An angel reproveth Israel. They weep for their sins. After the death of
Josue, they often fall, and repenting are delivered from their
afflictions, but still fall worse and worse.
2:1. And an angel of the Lord went up from Galgal to the place of
weepers, and said: I made you go out of Egypt, and have brought you
into the land for which I swore to your fathers: and I promised that I
would not make void my covenant with you for ever:
An angel. . .Taking the shape of a man.
2:2. On condition that you should not make a league with the
inhabitants of this land, but should throw down their altars: and you
would not hear my voice: why have you done this?
2:3. Wherefore I would not destroy them from before your face; that you
may have enemies, and their gods may be your ruin.
2:4. And when the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the
children of Israel: they lifted up their voice, and wept.
2:5. And the name of that place was called, The place of weepers, or of
tears: and there they offered sacrifices to the Lord.
2:6. And Josue sent away the people, and the children of Israel went
every one to his own possession to hold it:
And Josue, etc. . .This is here inserted out of Jos. 24, by way of
recapitulation of what had happened before, and by way of an
introduction to that which follows.
2:7. And they served the Lord all his days, and the days of the
ancients, that lived a long time after him, and who knew all the works
of the Lord, which he had done for Israel.
2:8. And Josue, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being a
hundred and ten years old;
2:9. And they buried him in the borders of his possession in
Thamnathsare, in Mount Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaas.
2:10. And all that generation was gathered to their fathers: and there
arose others that knew not the Lord and the works which he had done for
Israel.
2:11. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and
they served Baalim
2:12. And they left the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought
them out of the land of Egypt: and they followed strange gods, and the
gods of the people that dwelt round about them, and they adored them:
and they provoked the Lord to anger,
They followed strange gods. . .What is here said of the children of
Israel, as to their falling so often into idolatry, is to be understood
of a great part of them; but not so universally, as if the true worship
of God was ever quite abolished among them: for the succession of the
true church and religion was kept up all this time by the priests and
Levites, at least in the house of God in Silo.