Judges 2 - False Compassion

Judges 2 begins with an angel of the Lord addressing all of Israel and reproving them for their fallen ways.  It's a chapter that very much sets the course for the Book of Judges: the people fall into sin, God is angered but moved to compassion by the few who have stayed true to Him, and so He gives them a Judge who will deliver them from their enemies and save them from their own sinful ways, but when the Judge dies the people fall back into sin, and the cycle must begin anew.  It's enough to wonder why God would continue to give the people new judges when it's almost certain they will just fall again.  Well, isn't it the same today?  God's Mercy and Compassion is without limit!  We sin over and over, and though it offends and angers God, He is always ready and willing to take us back.  In Judges 2:20 God even says "this nation hath made void my covenant'!  At that point one would think the covenantal relationship had ended and God would simply leave His people to die by the hands of the enemy.  But in the very next verse He says, "I also will not destroy the nations..." (Judges 2:21).  In fact, it is a merciful act that He allows the Israelites to go on living among their enemy (i.e., their sin).  It is a test.  My commentary gives the analogy of someone who distrusts a servant and so purposefully leaves out something to steal to see if the servant will commit the theft or not.  This is the real reason Joshua wasn't permitted to slay every last Canaanite (Lord knows he could have!).  There would have been no occasion left for the Israelites to prove their loyalty and love to God if there were no temptations left to return to their old, sinful, idolatrous lifestyle!  Today we still live in a world of temptation and sin.  God permits these things, for how else might we prove our love for Him!

One last note of interest: one of the reasons given for why the Israelites were so tolerant of pagans living among them was that they had a "false compassion."  This phrase (used in my commentary) jumped out at me as something that we in this modern age are very much guilty of.  We like to permit all forms of egregious behavior because we have compassion for the person.  But what of the person's soul?  The modern mindset, even among the clergy, is to bend the rules to allow for objectively sinful situations to persist, as long as we cover the whole thing in "mercy."  But is it truly merciful?  The Israelites' "compassion" led to their downfall: "their gods may be your ruin" (Judges 2:3).  By allowing sin in, they left God out.  We seem today to be using that same tactic.  We ought to learn from the mistakes of our forebears and be much more wary of what we are doing when we allow the enemy access to our abode through the toleration of sin.