This is clearly an incident to arrest our attention and to arouse our curiosity. Let us inquire: (1) Who this angel was? (2) What the meaning of "Gilgal" and "Bochim" is; and (3) What significancy may lie in that apparently meaningless ascent of the heavenly visitant from Gilgal to Bochim.
I. Most commentators recognise in this angel the uncreated angel of the covenant, even the second person of the Blessed Trinity. This "Angel" uses words which are emphatically the words of God Himself and of no lesser being.
II. Gilgal was the first camp of Israel after Jordan was actually crossed, it was at once a goal and a starting-point. To Christians it represents that position of vantage, that excellence of endowment whence they go forth in obedience and faith to subdue their spiritual foes. Bochim was the place of weepers the place of mere feelings, emotions, idle fears, barren sorrow, unavailing regret.
III. The visit of the angel to reproach us should teach us to make a vigorous move, to break up from Bochim, and make Gilgal once more our headquarters. Sentimental regrets, self-bewailing tears, barren religious emotions, only divert attention from real remedies and practical duties.
R. Winterbotham, Sermons and Expositions,p. 59.
I. The sin of Israel, here reproved, consisted in their not thoroughly driving out the inhabitants of the land and throwing down their altars. Christ bids His people mortify their members which are on the earth. Come out and be separate and touch not the unclean thing. For generally we have no definite plan of life at all. Hence vacillation, fitfulness, inconsistency, excess and deficiency, by turns. The opportunity of setting up a high standard and aim is lost, and soon, amid the snares of worldly conformity, we sigh for the day of our visitation, when we might have started from a higher platform and run a higher race than we can now hope ever to realise.
II. Consider the inexcusableness of the sin in question. Look back to the past and call to mind from what a state the Lord has rescued you, at what a price, by what a work of power. Look around on your present circumstances, see how the Lord has performed all that he swore to your fathers; the land is yours, and it is a goodly land. And if, in looking forward to the future, you have any misgivings, has He not said, "I will never break My covenant with you." What can you ask more? A past redemption, a present possession, and a covenant never to be broken. Are these considerations not sufficient to bind you to the whole work and warfare of the high calling of God, and to make cowardice and compromise exceeding sinful.
III. Consider the dangerous and disastrous consequences of the sin in question. Hear the awful sentence of God: "They shall be as thorns in your sides," etc. (Judges 2:3), and then see how the children of Israel lift up their voice and weep. The golden opportunity is lost, their error is not to be retrieved, its bitter fruits are to be reaped from henceforth many days.
R. S. Candlish, Sermons,p 155.
References: Judges 2:1-5. J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon,p. 185.