Well might such worship be called abomination, and the Israelites be
forbidden to hold any dealings with those who followed it. As long
as the generation lived who had been bred up in the wilderness, they
obeyed, and felt themselves under the rule of God their King, Who made
His Will known at Shiloh by the signs on the breastplate of the High
Priest, while judges and elders governed in the cities. But afterwards
they began to be tempted to make friends with their heathen neighbours,
and thus learnt to believe in their false deities, and to hanker after
the service of some god who made no such strict laws of goodness as
those by which they were bound. As certainly as they fell away, so
surely the punishment came, and God stirred up some of these dangerous
friends to attack them. Sometimes it was a Canaanite tribe with iron
chariots who mightily oppressed them; sometimes the robber shepherds,
the Midianites, would burst in and carry off their cattle and their
crops, until distress brought the Israelites back to a better mind, and
they cried out to the Lord. Then He would raise up a mighty warrior, and
give him the victory, so that he became ruler and judge over Israel; but
no sooner was he dead, than they would fall back again into idolatry,
and receive another chastisement, repent, and be again delivered.
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