Judges 2:11-14

A Monotonous Cycle

2:11 The Israelites did evil before ¹  the Lord by worshiping ²  the Baals. 2:12 They abandoned the Lord God of their ancestors ³  who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods – the gods of the nations who lived around them. They worshiped ⁴  them and made the Lord angry. 2:13 They abandoned the Lord and worshiped Baal and the Ashtars. ⁵ 

2:14 The Lord was furious with Israel ⁶  and handed them over to robbers who plundered them. ⁷  He turned them over to ⁸  their enemies who lived around them. They could not withstand their enemies’ attacks. ⁹ 

Judges 3:7

Othniel: A Model Leader

3:7 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. ¹⁰  They forgot the Lord their God and worshiped the Baals and the Asherahs. ¹¹ 

Judges 3:2

3:2 He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war. ¹² 

Judges 1:23

1:23 When the men of Joseph spied out Bethel (it used to be called Luz),

Psalms 106:36

106:36 They worshiped ¹³  their idols,

which became a snare to them. ¹⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

² tn Or “serving”; or “following.”

³ tn Or “fathers.”

⁴ tn Or “bowed before” (the same expression occurs in the following verse).

⁵ tn Some English translations simply transliterate the plural Hebrew term (“Ashtaroth,” cf. NAB, NASB), pluralize the transliterated Hebrew singular form (“Ashtoreths,” cf. NIV), or use a variation of the name (“Astartes,” cf. NRSV).

⁶ tn Or “The Lord’s anger burned [or “raged”] against Israel.”

⁷ tn Heb “robbers who robbed them.” (The verb שָׁסָה [shasah] appears twice in the verse.)

⁸ tn Heb “sold them into the hands of.”

⁹ tn The word “attacks” is supplied in the translation both for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

¹⁰ tn Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.”

¹¹ sn The Asherahs were local manifestations of the Canaanite goddess Asherah.

¹² tn The Hebrew syntax of v. 2 is difficult. The Hebrew text reads literally, “only in order that the generations of the Israelites might know, to teach them war – only those who formerly did not know them.”

¹³ tn Or “served.”

¹⁴ sn Became a snare. See Exod 23:33; Judg 2:3.