CRITICAL NOTES.—
Judges 2:6. And when Joshua had let the people go.] The visit and solemn message of the angel had led to tears. The temporary repentance was so general that the place of the visit was named after the weeping which it had produced. But tears for sin are of small use so long as the sin itself is not put away. Israel remained in league with the tributary Canaanites in spite of the tears. That being so, the sin went on to work out its inevitable calamities and to bring tears which were more abiding. These verses, from Joshua 24:28-31, are therefore quoted to contrast the fidelity of Israel under Joshua with the infidelity of Israel after the death of Joshua, and of his contemporary elders, who had seen the great works of Jehovah. The quotation, therefore, is not only appropriate; it is inserted as giving emphasis to Joshua’s influence in the past, as laying an emphasis on God’s merciful keeping of His covenant while Israel remained faithful, and thus as giving a fearful emphasis to the facts which this history of the Judges records to show that the beginning of sin is the beginning of sorrows, and that the continuation of sin is their inevitable perpetuation and aggravation also.
Judges 2:7. All the days of the elders.] “No exact term of years is assigned to ‘the days of the elders,’ which must, therefore, remain uncertain. The length of Joshua’s government is also uncertain. If, however, we assume Joshua to have been about the same age as his companion Caleb, as is probable, he would have been just eighty at the entrance into Canaan, and therefore thirty years would bring us to the close of his life. These elders would be all that were old enough to take part in the wars of Canaan, according to Judges 3:1-2; and therefore, reckoning from the age of twenty to seventy, we cannot be far wrong in assigning a period of about fifty years from the entrance into Canaan to the death of the elders, or twenty years after the death of Joshua, supposing his government to have lasted thirty years.” [Speaker’s Commentary.]
Judges 2:9. Timnath heres.] Called in Joshua 19:50; Joshua 24:30, Timnath-serah. Cf. Preacher’s Commentary, p. 286. The difference of the names in the original is simply that of a transposition of the letters.
Judges 2:10. Which knew not the Lord.] That is, they knew Him not as their fathers did, who had seen so many of Jehovah’s mighty works. It is not even meant that they were mentally strangers to the history of God’s goodness under Joshua; they knew not God in their hearts. They had no love to Him. The word יָדַע is similarly used, in Exodus 1:8, of the king who “knew not Joseph.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Judges 2:6-10
REWRITTEN HISTORY
Nearly all of this paragraph is repeated from Joshua 24:28-31. The language here is almost identical with that in the earlier account, but the verses are not repeated in the same order, Judges 2:7 being placed here before the account of Joshua’s death and burial. This is evidently done to throw stress on the defection of the Israelites, this being the particular subject on which the author of the Book of Judges is here dwelling. In the account in Joshua, Joshua’s death and burial form the principal subject of the four verses common to both books. What is here given as Judges 2:7, is given there as a subordinate and incidental remark. In this chapter, Judges 2:7 takes precedence of the mention of Joshua’s death and burial, because the degeneration of the Israelites since the death of Joshua has here become the main theme of discourse. This alone should be sufficient to prevent us from the mistake of the Speaker’s Commentary, in which the passages from the two books are copied out and placed side by side, with the idea of showing that the verses in Judges are merely a confused and aimless repetition of the earlier record. It is true that we have here a piece of rewritten history, but the rewritten history is not therefore without an object. The object of the recapitulation is evident. As he writes of the rebuke by the angel at Bochim, the author is reminded that no such remonstrance was ever needed in the days of Joshua, nor in the days of the elders who had seen the great works which the Lord wrought by Joshua. The history under the judges would form a dark contrast to the history under Joshua. In the latter, God’s mighty works have been invariably for Israel; in this history, which the author was now writing, God would often have to be shown as fighting against Israel. Under these circumstances, what could be more natural than that he should restate the record at the close of the Book of Joshua? The more exactly he copied the identical words there, the more clearly would it serve to show his purpose here: it would show why God had turned against the people whom He had aforetime so marvellously helped. In view of this, and of other features in the paragraph, the following points may be noticed:—
I. The value of history. It is God’s monitor. It is in harmony with His own words. It shows us the ground for His rebukes. It explains His altered bearing towards nations and families and individuals. History, rightly read, would explain many of our reverses. History would interpret for us many of the Divine judgments. In addition to all this, history is full of incitements to a better and more spiritual life. It calls aloud to the backslider to return. It bids the prodigal son leave the swine and their coarse food and come home again to his father. It tells the penitent woman of One who is ready to forgive. It warns the Pharisee of all ages that the man of broad phylacteries and pompous prayers,—stand to the front in the Temple as he may,—is ever farther from heaven than the humble soul that cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” It says to every idolater of all times and kinds, “All the gods of the nations are idols, but Jehovah made the heavens.” History is the great rock of a mighty past, from which these and many similar truths are echoed on to us in modulations incessantly varied by many differing voices, which give their peculiar tone and cadence to each particular truth they illustrate and enforce.
