Scripture Focus: “And it came to pass, when the angel of the LORD spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice, and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim: and they sacrificed there unto the LORD.” — Judges 2:4–5
They cried enough to give the place a new name.
That’s what first catches my attention in these verses. When Israel heard God’s rebuke, they were deeply affected. They lifted up their voices and wept so bitterly that the place became known as Bochim, meaning “weepers.” Then they offered sacrifices to the LORD. This was not a casual response. Their hearts had been touched.
But something about the passage troubles me. It doesn’t tell us that they went back and tore down the altars God had commanded them to destroy or broke the alliances they had been forbidden to make.
There’s a difference between being deeply moved by conviction and being changed by conviction. Tears can accompany repentance, but tears are not repentance by themselves. We can feel terrible about something, pray about it, cry over it, confess it—and still leave the offending thing standing exactly where it was.
This makes God’s question in verse 2 particularly penetrating: “Why have ye done this?” God wasn’t merely trying to make Israel feel badly about what they had done. He was confronting a course of disobedience that needed to change.
Their choices also had consequences. Israel had permitted influences to remain that God had intended to remove, and those influences would become “thorns” and “snares” (Judges 2:3). Their tears could not rewind yesterday.
But Bochim didn’t have to be the end of their story. It could have become a turning point. They could not change yesterday’s compromise, but they could determine what they would do with today’s conviction.
That brings this uncomfortably close to home.
Sometimes we can mistake being moved by something for having responded to it. A sermon pierces us. Scripture troubles our conscience. We pray about it. We may even shed tears. Something significant has happened—but the real question comes when we get up from prayer:
What am I going to do differently because God spoke to me?
Paul says that “godly sorrow worketh repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:10). I love that wording. Godly sorrow works. It produces movement.
Conviction may bring us to tears, but repentance gets us back on our feet and turns them in a different direction.
If this Fireside Chat warmed your spirit and sparked fresh resolve to live what you believe, fan that flame with Scripture—“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). Pull a little closer to the Light, and carry it into the week ahead.
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