Judges 2:1-5, “Then the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? Therefore, I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thornsin your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’” So it was, when the Angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voices and wept.”

2 Chronicles 20:10-11, “…And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir—whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them— here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit.”

            The verses from judges show us how the children of Israel disobeyed God’s command. The verses from Chronicles show Judah reaping what their fathers sowed. We know the story in Chronicles that God came through and saved them, but for the all the history of Israel and Judah they were reaping what their fathers had sow. It was only during the reign of David and Solomon did Israel enjoy close to God’s original plan for them.

            The funny thing is we do the same thing in our lives. We disobey God then when we reap the benefits of our actions, our first reaction is to blame Him. God created us in His image and likeness. That means He gave us the ability to make decisions with our own will. When bad things happen in our lives before we start blaming God, let us examine our own actions as well and take responsibility for our part.

            During David’s reign the people conquered a lot of territory and the kingdom expanded. Israel biggest problem never came from outside, they came from within. David took responsibility of his actions and God restored him every time. Under Solomon, Israel had peace and prosperity. Solomon did not start worshipping other gods until toward the end of his reign (1 Kings 11:4).  After his death Israel got divided and the other nations began to reclaim their territory.

            God empowered Israel to become the most powerful nation on the earth, but their disobedience led to their demise and captivity. The only thing God was responsible for was their success. Their demise was totally on Israel because they disobeyed God. God’s action was based on the covenant He had with Israel. God references this covenant in the Judges verses (Deuteronomy 28).