W. Robert Godfrey

And the most detailed statement of Israel's faithlessness is found in chapter 10 in the description of what happened before Jephthah was raised up as the judge in Israel.

And at Judges chapter 10 at verse 6, we read, "...the people of Israel again..."

did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, or in the eyes of the Lord, and served the Baals and the Ashtoreth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines, and they forsook the Lord and did not serve him.

So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines,

and into the hand of the Ammonites.

So here's the description of what was at the heart of the evil that Israel did in the eyes of the Lord.

They went after false gods.

And if you turn back, for example, to Deuteronomy chapter 4, a grievously neglected book in the Old Testament, I think Deuteronomy is the third most quoted book in the New Testament.

Jesus knew Deuteronomy backwards and forwards.

If you look at Deuteronomy chapter 4, Moses is pressing the claims of the covenant on the people of Israel, and he's making the point that the

The single most important point of the covenant, which is the sign of fidelity and everything else, is whether you're an idolater or not.

And in Deuteronomy chapter 4, he makes at great length the point, when you were at Sinai, and the Lord your God came to make covenant with you, and the Lord your God spoke to you, and like no other people in the history of mankind, you heard the voice of your God speak to you, you saw no form.

And therefore you are not to make images of anything in the heavens or anything in the earth, anything in the skies, anything in the waters under the earth, because when the Lord came to you, you saw no form.

And this is to be a test for Israel.

After all, if you can't do this one simple thing, namely not make an image, he's not asking even that you do something positive.

He's saying, just don't do this.

If you can't discipline yourself enough to avoid this one external action of disobedience, how can we have any assurance that your heart is connected to the Lord?

And so here, Israel is showing the heartlessness of her relationship to God because she cannot avoid idolatry.

Not even—I mean, she's worse—

than the idolatry in the wilderness because, at least initially, the idolatry in the wilderness was making an image of the Lord God.