John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Judges 2:13
And they forsook the Lord ,.... The worship of the Lord, as the Targum; this is repeated to observe the heinous sin they were guilty of, and how displeasing it was to God: and served Baal and Ashtaroth ; two images, as the Arabic version adds; Baal, from whence Baalim, may signify the he deities of the Gentiles, as Jupiter, Hercules, &c.; and Ashtaroth their female deities, as Juno, Venus, Diana, &c.; the word is plural, and used for flocks of sheep, so called because they make... read more
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Judges 2:6-23
The beginning of this paragraph is only a repetition of what account we had before of the people's good character during the government of Joshua, and of his death and burial (Josh. 24:29, 30), which comes in here again only to make way for the following account, which this chapter gives, of their degeneracy and apostasy. The angel had foretold that the Canaanites and their idols would be a snare to Israel; now the historian undertakes to show that they were so, and, that this may appear the... read more