Judges 2:4

And it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel,....

A great congregation for a great preacher! They were assembled either for war, each tribe sending in its forces for some great expedition, or rather for worship, and then the place of their meeting must be Shiloh, where the tabernacle was, at which they were all to come together three times a year.

This was good, and a sign that the word they heard made an impression upon them: it is a wonder sinners can ever read their Bible with dry eyes. But this was not enough; they wept, but we do not find that they reformed, that they went home and destroyed all the remains of idolatry and idolaters among them.

LET me give an outline of the chapter, that we may put the text into its proper setting. God had brought His people out of Egypt and divided Jordan that they might march through, dry-shod, into the land which He had promised to their fathers. He charged them to drive out the Canaanites, a race that had become so loathsome in God's sight that He decreed their destruction and appointed the tribes of Israel to be their executioners.

LET me give an outline of the chapter, that we may put the text into its proper setting. God had brought His people out of Egypt and divided Jordan that they might march through, dry-shod, into the land which He had promised to their fathers. He charged them to drive out the Canaanites, a race that had become so loathsome in God's sight that He decreed their destruction and appointed the tribes of Israel to be their executioners. It was for the good of the universal world that this pest-house should be broken up and that the filthy races should be destroyed—and God gave His people that charge to carry out. Those who quarrel with this arrangement should remember that this is not the only instance of aboriginal tribes being driven out by a superior race. Our Anglo-Saxon nation drove out the original inhabitants of this island, who survived only in the mountains of Wales and Cornwall and in the highlands of Scotland. It certainly will not be wise, on our part, as Anglo-Saxons, to condemn Israel for doing, under Divine command, what our forefathers did for their own aggrandizement. Alas, in more modern times, lands have been seized and nations extirpated by the white man without Divine warrant or reasonable excuse. We do not justify all this, but if any complain of Israel for obeying the sentence of God, let them first raise their voices against the driving out of ancient races by colonists of our own race! The order to slay the Canaanites had a second objective, namely, that Israel might dwell, alone, in the land and might keep themselves to themselves—the great nonconformists of the universe—separated from all the rest of mankind, both by residence and by manners, not following the customs of the nations round about them, or falling into their sins. That they might be sanctified they were to be separated.