As to the impulse which may come to us from history, Emerson says, with his usual deep insight: “There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great repositories of Nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours.” Again: “All that is said of the wise man by stoic or oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his unattained but attainable self. All literature writes the character of the wise man. Books, monuments, pictures, conversation, are portraits in which he finds the lineaments he is forming. The silent and the eloquent praise him, and accost him, and he is stimulated whenever he moves as by personal allusions.… The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter oracles, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.” If any man would know the deep doctrine which is written in history that is most exalted, he must do and be the history over again. History will be to us what we are to it.
II. The peculiar value of the history of God’s more faithful servants. History, to the wise man, has both a negative pole and a positive. If our hearts are right before God, when we read of Jeroboam and Ahab and Manasseh and Judas Iscariot, history will repel us in another direction; but when we read of Moses and Joshua, Isaiah and John, the history will be drawn to us and we to it. In the measure in which our hearts are right, we shall take up the hidden power in the history, and shall make it our own. The holy yearnings and beliefs and joys of the godly dead will live again in us. Then, with their spirit taken up into our own spirit, their prayers and songs and holy deeds with our own individualism of life and opportunity, we shall reproduce also. Thus would God have us feel of each of His holier servants, “He, being dead, yet speaketh,”—speaketh in my own heart, and in my own life. Sir John Lubbock tells us that “savages have a great dread of having their portraits taken. The better the likeness, the worse they think it for the sitter; so much life could not be put into the copy except at the expense of the original.” The holy dead have no such feelings of reservation. Paul said to his Corinthian brethren, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” He who makes a vivid picture of godly history in his own mind, takes so much new life to himself from those who have gone before him as the actors of that history.
III. The advantage which comes from specially reviewing such history. There are particular places in our own experience where we all have need to go back and contemplate some particular section of the past. The chemist’s stores may not have medicine for all diseases; yet do the stores of history contain some warning against all our follies, some stimulant for all our weaknesses, some corrective for all our sicknesses. Just as the Word of God has some balm for each wound of sin, so have the lives of godly men some help which they can afford us in our moments of spiritual necessity. But the lives must be studied. Unread libraries benefit no one but the book-makers and the bookkeepers. Idle men should read of Paul; men who fear hardships should read of Livingstone; those who lack consecration should study the life of the self-surrendered Brainerd; the stern and harsh might sit with advantage at the feet of M’Cheyne. All men, everywhere and always, should sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn of Him. He is the bread of life in all life’s hunger, and the true physician in all life’s sicknesses. The wealth which we might each find in the lives of godly men is priceless, but it is all stored up again in the single life of Jesus Christ. In Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” The Holy Spirit shows us here how we are to rebuke ourselves in sin, and encourage ourselves to holiness by lives like that of Joshua; the same Spirit waits to bring to our remembrance whatsoever has been said to us by the greater JOSHUA. “He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you,” is the Lord’s unfailing promise to every one who seeks to be a disciple indeed.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
I. THE INHERITANCE WHICH COMES TO A FAITHFUL LIFE.—Judges 2:6
Joshua was faithful; he possessed Timnath-serah. The two and a half tribes were found faithful; they were sent with words of encouragement to their inheritance on the other side Jordan. Under Joshua’s wise lead and good example all Israel was found faithful, and the people “went every man into his inheritance to possess the land.” There is no such thing as missing the rewards of true fidelity, even in this life. There is a spiritual possession for every heart that is true to God, true to men, and true to itself; and here, the acreage and fertility of the estate are always according to faithfulness.
