The object of leaving these heathen nations was not to ascertain whether Israel, thus exposed to close and constant contact with heathenism, would remain faithful to its own religion. “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). Rather, from the first it was evident that Israel was not remaining faithful. God left the nations as instruments to afflict the Israelites, to punish them, and to teach them that the way of apostasy does not pay. Through the afflictions God was endeavoring to turn the minds of His people back to Him. This seems to be the connotation the word “prove” holds here. It means “to try” in the sense of bringing trying experiences that will awaken the people to their true state.

Similar experiences have been the lot of men in all ages. Periods of suffering and disappointment have served to turn the thoughts of the tempted back upon the seriousness of duty and the great purpose of God in their existence. These experiences were not to show up men’s characters to God, for He knows their hearts, but rather to “prove” to them their true estate.

Notwithstanding the repeated failures of Israel during this period, the discipline was not an entire failure. The chastisements by foreign nations must have wrought salutary changes in the lives of some of the Hebrews. The stern and consistent punishments, no doubt, instilled in many the feeling that the way of sin was a way of sorrow. To borrow Bunyan’s phrases, God made “By-path Meadow” rougher than the “King’s highway.” After having been seized by “Giant Despair” several times, the Israelites were often glad to return again by the way they had departed. These chastisements taught the people sufficiently hard lessons so that by the time of Samuel the Israelites seem to have made some progress spiritually. At the end of the period of the judges, when Samuel’s judgeship was ushered in, we hear less of apostasies than formerly. Furthermore, all these troubles tended to cause different tribes to draw closer together, so that by Samuel’s time a strong nationalistic feeling was discernible.

 The natural tendency to do “every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes” (Deut. 12:8; cf. Judges 17:6; 21:25) was fully demonstrated by Israel during the centuries they were ruled over by the judges, and later under the monarchy. The ways of a man are usually “right in his own eyes” (Prov. 21:2). As a result, “all we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (Isa. 53:6).