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King James Version (KJV)
“In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
— D.L. Moody
Scripture focus
And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, [that] they returned, and corrupted [themselves] more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.
Judges 2:19 — KJV
They returned. That is, they returned to their former apostasies. They left off the worship of God and turned to the worship of heathen deities and the practice of corrupting idolatries. In the setting of these facts the writer of the book of Judges presents his thesis, namely, that God allowed trouble to come as a result of sin to arouse His people to see the evil of their ways. These troubles produced a form of sorrow and repentance. Then the Lord raised up a deliverer. During the respite, He provided for a test of the genuineness of Israel’s repentance. After the death of the judge the ungrateful people soon fell back into their former ways. It is this viewpoint that makes the book of Judges more than a mere history. It is a philosophy of history. The author is not interested in merely recounting what happened after the settlement in Canaan. He is a preacher more than a historian. He wants the reader to see why these things happened. He says that the period after the entrance to Canaan was unsettled, and in the main, disastrous for the Hebrews. For a time they would be free; then again they would be in servitude or suffering invasion. Why was this? It was because the people had turned from God, and He, in an effort to bring them back, allowed disaster to come. In other words, the author tells us that the hand of God was shaping history to bring about His desired ends. The author of Judges was one of the first real historians. He sought to record for future generations the meaning of events.
More than their fathers. One of the striking characteristics of sin is the way it mushrooms. Allow it a little beginning, and it soon chokes the ability to resist it, and overwhelms the entire life.
Ceased not. The sentence reads literally, “they let nothing fall of their deeds.” They were unwilling to put off any of their evil habits and practices. Their hearts had not really been changed. If they had actually received a new spirit, it would have forced off these old practices as the rising sap in a tree forces off the dead leaves.
By SdaBc
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