Disobedience and Consequences in Judges 1 and 2

In my last post I wrote about Israel’s cyclical disobedience in the Pentateuch and God’s prophesy of how this will continue for the duration of the OT.  This pattern continues through Joshua and into the beginning of Judges when the Hebrew’s disobey God’s commands as they enter the Promised Land.  God essentially commanded each of the Hebrew tribes to enter into the Promised Land and to wipe out all of the pagan people-groups who dwelled therein.  We see in Judges chapter 1 that the houses of Judah, Simeon, and Joseph were all obedient to this command, and all were able to take the respective cities that they sacked.  But Manasseh, the Benjaminites, Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali, and the remainder of the tribes were disobedient and did not drive out the Canaanites from their land, but instead dwelled alongside them.

As one would imagine, Yahweh was not particularly pleased to see the Hebrews disobeying His command and not trusting His power to drive out the Canaanites.  This leads us to Judges 2, in which the angel of the Lord expresses God’s anger over the situation, saying:

“I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land that I had promised to your ancestors.  I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you.  For your part, do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land; tear down their altars.’  But you have not obeyed my command.  See what you have done!  So now I say, I will not drive them out before you; but they shall become adversaries to you, and their god shall be a snare to you.” Judges 2:1b-3 (NRSV)

To my post-modern ear it initially sounds like Yahweh is being a tad unreasonable.  But the point of this passage is that Yahweh will not resign Himself to share the hearts of His people with any other God other than Himself.  And of course, the Hebrews living among the Canaanites will inevitably lead to not only the persecution of the Hebrews, but also their turning away from God to pagan gods, as was prophesied in Deuteronomy 31.  So, as we see the Lord do in later passages, He says that He will not drive out the Canaanites, but instead He will allow them to continue to live among the Hebrews, which will eventually lead to all of the problems that occur in the duration of Judges.

The cyclical pattern of worshipping other gods, being put under the subjugation of another people, and crying out to God who delivers them in the entirety of Judges results because the Israelites were not obedient to God’s command upon entering the Promised Land.