Let me comment on three things here in Judges 2: first, the Lord’s threat in verse 3; second, the problem of the second generation; finally, the pattern of Israel’s national life throughout Judges.
The first thing that struck me in this chapter was the Lord’s threat that He would no longer drive out the nations before Israel. For a God who had been so terribly concerned to drive those nations out for the sake of safeguarding His promise, it seems odd that He would wash His hands of the whole business. On the other hand, it’s not like the Lord is abandoning His promise or His people. He is forcing them to grow up. They have the safety and the beginning that they need to survive. Now they have to experience for themselves the results of their bad behavior.
I’ve often thought that parenthood is one of the best experiences for understanding the heart of the Lord, and here again I think that’s the case. I find a parent of teens and pre-teens that we have crossed a line somewhere and that it is no longer responsible for me to cater to my children’s every whim and to save them from every mistake. If I were to do those things, I’d simply be enabling them in an irresponsible lifestyle in which they expect that life has no real consequences. So, I’m slowly learning to let them suffer the discomfort of cleaning up their own mistakes. I think that’s what the Lord is doing in Judges 2 to Israel: I think that’s what the Lord is sometimes up to in our lives.
That brings us to the second thing I noted in today’s reading: the problem of the second generation. Joshua and all his generation died, and the next generation did not remember the Lord’s mighty deeds. It’s interesting. The church has always been multi-generational, and one of the deep Biblical concerns of the church is passing on the faith to the next generation. On the other hand, there is a reality—in the Scriptures and in church history—that each generation must, in some ways, learn to trust the Lord for themselves.
I think a classic case of this was in early American history with the Puritans. The Puritans, you’ll recall, were true believers. They came to New England, and they were going to establish a “city on a hill,” “the kingdom of God here on earth.” (Maybe I’ll write some other time about how misguided that venture was. For the record, Lutherans would have some rather sharp things to say about the Puritan understanding of the kingdom and of the Gospel.) Anyhow, the Puritans were true believers; they were here because they had consciously chosen to leave home and hearth. Their children had not. When you have based your whole life—church and society—on everyone being equally committed to your take on the faith, and you discover that your children aren’t, well, it leads to heartburn. (The historical phenomenon is called the “Half-Way Covenant;” you can investigate it a little at this link: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1166.html.)
Considering how much most of us want our children to embrace our values and our faith, and considering how much heartburn many of us experience when our children don’t embrace those things, I’d say this is an aspect of Christian experience that calls for prayer and creativity.
Let me comment on my third thing briefly. At the end of Judges 2, there’s a pattern that we’ll see repeated throughout the main part of Judges. It’s introduced here in a fuller form, but it forms a sort of refrain through chapters 3-16. 1) Israel whores after idols. 2) The Lord sends foreign invaders to oppress them. 3) Israel cries to the Lord for relief. 4) The Lord raises up a judge to dispel the threat. The Lord may be forcing them to grow up, but He never abandons them!
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