Judg 2:11

“WICKEDNESS OF THE NEW GENERATION AFTER JOSHUA. (Jdg 2:11-19) the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord--This chapter, together with the first eight verses of the next [Jdg. 2:11-3:8], contains a brief but comprehensive summary of the principles developed in the following history. An attentive consideration of them, therefore, is of the greatest importance to a right understanding of the strange and varying phases of Israelitish history, from the death of Joshua till the establishment of the monarchy. served Baalim--The plural is used to include all the gods of the country.”

“Repeated Falling Away of the People from the Lord. - Jdg 2:11-13. The Israelites did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord (what was displeasing to the Lord); they served Baalim. The plural Baalim is a general term employed to denote all false deities, and is synonymous with the expression "other gods" in the clause "other gods of the gods of the nations round about them" (the Israelites). This use of the term Baalim arose from the fact that Baal was the chief male deity of the Canaanites and all the nations of Hither Asia, and was simply worshipped by the different nations with peculiar modifications, and therefore designated by various distinctive epithets. In Jdg 2:12 this apostasy is more minutely described as forsaking Jehovah the God of their fathers, to whom they were indebted for the greatest blessing, viz., their deliverance out of Egypt, and following other gods of the heathen nations that were round about them (taken verbatim from Deu 6:14, and Deu 13:7-8), and worshipping them. In this way they provoked the Lord to anger (cf. Deu 4:25; Deu 9:18, etc.).”