‘ And they forsook Yahweh, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people who were round about them, and bowed themselves down to them. And they provoked Yahweh to anger.'
They ignored two things, God's covenant with Abraham which alone gave them the right to inherit the land, and His great deliverance whereby He delivered them from Egypt by His mighty power.
Firstly they were ignoring the covenant, and the fact that their presence in the land was due to God Who had made unbreakable promises to their fathers. For they looked to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as their fathers even though they were largely not related to them by blood. Many were descended from servants and followers of Abraham, even more were of the mixed multitude that came out of Egypt with Moses (Exodus 12:38), but all had taken ‘the fathers' as their own, and now looked to them as their forefathers. And that was why they could inherit the land.
But now they were forsaking the One Who had made it all possible, the One Who in order to bring them to this land had delivered them with great power from the power and gods of Egypt, even from Pharaoh himself. The One Who had made His great covenant with them at Sinai. What ingratitude, and how foolish. And that was why they would need to learn their lesson. That there was only One Who was able to deliver.
“And followed other gods, of the gods of the people who were round about them, and bowed themselves down to them. And they provoked Yahweh to anger.” There were many such gods. Thus there were the gods of the Canaanites, and the Amorites, of the Phoenicians and the Hittites, of the Jebusites and the Hivites, who were round about them because they had not driven the peoples out from the places where it was possible.
God's purpose was that they remain totally separate from the Canaanites. But they had ignored Him. And thus the purity of their relationship with Yahweh was being destroyed, and they were bowing down to idols, even while they sought to manipulate them. How great was the contrast between Yahweh the invisible, the omnipotent, the omniscient, and these toys of men. The One powerful to act, the other so-called gods trapped in the cycle of nature, as much doomed to sin and the vagaries of nature as men were themselves.
“And they provoked Yahweh to anger.” Yahweh was angry because of their ingratitude, because of their folly and blindness, because of their disobedience, and because of what they were losing by their foolishness. And because they had taken their eyes off Him and had forgotten the covenant. They were trading the living God, the One Who could act, for those who were powerless to achieve anything, for idols made of clay, wood and stone. And they did not realise it. For they maintained the cult at the central sanctuary and thought that that must be sufficient. Just as many of us today trade the living God for prosperity, and success, and fame, and luxuries, making men our gods because of their influence or power or music, or even having a transcendental relationship with our pets, or with nature, because we must worship something, and treat God as peripheral to our lives and worship Him on the sidelines.
But note the other side. God was ‘provoked to anger'. The One Who could act, would act. And He would bring on them the circumstances that would result in suffering and humiliation, and would make them rethink and turn back to Him. That is the danger of serving the living God, he takes notice of what we do and how we behave. ‘Anger' is an anthropomorphism reflecting human reaction. But for God, anger was a reaction to what was harmful, evil and debasing for those Who were His by covenant. It spoke of His antipathy to, and hatred of, sin. And He was concerned for what they were losing, and causing others to lose, not for what He was losing. But it included judgment, for by their behaviour they were preventing others, especially their children, from enjoying their full covenant relationship with God.