target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_042d912b-fa2b-5cb7-9725-6f07c8bbf8cf">130. And emphasizing what the previous generation had seen, the narrator of Judges also adds “great” to describe the work of Yahweh (2:7; the adjective is missing in Josh 24:28). There are, in addition, a few stylistic alterations of conjunctions, a minor difference in the name of Joshua’s burial place, etc., between the Joshua and Judges accounts.
131. Webb, Judges, 138.
132. The mention of Joshua’s 110 years (2:8) also subtly underscores the lengthy service of Yahweh that this leader of an earlier generation performed, making the rapid failure of the following generation all the more striking and painful.
133. Block, Judges, Ruth, 118.
134. Ibid.
135. Ibid., 122–23.
136. Modified from Gillmayr-Bucher, “Framework and Discourse,” 691–93; and Greenspahn, “The Theology of the Framework of Judges,” 388. Yahweh “selling” his people into the hands of their enemies also finds mention in 11:21; 15:12, 18. And the “giving” of enemies into Israel’s “hands” is also mentioned in an oracle (1:2), prophetic speeches (4:3, 14), a divine utterance (7:7), a dream sequence (7:14, 15), altercations (8:3, 7), a recital of history (11:21), a vow (11:30), and in a plea (15:18). The presence of the Spirit of God, as we shall see again, is not an indicator of Yahweh’s approval of the subsequent actions of the judge so imbued; it merely reminds the readers that God is acting, whether the judge knew it or not. One also must remember that, outside of Othniel’s story—he was the model judge—the rest of the stories show deviations from this paradigm, the shifts and alterations themselves being clues to the theologies of the individual pericopes.
137. In addition, Chisholm notes the sequence of weqatal forms in 2:18 (“[Yahweh] raised,” “[Yahweh] was with . . . ,” where one might have expected wayyiqtol forms), and a customary imperfect followed by a weqatal in 2:19 (“they returned and acted corruptly”)—all evidences of the narrator describing a pattern or a custom (Judges and Ruth, 149 n.5).
138. Ibid., 153. Amos 1–2 has, in a similar fashion, seven judgment oracles against the nations and Judah, followed by an eighth specifically against Israel.
139. We find out in 2:19 that these depravities were the result of “stubbornness”—deliberate and rebellious acts of evil. The note in 2:17 about Israel neglecting the “commandments of Yahweh” is particularly stinging, in light of the efforts of Joshua in the previous generation to instill in his people the importance of abiding by the word of God (Josh 1:7–8; 23:6–8, 14–16; 24:26–27). The succeeding generation, then, had not only forgotten (“not known”) Yahweh and his deeds (Jdg 2:10), they had forgotten his words, too!
140. “Baals” in 2:11 is a generic term indicating “all false divinities, powers, or numina, of either sex.” “Baal and the Ashtaroth” in 2:13 are more specific, indicating the male and female components of these false gods (Sasson, Judges 1–12, 190). In the OT, “Baal” is often in the plural and with the article (“the Baals,” 2:11) or with a localizing suffix (Baal-gad, Josh 11:17; Baal-hazor, 2 Sam 13:23; etc.; also see Baal-berith, Jdg 8:33; 9:4). Therefore, “Baal” is essentially a common noun, even when singular where it is likely a shorthand for Baal-X (where X = a particular place). On the other hand, “Yahweh” is always used as a personal name, and never with the article, or with a place-suffix. “In other words, according to the biblical writers the Canaanites, in contrast to Israel, worshiped many different ‘Baals’”—a pluralism of deities (Webb, Judges, 142). The “Astharoths” (singular “Ashtoreth,” a distortion of Astarte) were consorts and female counterparts of the Baals, often associated with sacred prostitution (2 Kgs 23:7). The gendering of these deities indicated their importance to fertility, particularly of land and livestock (though Baal was primarily a storm god).
141. Ibid., 143.
142. Also see 2:19 for the Israelites’ “going after,” “serving,” and “worshiping.”
143. Gillmayr-Bucher, “Framework and Discourse,” 691.
144. This was not a surprise for the Israelites, for the text makes it clear that this return of evil for evil (tit for tat) was “as Yahweh had spoken and as Yahweh had sworn to them”—they had been warned (2:15; see Deut 6:14–15; 7:4; 28:15–37; 31:16–21).
145. The mention of “Philistines” in 3:3, a puzzling addition, for these were one of several of Sea Peoples who came from Anatolia and the Mediterranean in the twelfth to eleventh centuries. and, according to 1:17–18, 34–36, in the days of Judges, Canaanites were occupying those cities that would only later be part of Philistine territory; perhaps the scene of 3:1–6 is set at a time later than 1:1–36.
146. Exum, “The Centre Cannot Hold,” 412.
147. See Lam 2:18 and Isa 19:20 (repentance is seen only in 19:22). “Crying” is often paralleled with “wailing” (Isa 14:31; 65:14; Jer 25:34; etc.), and it also used in connection with the Israelites’ murmuring and complaining in Exod 15:25; 17:4; Num 11:2.
148. Greenspahn, “The Theology of the Framework of Judges,” 392 (citing Hasel, “q[;z", zā‘aq,” 4:115).
149. The metaphor of harlotry, is appropriate here: the relationship between Yahweh and Israel is frequently described in terms relating to marriage (Exod 34:15–16; Lev 17:7; 20:5–6; Deut 31:16; Pss 73:27; 106:39; Ezek 6:9). Unlike adultery, harlotry implied “habitual illicit behavior,” for ill-gotten gains, and with a multiplicity of partners. One must also consider the fact that the Canaanite deities were “lusty young fertility gods,” and that their cultic system often had erotic rituals and cultic prostitution. In a book whose narrative characters themselves frequently consort with prostitutes (Jdg 11:1; 16:1; 19:2) this metaphor is even more apt. See Younger, Judges, Ruth, 91n20; also Block, Judges, Ruth, 129; Butler, Judges, 47.
150. The phrase “turning aside quickly” occurs elsewhere in the OT only in Exod 32:8 and Deut 9:12, 16, in the context of apostasy. There is also a subtle change in the particles following the verb “to serve,” from Jdg 2:11b (B, above) to 2:13a (B'): ta db[ (‘bd ’t, “service of”) becomes l db[ (‘bd l, “service to). Sasson observes that, judging from 1 Sam 4:9, the latter may suggest that the Israelites had become victims of their idolatry, in bondage to false deities—a worsening of their already sorry state (Judges 1–12, 190). The very posture they adopt, “bowing themselves down [or ‘giving service’] to them”
