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.