Judges 2:6 to Judges 3:6. The Deuteronomist's Introduction to the Book of Judges proper (Judges 3:5 to Judges 16:31). In the view of this interpreter of sacred history, the whole era of the Judges falls into longer or shorter times of national prosperity, in which Yahweh protects and blesses His faithful people, alternating with times of national calamity, in which He withdraws His favour and blessing from apostates. On the beneficent strength of the Judge the pillars of state rest secure for a whole generation, and his decease is like the removal of the key-stone of an arch. The writer's general principle his philosophy of history is based on sound prophetic teaching, but his application of it to the period of the Judges involves a tour de force, for the traditions deal for the most part not with national but with local heroes whose exploits affect, in the first instance, only their own tribe or group of tribes.
Judges 3:1-6. Yahweh's Purpose in Sparing the Nations round about Israel. The most ancient source (J) simply states that the individual tribes could not overcome some of their enemies (Judges 1:19, etc.). But this raised the question, Why did not Yahweh give them power, as He might have done, to subdue even those who fought in iron chariots? He must have had reasons for His determination to spare the nations. They are stated here: He wished to prove His people (Judges 3:1; Judges 3:4); and He thought it necessary or expedient, to teach them the art of war.
Judges 3:2. This sentence is scarcely grammatical: after might know we expect an object, but a new clause, to teach them war, is introduced. Perhaps we should read, with the LXX, solely for the sake of the successive generations of the Israelites, to teach them war.
Judges 3:3. The five lords of the Philistines were the chiefs of their five principal cities (1 Samuel 6:17). The word for lord (seren) is almost the only native Philistine word which has come down to us. Zidonians is a general term for Phœ nicians. For Hivites we should probably read Hittites (cf. Judges 1:26), to whom the Lebanon region belonged in those days. Instead of Hermon the Heb. has the mount of (the town of) Baal-Hermon a very unlikely phrase. Probably mount should be omitted. The town is commonly identified with Banias, at the source of the Jordan. Hamath (2 Kings 14:25 *, Isaiah 10:9 *, Amos 6:2 *) is Hama on the Orontes. Its entering in, or Gateway which was afterwards known as Cœ le-Syria, and is now called el-Bika was often mentioned as the ideal northern boundary of Israel (Amos 6:14, etc.).
Judges 3:6. Intermarriage with alien races led to a tolerance of their religion (cf. 1 Kings 11:1 f.). The practice was, therefore, condemned all through the history of Israel, and became the subject of legislation (see Ezra 9 f.), though such marriages as that of Boaz and Ruth proved that the law might be more honoured in the breach than the observance.