Bible Strands
Judges 2:21
I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The LORD declares to Israel that He will cease driving out the remaining Canaanite nations. This announcement comes immediately after Israel’s covenant transgression and directly precedes His stated purpose to test their obedience.
The words — אוֹסִיף ('o.Sif) means "I will increase" or "I will no longer add," paired with לְ/הוֹרִישׁ (le./ho.Rish), "to dispossess." Together they form the decisive statement that God will stop removing the nations Joshua left behind.
The thread — This divine withdrawal parallels Joshua 23:13, where God warns He will no longer drive out the nations, and echoes Judges 2:3, where the remaining peoples become thorns. The pattern of covenant failure and divine restraint also appears in Ezekiel 20:24.
Why it lands — The text states that covenant disobedience halts God’s protective intervention and leaves Israel with the remaining nations. It requires the reader to accept that ongoing opposition is a direct consequence of broken covenant loyalty, not merely a military setback.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died:
Cross-references
- Joshua 23:13 know for sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.
- Judges 2:3 So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”
- Ezekiel 20:24 For they did not practice My ordinances, but they rejected My statutes and profaned My Sabbaths, fixing their eyes on the idols of their fathers.
- Judges 3:3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath.