This passage is a near duplication of Joshua 24:28–31. Yet there are noteworthy differences, which shows that the narrator is not simply recording history, but history with a theological purpose: this is “a case of the author doing things with what he is saying. The death of Joshua had already been noted in Judges 1:1, to introduce the military failures of the Israelite conquest. Now the restatement of the hero’s demise…explores the theological underpinnings of these Israelite debacles."¹ In Joshua 24 the verses are used to end a story, while in Judges 2 they introduce the account of a new era after Joshua. This explains the difference in sequence: Judges 2:7 corresponds to Joshua 24:31, and Judges 2:8–9 to Joshua 24:29–30. Additionally, Judges 2:6 clearly cannot mean (like Joshua 24:28) that Joshua dismissed the people from the national assembly at Shechem, for the previous verses have not spoken of this. The verse must rather have a broader meaning, as indeed can be seen from the added statement that 'they went to take possession of the land.'²