raised up as Israel's relapse to corruption after the death of each judge.—It is a painful and humiliating picture of the corruption of our common nature. Holy writ is a continued history of God's epiphanies and man's apostasies. Well may God exclaim (Hos. vi. 4), "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away!" The chastisements, and the gracious interpositions of God, seemed alike to fail in reforming this perverse people. Yet whilst we condemn them, is there nothing similar among ourselves? How often God hath stricken worldly professors of Christianity, yet with all our superior privileges we have not grieved. How often has the designed lesson of correction by sickness, losses, and trials been lost; how often the people refuse to return to Him that smiteth them, and will not seek the Lord of hosts? Israel's judges, after having fulfilled their saving mission, died. But our Saviour "ever liveth, able to save them to the uttermost who come unto God by Him" (Heb. vii. 25). The backsliding Christian forsakes for the idols of self and the world not a dead Deliverer, but the living Saviour, who is also our coming Judge. Each fresh interposition of Divine love leaves the sinner, if not renewed to holiness, more corrupt and hardened than ever. Then at last there remains to such only "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries" (Heb. x. 27). Jehovah's consequent resolution to stay Israel's victories, and to leave the Canaanites, in order to prove Israel.-Israel's transgression was, sparing the Canaanites, in neglect of God's command; Israel's punishment was, to be oppressed by the Canaanites whom God had doomed, but Israel spared. God Hoth "of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us Shakspere, Lear). The offending people were beaten with their own rod: "Because that this people hath transgressed my ovenant, I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left, when he died." Our Joshua, though through death He destroyed him that had the power of death, has not yet put all things under Him and His people. A tempting world remains outside, and the corrupt old nature within each professing Christian. Our duty and our happiness consist in obeying our Lord's commands, by mortifying our members which are upon the earth' "crucifying the flesh, with the affections and lusts," and "being not conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind" (Rom. xii. 2; Gal. v. 24; Col. iii. 5). But if we give quarter to these, and even make provision for them, instead of these being our servants ministering to our pleasure, as we had hoped, they shall become our masters and cruel oppressors. God in righteous retribution chooses men's own delusions (Isa. lxvi. 4), and gives them over to a reprobate mind" (Rom. i. 28). Their own backslidings reprove them, and too late they will discover that it is an evil thing and bitter that they have forsaken the Lord their God (Jer. ii. 19). The spiritual paramours, after whom they have gone a whoring (ver. 17), become the executioners of God's just vengeance upon them (Ezek. xxiii. 9, 10, 20-30). Yet the Lord still tried the Israelites by means of the spared Canaanities, whether they would profit by the chastisement. The Lord can overrule trial to good, if it lead men to search and try their ways, and to turn again to the Lord. The presence of the Canaanites need not have corrupted and seduced them, if only they had not yielded to, but resisted temptation, in the strength of the Lord. They had, no doubt, by their disobedience increased the severity of the temptation, and weakened their own power of resisting it. But God would have been the same Mighty One in their behalf, if they had sought Him, as He promises to be to us Christians: "There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it " (1 Cor. x. 13) The Lord left Canaanites for another wise and gracious purpose, namely, that Israel might know the true art of war. There remained in united bodies the Sidonians and Hivites in the north, and the five great cities of Philistia in the southwest, besides scattered Canaanites in various regions throughout the land, among whom the degenerate Israelites were content to dwell, like tenants at will. God designed that even those enemies might do the Israelites good, if only Israel should prove amenable to spiritual instruction. A soldier can never be trained except by the discipline of campaigning. Now the existing generation of Israel knew not as yet the wars of Canaan. The secret of the art of war, as Joshua and his generation understood it, lay in faithfulness to Jehovah; holy courage in doing all the law, turning not from it to the right hand or to the left, was Joshua's mode of "making his way prosperous and having good success," according as God had promised, (Josh. i. 6-9). Disobedience and compromise disqualify utterly for fighting in the wars of the Lord. So in our spiritual conflict, the old nature, the flesh, is left in the hearts even of believers, in order that we may learn experimentally how to "war the good warfare," and "endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ," keeping on "the whole armour of God" (1 Tim. vi. 12, i. