Judges 2:20-Judges 3:4 - The Lord Allows The Nations To Stay In Order To Test His People
20 In his burning anger against Israel, the LORD said, "Because the people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their ancestors to keep, and because they haven't obeyed me, 21 I'm also going to stop expelling any of the nations that remained after Joshua died. 22 That way, I'll use them to demonstrate whether or not Israel will keep the LORD's lifestyle by walking on that road like their ancestors did." 23 So the LORD caused those nations to remain and did not expel them quickly. He did not give them into Joshua's control.
1 Here's a list of nations that the LORD caused to remain in order to test Israel (that is, everyone who had not gained any battle experience in Canaan) 2 only so that successive Israeli generations, who had not known war previously, might come to know it by experience. 3 These nations included the five lords of the Philistines, all of the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. 4 They remained there to test Israel, to reveal if they would obey the commands of the LORD that he issued to their ancestors through Moses.