Judges 2:10

And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) Gathered unto their fathers.—See 2Kings 22:20, and for similar phrases, Genesis 15:15; 1Kings 1:21; Acts 13:36, &c. Another common phrase is. “gathered unto his people” (Genesis 15:8, &c.); and “sleep with fathers” (Deuteronomy 31:16), &c.

Which knew not the Lord.—“They proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:3; comp. Titus 1:16).

Benson Commentary

Jdg 2:10. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers — Not only those who had beheld the wonderful works of God in Egypt, and in the wilderness, but those also who had seen Jordan dried up, the walls of Jericho fall down, the sun stand still at the word of Joshua, and their enemies overwhelmed with hail-stones, &c., which had created such impressions in their hearts, that they generally continued in the service of God while they lived, and kept others in obedience to him. Another generation, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel — Which had no serious and affectionate knowledge of God or of his works.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:6-23 We have a general idea of the course of things in Israel, during the time of the Judges. The nation made themselves as mean and miserable by forsaking God, as they would have been great and happy if they had continued faithful to him. Their punishment answered to the evil they had done. They served the gods of the nations round about them, even the meanest, and God made them serve the princes of the nations round about them, even the meanest. Those who have found God true to his promises, may be sure that he will be as true to his threatenings. He might in justice have abandoned them, but he could not for pity do it. The Lord was with the judges when he raised them up, and so they became saviours. In the days of the greatest distress of the church, there shall be some whom God will find or make fit to help it. The Israelites were not thoroughly reformed; so mad were they upon their idols, and so obstinately bent to backslide. Thus those who have forsaken the good ways of God, which they have once known and professed, commonly grow most daring and desperate in sin, and have their hearts hardened. Their punishment was, that the Canaanites were spared, and so they were beaten with their own rod. Men cherish and indulge their corrupt appetites and passions; therefore God justly leaves them to themselves, under the power of their sins, which will be their ruin. God has told us how deceitful and desperately wicked our hearts are, but we are not willing to believe it, until by making bold with temptation we find it true by sad experience. We need to examine how matters stand with ourselves, and to pray without ceasing, that we may be rooted and grounded in love, and that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. Let us declare war against every sin, and follow after holiness all our days.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

All that generation - i. e. the main body of those who were grown-up men at the time of the conquest of Canaan.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6-10. And when Joshua had let the people go—This passage is a repetition of Jos 24:29-31. It was inserted here to give the reader the reasons which called forth so strong and severe a rebuke from the angel of the Lord. During the lifetime of the first occupiers, who retained a vivid recollection of all the miracles and judgments which they had witnessed in Egypt and the desert, the national character stood high for faith and piety. But, in course of time, a new race arose who were strangers to all the hallowed and solemnizing experience of their fathers, and too readily yielded to the corrupting influences of the idolatry that surrounded them.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Which knew not the Lord; which had no experimental nor serious and affectionate knowledge of God, nor of his works.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers,.... Were dead and buried, that is, the greatest part of those that were contemporaries with the elders that outlived Joshua; for they might not be all dead, at least not all that came out of Egypt, and still less all that came into the land of Canaan; for, according to the computation of Ben Gersom, the time of Joshua and the elders were but twenty seven years; and there were no more than sixty seven years from their coming out of Egypt to this time; and no doubt there were men living of eighty years of age and more, but these might be but few:

and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord; so as to love, fear, serve, and worship him; did not own him to be the one only living and true God, otherwise they must know him nationally, being educated in the true religion:

nor yet the works which he had done for Israel; some of them, as before observed, might have seen the works and wonders of the Lord for Israel, at their first coming out of Egypt; though not being wise, as the above writer observes, it had no effect upon them, to keep them from doing evil in the sight of God; and they all of them had been informed of them, and many had seen, and must have had personal knowledge of what was done for them at their coming into the land of Canaan; but not a practical knowledge, or such as had any influence upon them, to preserve them from idolatry.

Geneva Study Bible

And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. were gathered unto their fathers] This expression (as here only in 2 Kings 22:20 = 2 Chronicles 34:28), and the commoner ‘was gathered unto his people’ (P), referred originally to the family sepulchre; then to the shadowy life of Sheol, the Underworld; finally it was used as a euphemism for death.

which knew not the Lord] in the sense in which the previous generation had known Him, by personal experience of His work, see Jdg 2:7. According to this writer the death of Joshua marked a cleavage between the age of faith and the age of deterioration; the prophets Hosea (Jdg 9:10 ff.) and Ezekiel (16) take an even gloomier view.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Which know not the Lord, etc. The memory of God's great works gradually faded away, and with this memory their influence upon the hearts of the people. The seductions of idolatry and the influence of heathen example were ever fresh and powerful. Had the people obeyed the voice of the Lord, the idolatry and the idolaters would have been out of the way. We may notice by the way the value to the Church of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in keeping alive a perpetual memory of Christ's precious death until his coming again. Judges 2:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The account of this development of the covenant nation, which commenced after the death of Joshua and his contemporaries, is attached to the book of Joshua by a simple repetition of the closing verses of that book (Joshua 24:28-31) in Judges 2:6-10, with a few unimportant differences, not only to form a link between Josha and Judges 2:11, and to resume the thread of the history which was broken off by the summary just given of the results of the wars between the Israelites and Canaanites (Bertheau), but rather to bring out sharply and clearly the contrast between the age that was past and the period of the Israelitish history that was just about to commence. The vav consec. attached to וישׁלּח expresses the order of thought and not of time. The apostasy of the new generation from the Lord (Judges 2:10.) was a necessary consequence of the attitude of Israel to the Canaanites who were left in the land, as described in Judges 1:1-2:5. This thought is indicated by the vav consec. in וישׁלּח; so that the meaning of Judges 2:6. as expressed in our ordinary phraseology would be as follows: Now when Joshua had dismissed the people, and the children of Israel had gone every one to his own inheritance to take possession of the land, the people served the Lord as long as Joshua and the elders who survived him were alive; but when Joshua was dead, and that generation (which was contemporaneous with him) had been gathered to its fathers, there rose up another generation after them which knew not the Lord, and also (knew not) the work which He had done to Israel. On the death and burial of Joshua, see at Joshua 24:29-30. "Gathered unto their fathers" corresponds to "gathered to his people" in the Pentateuch (Genesis 25:8, Genesis 25:17; Genesis 35:29; Genesis 49:29, Genesis 49:33, etc.: see at Genesis 25:8). They "knew not the Lord," sc., from seeing or experiencing His wonderful deeds, which the contemporaries of Joshua and Moses had seen and experienced.

In the general survey of the times of the judges, commencing at Judges 2:11, the falling away of the Israelites from the Lord is mentioned first of all, and at the same time it is distinctly shown how neither the chastisements inflicted upon them by God at the hands of hostile nations, nor the sending of judges to set them free from the hostile oppression, availed to turn them from their idolatry (Judges 2:11-19). This is followed by the determination of God to tempt and chastise the sinful nation by not driving away the remaining Canaanites (Judges 2:20-23); and lastly, the account concludes with an enumeration of the tribes that still remained, and the attitude of Israel towards them (Judges 3:1-6).