is not met with in the Pentateuch, whereas מכר, to sell, occurs in Deu 32:30, in the sense of giving helplessly up to the foe. “They could no longer stand before their enemies,” as they had done under Joshua, and in fact as long as Israel continued faithful to the Lord; so that now, instead of the promise contained in Lev 26:7-8, being fulfilled, the threat contained in Lev 26:17 was carried into execution. “Whithersoever they went out,” i.e., in every expedition, every attack that they made upon their enemies, “the hand of Jehovah was against them for evil, as He had said” (Lev 26:17, Lev 26:36; Deu 28:25), and “had sworn unto them.” There is no express oath mentioned either in Lev 26 or Deut 28; ; it is implied therefore in the nature of the case, or in virtute verborum, as Seb. Schmidt affirms, inasmuch as the threats themselves were words of the true and holy God. מאד להם ויּצר, “and it became to them very narrow,” i.e., they came into great straits.
Verses 16-17
But the Lord did not rest content with this. He did still more. “He raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of their plunderers,” to excite them to love in return by this manifestation of His love and mercy, and to induce them to repent. But “they did not hearken even to their judges,” namely, so as not to fall back again into idolatry, which the judge had endeavoured to suppress. This limitation of the words is supported by the context, viz., by a comparison of Jdg 2:18, Jdg 2:19. - “But (כּי after a negative clause) they went a whoring after other gods (for the application of this expression to the spiritual adultery of idolatrous worship, see Exo 34:15), and turned quickly away (vid., Exo 32:8) from the way which their fathers walked in, to hearken to the commandments of the Lord,” i.e., from the way of obedience to the divine commands. “They did not so” (or what was right) sc., as their fathers under Joshua had done (cf. Jdg 2:7).
Verses 18-19
“And when the Lord raised them up judges, and was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge (i.e., as long as the judge was living), because the Lord had compassion upon their sighing, by reason of them that oppressed them, and vexed them (דּחק only occurs again as a verb in Joe 2:8): it came to pass when the judge was dead, that they returned and acted more corruptly than their fathers,” i.e., they turned again to idolatry even more grievously than their fathers had done under the previous judges. “They did not let fall from their deeds,” i.e., they did not cease from their evil deeds, and “from their stiff-necked way.” קשׁה, hard, is to be understood as in Exo 32:9 and Exo 33:3,
