Why does Judges chapter 2 talk about Joshua when he died in chapter 1?
I am confused about the chronology of things happening in chapter 1-2. I thought Joshua had died and the people of Israel went and fought the people living in the allotted inheritance and left some alive, but in a verse in chapter 2, it says Joshua left some alive. Also in the last verse it says that God didn't deliver the nations into Joshua's hands, when he was dead from chapter 1.
Judges 2:23
KJV - 23 Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.
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Asked October 17 2014
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Chan Ryu
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Tim Maas
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The book of Joshua mentions the death of Joshua in Joshua 24:29. The book of Judges begins in Judges 1:1 after Joshua's death. Judges 1 then describes the process by which the various tribes of Israel occupied the portions of Canaan that had been allotted to them, but failed to slay or drive out the heathen nations living there, as they had been commanded by God to do. At the beginning of Judges 2 (in verses 1-5), the narrative starts with God (speaking through the angel of the Lord, who is regarded by many commentators as being the pre-incarnate Christ) rebuking the Israelites for having allowed the heathen nations to remain, and stating that He would therefore offer no further divine assistance to the tribes of Israel in eliminating those tribes. In reaction to His words, the Israelites wept and offered sacrifices to God. The next portion of the narrative (Judges 2:6-10) then backtracks slightly to again make specific mention of Joshua's death (even though it had already been noted earlier). I would say that Joshua's death was mentioned again at that point for the purpose of more forcefully emphasizing the contrast between the obedience to God that the Israelites exhibited while Joshua and the men of his generation (who had seen the miracles that God had performed for Israel during the exodus from Egypt and during Israel's forty years of wandering in the wilderness) were still alive with the description (beginning in Judges 2:11) of the idolatry and disobedience into which the Israelites descended (in part as a result of the heathen peoples that they had disobediently left in their midst) immediately after the deaths of those men. Similarly, the mention of Joshua in Judges 2:23 is again retroactive, reflecting God's decision (as expressed in Judges 2:20-22) to not help the Israelites, as He would have done if He had allowed Joshua (during his life) or the Israelites (after Joshua's death) to conquer the heathen nations that the Israelites left in the land.
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