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 3; Eph. vi. 11). Even "heresies must be among us, that they which are approved may be made manifest" (1 Cor. xi. 19). Lastly, they broke The Israelites, when proved thus, utterly failed.—They sank lower and lower, from bad to worse. They willingly dwelt among the heathen. Then they took their daughters for wives, and gave their daughters in marriage to idolaters. The result of such unequal marriages was, the bad corrupted the good, instead of the good winning over the bad. out into open evil in the sight of the Lord. all this sad declension and apostasy is stated: "They forgat the Lord their God" (compare Deut. xxxii. 18; Isa. xvii. 10). What monstrous ingratitude that we should forget Him who never forgets us! Least of all should His elect church forget Him who saith, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee" (Isa. xlix. 15). The true church can no more forget Him, than the bride could forget her wedding attire (Jer. ii. 32). But they who God shall be forgotten by Him, when the righteous shall everlasting remembrance (Hos. iv. 6; Ps. ix. 17). Chronology of Judges.-The first period in the times o Judges embraces 206 years. During it, three heathen p successively oppressed Israel-Chushan Rishathaim of Me tania, Eglon of Moab, and Jabin of Hazar. 1. Oppression by Chushan Rishathaim, The rest after the deliverance by Othniel, 2. Oppression by Eglon, (ch. iii. 11), 40 (ch. iii. 14), 18 (ch. iii. 30, 31), 80 20 40 301 18 10 To this is to be added the period before the rising judges, during which in the absence of a regularly consti authority (the sacred writer of Judges uses the term '1 as he was living under kingly government in Israel): "E man did that which was right in his own eyes" (ch. x xxi. 25). So Acts xiii. 20, "About four hundred and years" in all: so Josephus, Antiq., viii. 3, 1. It was before the Judges' time that the flagrant idolatry of Mical the Danites, and the fearful wickedness of Gibeah an punishment by Israel under the high priesthood of Phir the immediate successor of Eleazer the high priest Joshua, took place, as recorded in the closing chapters which form an appendix to the whole book. Occasion of the raising up of the first judge.-The history of the raising up of Othniel as a deliverer is a miniature of the whole book. (1) Israel's sin brought on the people God's judgments. He is not a God all mercy, and who cannot be angry. Who knoweth the power of His anger (Ps. xc. 11). He sold them who by their iniquities had sold themselves. They had sold themselves as slaves to worldly and fleshly lusts (1 Kings xxi. 20, 25; Isa. 1. 1, lii. 3; Rom. vi. 16, vii. 14, vi. 16; John viii. 34). So they must be slaves also outwardly and bodily, as they were inwardly and spiritually-and that, to a Cushite of the Hamitic race which had been doomed to be "a servant of servants," because of undutifulness (Gen. ix. 25). As the Israelites had broken through the hedge of their separation, they laid themselves bare to the heathen, and stripped themselves of the fence of God's protection. Their first oppression came from the region of Babylon, as their captivity ages after was in Babylon. (2) Distress drove them to prayer in trouble; they called on Him whom in prosperity they had slighted (compare Isa. xxvi. 16). The world's enmity often is made a benefit to God's people: its friendship generally is fatal to them (James iv. 4; Exod. i. 2, ii. 23-25). Deep sorrow made them to cry aloud to God, whom formerly they had forsaken for idols. How many in eternity will bless the lovingcorrection of God in time! Even now many a tried believer can say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted," that I might learn Thy statutes" (Ps. cxix. 71). It is far better to suffer for a time, if suffering rouse the sinner from his spiritual apathy, than to escape suffering now, and suffer for ever hereafter. (3) Israel's cry in distress brought Jehovah to their relief.— He might justly have left them to the consequences of their own treachery towards Him. Their cry was called forth by pain, more than by penitence (Hos. vii. 14). Yet His Fatherly compassion yearned over His wayward children, now that they were in affliction. So He raised up a Saviour to be their deliverer. Though need drives us in the first instance to God, as the mighty famine in the far-off land was what induced the |