“If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.” [Emerson.]
II. THE INFLUENCE EXERTED BY A FAITHFUL LIFE.—Judges 2:7
The miraculous help which God gave to Joshua had a great influence. Joshua must have been led by it closer than ever to the Lord who gave him such great and repeated victories. “The great works of the Lord” influenced also the elders who had likewise seen them. But holy lives of leading men seem quite as influential as the miracles of Jehovah. The people who had not seen the miracles, served the Lord all the time they were led by the elders who had seen them. Every holy life is a miracle. The holy life of any man in a high position is as a miracle on a hill-top; the wonderful work of grace is well within the gaze of the surrounding and less-elevated multitude.
He who serves God in a lowly position can never serve Him in vain; he who occupies a high position is doubly responsible to walk worthily.
One man can lead many around him to serve the Lord, and they may be able to persuade many more.
“People seldom improve when they have no other model to copy but themselves.” [Goldsmith.]
“Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is infected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation. [Cicero.]
“Pious Joseph, by living in the court of Pharaoh, had learned to swear by the life of Pharaoh. A high priest’s hall instructed Peter how to disclaim his suffering Master. Fresh waters lose their sweetness by gliding into the salt sea. Those who sail among the rocks are in danger of splitting their ships.” [Secker.]
“Sometimes the sun seems to hang for a half hour in the horizon only just to show how glorious it can be. The day is done; the fervour of the shining is over, and the sun hangs golden—nay redder than gold—in the west, making everything look unspeakably beautiful with the rich effulgence which it sheds on every side. So God seems to let some people, when their duty in this world is done, hang in the west, that men may look on them and see how beautiful they are. There are some hanging in the west now.” [Beecher.] So did Joshua “hang in the west,” after his more active course was accomplished, a beautiful and attractive sight to all Israel.
III. THE HONOUR WHICH MEN RENDER TO A FAITHFUL LIFE.—Judges 2:8-9
“And they buried him in the border of his inheritance.” The words read as though well-nigh all Israel might have gathered to do honour to the memory of their faithful leader.
Those who have served the Lord most worthily must, nevertheless, be gathered to their fathers. Those who live to God do not cease to live when they die. Living above, with God, their memory is still cherished by their fellow-men below. In this twofold life Joshua still survives.
Many good men are hardly known till they have passed away. Most nations and families know their worthy dead far better than they knew them when living. Half the monuments of our public squares would never have been accorded but for the light which death shed forth upon the lives which they commemorate. He who is not known yet, if he is worthy to be known, will be known presently.
IV. THE REBUKE WHICH IS GIVEN BY A FAITHFUL LIFE.—Judges 2:10.
“One generation goes and another comes, but the Word of God abides for ever. It holds good for fathers and children; it judges ancestors and descendants. The new Israel had not beheld the deeds of Joshua and Caleb; but the God in whose spirit they were accomplished still lived.” [Cassel.]
In some parts of England it is still common to walk in procession round the boundaries of the parish. By this means, the elder inhabitants acquaint the younger with the landmarks of their native place. It is needful that Christian fathers and mothers should often instruct their children in those moral and spiritual limits beyond which they dare not go. But for prayerful and watchful care in this there will arise another generation after them which know not the Lord.
NOTE.—Further homiletical outlines on these verses will be found in the Preacher’s Commentary on the corresponding passage in Joshua 24:28-31, of the Book of Joshua.