land—that was the intent of Joshua’s dismissal and, indeed, the goal of the entire conquest.

Unfortunately, as was detailed in Pericope 1, the post-Joshua generation went but did not possess the land for, as Jdg 2:10 declares, they did not “know Yahweh, or the deeds which he had done.” This is the most significant change from Josh 24:28–31—the addition of the notice in Jdg 2:10 regarding the generation after Joshua’s death and their ignorance of Yahweh and his work. And what they did in their abysmal ignorance—and kept on doing—is the burden of 2:11—3:6, and indeed, of the rest of the book of Judges. Strikingly, in “all” the days of Joshua, and in “all” the days of the elders of his day (2:7), “all” that generation (2:10) had seen “all” the great work of Yahweh on behalf of Israel (2:7). But now there was a new generation indifferent to Yahweh and his deeds (2:10). What a contrast! Since “knowing” in Hebrew has deeper connotations than simply cognition, and includes covenantal relationships and loyalty thereto (for e.g., Gen 18:19, between God and man; Gen 4:1 [with Mal 2:13–16], between man and wife), “‘not knowing’ involves more than lacking information; it is a refusal to accept the obligations entailed in a [covenant] relationship.”131 Thus, Jdg 2:6–10 is not primarily about Joshua; it is about the new, post-Joshua generation of people and their deplorable failure to follow Yahweh as their predecessors had done.132 Had it been otherwise, had they followed Yahweh wholeheartedly, “Israelite history would have taken a completely different course, the events described in the rest of the book would never have happened, and the Book of Judges would never [have] been written.”133

The only named human in this pericope (excluding the Othniel account, 3:7–11) is Joshua, the exemplar, “the servant of Yahweh” (2:8; also in Josh 24:29), a term also used of Moses (Exod 14:31; Num 12:8; Deut 34:5; Josh 1:1; etc.). In contrast to him are the Israelites, “who did not know Yahweh or the deeds which He had done” (Jdg 2:10), and who “played harlot after other gods and bowed down to them” (2:17), corrupt and stubborn (2:19). The other actant here is, of course, divine: Yahweh. This one is in turn angry (2:14), moved to pity (2:18), and angry again (2:20), with the evil engagements of his people. This cycle of emotions parallels the cycle of wickedness of the Israelites: doing evil and following other gods (2:11–13), groaning about their punitive afflictions (2:18), returning again to evil and to other gods once their oppression has been alleviated (2:19). The first clues of apostasy were seen in Pericope 1, but it is highlighted in 2:11—3:6, so that the bulk of Pericope 2 declares “the author’s fundamental thesis: the nation of Israel has been thoroughly Canaanized; this accounts for and is fundamental to the darkness demonstrated in the rest of the book.”134

And the result? Yahweh had once promised to give Canaan “into the hands” of the Israelites (Josh 6:2; 10:8; 11:6); he had once begun to give the land “into the hands” of the Judah-Simeon alliance (Jdg 1:4). But alas, that was only a partial success (see Pericope 1: Jdg 1:1—2:5). Now we are told in 2:14 that Israel was given/sold “into the hands” of their enemies by Yahweh himself, the result of their unfaithfulness to him (2:11–13). It was no longer a coexistence of Israelites with Canaanites, the latter—divinely ordained enemies—were oppressing the former. All because of a “failure of the community to keep alive its memory of Yahweh’s gracious saving acts. . . . All that follows in the book is a consequence of Israel’s loss of memory” (2:10) and a lack of firsthand experience of God.135

      2.1.2 Forsaking the true God and following other idols have disastrous consequences.

Judges 2:11–19 forms the paradigmatic layout of what will be discovered in each of the six major judge accounts.136

That 2:11–19 describes a paradigm or a pattern is clear: “everywhere they went” (2:15), “when[ever] Yahweh raised” (2:18; the temporal sense of yki, ki), and “when[ever] it came about that the judge died” (2:19; the temporal sense of b, b).137 The structure of 2:11–14a, the opening indictment of the Israelites, is illuminating:

Notice the interweaving of the names of deities that literarily demonstrates the Israelites’ syncretism: “Yahweh” in A, C, D, C', and A'; and “Baal(s)”/“gods”/“Ashtaroth” in B, D, B'. “Israel” is symmetrically found in A and A'. Chisholm observes that the eight wayyiqtol verbs in 2:11–13 that depict Israel’s evildoing forms a pattern: one (2:11a, summary) and seven (2:11b–13, details), suggesting a comprehensive and thoroughgoing apostasy.138 So the central element, D (2:12b), though stunning, is not surprising. It was not simply a memory lapse that the Israelites suffered, in forgetting Yahweh and his great deeds (2:10); neither was it merely an inadvertent straying from the straight and narrow. Rather, it

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