Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be [scourges] in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.
Israel refused to drive out the nations around them, and this verse is God's answer to that choice. The question it raises is not whether God kept His word. It is what happens to a people who keep the enemy God told them to remove.
God's messenger meets Israel in a new place. They had once camped at Gilgal. Now He finds them at Bochim, a name that means "weepers." One writer sees the whole change from Joshua to Judges in that move.
Joshua is a book of victorious power. Judges is the book of failure in faithfulness, so that power is lost. The one exception is that God steps in with mercy, from time to time, to deliver and revive. Gilgal is exchanged for Bochim. Gilgal meant the denial of the flesh. It seemed of little importance, yet it was the place of power. Bochim was the place of tears, but the angel of God was there.
The text says the angel came up from Gilgal. One writer stops at that small word.
Notice that little word up. It marks the distance between Gilgal and Bochim, and shows the difference between them. They have left the place of lowliness. They have taken high ground and a proud attitude. It is only too easy to make this climb, whether on our own or as a group. Spiritual pride and self-confidence are in it.
"I will not drive them out before you" is not an arbitrary punishment. It is God agreeing with the choice Israel already made.
In Joshua's day the angel of Jehovah had taken His place with them at Gilgal as Captain of the Lord's host. Now He comes from Gilgal to Bochim ("weepers"). He comes to announce that, in righteous government, He accepts their own decision. They would not drive out the nations, and so He would not. And the consequences of this, foretold again and again, would come upon them.
The same rule reaches past Israel to us.
If the children of Israel abandon Jehovah to serve idols, Jehovah gives them up to serve idolaters. It is so with us. If we sin, that sin measures and defines our discipline. And so grace works repentance when we turn and cry to the Lord in our distress.
What Israel spared did not stay harmless. The nations left in the land became thorns in their sides, and the harm did not stop there. One writer traces the slide step by step.
Look at the order, and see how evil must progress. First comes the failure to drive out the enemy. Next they put them to forced labour and make them pay tribute. Then comes intermarriage, tying themselves to them. Then they take up their false gods and depart from God. Last, there can be only one result. God hands them over to an enemy, to make them taste what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from Him.
The snare of their gods is the deadlier half of the verse. One writer sees the same trap set for the church.
Israel was unfaithful in this way. They made a treaty with the people of the land and did not care about their evil. So the Lord let those nations remain, to test Israel. In the same way, the church has kept close to the world, and this has been a constant snare to it.
The same snare is set for us, and it may not look like a god at all.
If we get away from the Lord and seek the things of this present world, we shall expose ourselves to the enemy. Someone might say, but surely Christians would not choose new gods? Yet the apostle John writes to us, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). Everything that would challenge Christ's right to fill the heart is an idol!
The message is severe, yet the One who speaks it has travelled to them to say it.
But the angel of the Lord went to Bochim; He did not give Israel up, though they had left Gilgal. It was grace going after them.
One writer asks who actually broke the covenant, and then finds grace in the ruin.
Had God broken His covenant? Had He not done all that His mouth had spoken? It was Israel who had broken the covenant. ... How touching the grace which provides for worship in the middle of the ruin. The place of tears is one of sacrifice, and God accepts the offerings made at Bochim.
- Spared. Israel would not drive the nations out, so God accepted their own decision: they would not, and so He would not.
- Sharp. What Israel kept turned against them. The spared enemy became thorns, then a master, through tribute, intermarriage and idolatry.
- Snared. Their gods were the deeper danger. Anything that disputes Christ's right to fill the heart works as an idol.
- Slipped. The root cause was the climb from Gilgal to Bochim. Lowliness gave way to self-confidence, and power gave way to tears.
- Sought. Even so, the angel came to Bochim. God did not give them up; grace followed them, and the place of weeping became a place of accepted sacrifice.
And it came to pass, when the Angel of Jehovah spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept.
The whole nation has just heard God's messenger name their disobedience and say what it will cost. Their only recorded answer is tears. Was that repentance, or just grief at the sentence? Commentators differ.
The speaker whose words reduced Israel to tears was no ordinary messenger. Commentators identify Him from His own words:
The Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. This Angel is Jehovah Himself. His own words reveal this fact. In Joshua's time, after Israel had taken the land, the Angel of the Lord — Jehovah in visible form — was with them. As commander of the Lord's army, He led them on in the conquest.
Before the weeping came a question. God had kept every promise; the broken side of the agreement was Israel's.
Had God broken His covenant? Had He not accomplished all that His mouth had spoken? It was Israel who had broken the covenant. "Why have you done this?" How this question reaches and probes the conscience. Why? Because I preferred the world and its desires to the power of the Spirit of God, idols to the indescribable favour of Jehovah's face. What then was the natural heart of this people? What is ours?
Note: older translations word the Lord's question in verse 2 as "Why have you done this?"
Their silence is itself part of the record:
He asked them why? But they had no answer.
The angel travelled from Gilgal to Bochim, and the two place names carry the lesson. One writer reads the move as cause and effect:
Gilgal speaks of the self-judgment of sin in the flesh, but Israel had neglected this after settling in the land. If we too neglect the self-judgment needed for a walk with God, the result will be Bochim — "weeping."
Yet the same journey can be read from God's side:
They came at once to "Bochim," that is, tears and weeping. In Joshua they went to Gilgal instead, the place where Israel was completely separated from the world. They had crossed the Jordan, and that was death. Then the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. But the angel of the Lord went to Bochim. He did not give Israel up, though they had left Gilgal. It was grace going after them.
Commentators differ here. Some read Bochim as a place where God meets failing people. Others find no confession there at all — the crying was over the sentence, not the sin:
Many use Bochim as a picture of humiliation, where believers who have failed willingly own that failure before God. I heartily agree with that use. But taken as Scripture really gives it, there was nothing of the kind at Bochim. The Lord declared in judgment that He would no longer drive out their enemies. They wept when they heard that judgment. There was no sorrow for sin and failure, but for judgment, and they worshipped where they wept... There was no voluntary confession and humiliation at all.
Another writer traces what the tears did not stop:
They would not drive out the nations, and so He would not... The people weep and sacrifice to Jehovah, but there is no real repentance. This first step downward is soon followed by another, and that second step completes the break between them and Him.
One writer contrasts Bochim with a later gathering at Mizpah, where Israel went further than tears:
Samuel gathers the people at Mizpah, which is not merely the place of tears, but of humiliation. It was there that "they drew water and poured it out before the LORD and fasted on that day and said there, 'We have sinned against the LORD.'"
Even so, Bochim was not only a place of tears:
Let us individually get back to Gilgal, or let us at any rate get to Bochim, the place of weeping... Bochim, God can meet us there. You remember a holy and blessed Bochim in the New Testament. It is in the seventh of Luke. There is a poor soul that has nothing but her sins to bring to Christ, and she brings them; she pours them out in hot tears, in shame and sorrow, on His feet... There is a sacrifice at Bochim, a sacrifice that has put sin away forever from before God's face.
- Gilgal — the place of self-judgment; Israel neglected it after settling in the land.
- Bochim — leave Gilgal and you arrive at weeping. That is where the whole nation ended up.
- Tears — commentators differ on the weeping. Some say God can meet people at such a place; others say Israel mourned the sentence, not the sin, and that no confession is recorded.
- Grace — God Himself travelled from Gilgal to Bochim after them. He did not give Israel up.
- Sacrifice — the place of tears was also a place of offering. A weeping sinner with nothing but sins to bring is never turned away.