V.1-5 Do you remember reading in Joshua of the town of Gilgal? They had victories in battle when they started out from Gilgal. It was where the shame of having been in Egypt was taken away. They had been circumcised at Gilgal. Circumcision in the New Testament meaning is death to the flesh for the believer (Gal. 5:6; 16For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love. (Galatians 5:6)
6I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: (Galatians 1:6) Cor. 7:19). But now the angel moves from Gilgal to Bochim. “Bochim” (pronounced Bo-kim) means “weeping.” God tells them what was going to result from their carelessness — He would not drive out their enemies. The result was weeping. But it wasn’t very deep, for in verses 12-13 we read what they did! Sometimes we weep when we are in trouble, but go back into disobedience after a while. We could say that verses 11-13 were what Israel was, and verses 16-18 what the Lord did.
V.14-15 We are going to be reading words like these many times in this book. Many believers are constantly in a state of unhappiness and unrest for the same reason. We compromise (give in a little) with the world.
V.16-23 A preview of the book. We surely need to learn that, for our life, obedience is what we should choose (1 Cor. 6:19-20).