I also will not henceforth drive out— We have in these verses the great reason why the Lord did not wholly extirpate the people of Canaan. They were suffered to remain, in punishment of his people's infidelity and disobedience, and to prove and exercise their faith in future.
REFLECTIONS.—We have here, 50: A recapitulation of what was mentioned before concerning the death and burial of Joshua, and the piety which was preserved in Israel during his life and the lives of the elders who survived him, who had seen God's almighty works. Note; The life and power of religion have seldom flourished in one place for more than one generation at a time.
2. The generation which afore after the elders were dead, greatly declined from their godly walk and conversation. They forgot the good instructions delivered to them, and, yielding themselves up to the indulgence of their appetites in that land of plenty, neglected God's worship, and, strange to tell! with base ingratitude, impious perfidy, and blind stupidity, went a whoring after dumb idols, and worshipped Baalam and Ashtaroth, the male and female deities of their wretched neighbours, the sun and the moon, and the hosts of heaven. Note; (1.) Forgetfulness of God is the door at which every abomination enters. (2.) Nobody knows how brutish in sin he may become, if once given up to his own heart's lusts.
3. The anger of God was justly provoked by such abominations committed by a people so favoured. In just judgment, therefore, he gave them up into their enemies' hand; every where they were vanquished by those whom they had before enslaved, and forced to fly from those of whom one Israelite had chased a thousand. Thus spoiled, oppressed, and insulted by the meanest of the surrounding nations, they were distressed beyond measure, without power to help, or strength to relieve themselves. Note; (1.) They, who sell themselves to work wickedness, will find their plague in their sin. (2.) They who forsake God have only themselves to blame for the miseries which ensue.
4. In their state of helpless wretchedness God pitied them. Their groaning, though not so much the cry of sorrow for sin, as of anguish for suffering, came before him, and he repented him of the evil. Soon he changed his dispensations towards them; and, though he might justly have left them to perish in their iniquities, yet, as beloved for the father's sake, and for purposes of his own glory, he raised them up judges, men extraordinarily qualified to deliver them from their oppressors, and recover them from their backslidings. With these God vouchsafed his presence, blessing their labours, and giving success to their undertakings. Note; (1.) In the Church's great distress and degeneracy, God does usually raise up some teachers eminently qualified, and as eminently zealous for his service, and the salvation of men's souls. (2.) Whom God calls to his work, he will distinguish with his blessing.
5. Many, it should seem the most of them, under mercies as well as judgments, continued as impenitent as ever: even during the administration of the judges they were refractory, would not hearken to their reproofs, nor be guided by their counsels; and if, for a moment, they seemed to relent, they turned quickly again to their old evil ways. Their reformation vanished as the early cloud, and as the morning dew. At farthest, at the judge's death the nation with a general revolt returned to their former abominations, and grew worse and worse, more deeply sunk in idolatry, which is spiritual adultery, and more brutish and barbarous in the worship of their strange gods. Note; (1.) They, who are not converted by the word of God, are hardened under it. (2.) They, who apostatize from the profession of religion that they have made, usually grow more abandoned than any others.