📖 Biblical Definition
Place near Gilgal where the Angel of the LORD confronted Israel for failing to drive out the Canaanites and warned of the consequences (Judges 2:1-5). The narrative opens the book of Judges: And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers... but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. The people lifted up their voice and wept; they called the name of the place Bochim (weepers) and offered there sacrifice to the LORD. The episode is structurally significant: the book of Judges opens with the people's weeping over their disobedience, sets the theological frame for the entire judges-period (Israel's incomplete obedience producing a cycle of oppression, deliverance, and renewed apostasy), and establishes the principle of unfinished obedience leading to thorns-in-the-side consequences. The patriarchal-Reformed reader recovers Bochim as the type of every season in which God's people weep over their incomplete obedience and the consequences flowing from it — in personal sanctification, household formation, ecclesial integrity, and civil-cultural engagement.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
OT place (Judges 2:1-5) where the Angel of the LORD rebuked Israel for failing to drive out the Canaanites; people wept and named the place weepers.
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BOCHIM, proper n. (OT place; Hebrew Bokhim, weepers) Near Gilgal. Site of the Angel of the LORD's confrontation of Israel at the opening of Judges (Judges 2:1-5) for failing to drive out the Canaanites; the LORD's announcement that He would no longer drive them out but they would be as thorns in the sides of Israel. The people wept, named the place Bochim, and offered sacrifice. Structurally significant: opens Judges; sets the theological frame for the entire judges-period of incomplete obedience producing oppression-deliverance-apostasy cycles.
📖 Key Scripture
Judges 2:1-3 — "And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers... I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you."
Judges 2:4-5 — "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."
Numbers 33:55 — "But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides."
2 Corinthians 7:10 — "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
No major postmodern redefinition. Bochim is a typological place; the principal contemporary application is the warning against incomplete obedience and its thorns-in-the-side consequences.
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Bochim as a place name does not undergo lexical corruption. The principal pastoral application worth recovering is the typological warning: Israel's incomplete obedience to the conquest-mandate produced the thorns-in-the-side consequences of the judges-period; every season in the believer's life and the church's life in which obedience is incomplete will produce comparable thorns-in-the-side consequences. The patriarchal-Reformed reader notes the pattern: incomplete personal mortification of besetting sin produces ongoing temptation; incomplete household discipline produces ongoing chaos; incomplete ecclesial integrity produces ongoing doctrinal drift; incomplete civic-cultural engagement produces ongoing cultural oppression. The remedy is the godly sorrow that works repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10), not the worldly sorrow that works death.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Judges 2:1-5; Hebrew Bokhim, weepers; opens the book of Judges.
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['Hebrew', 'H1066', 'Bokhim', 'weepers']
['Hebrew', 'H1058', 'bakhah', 'to weep, lament']
['Hebrew', 'H1537', 'Gilgal', 'place from which the Angel came up']
Usage
"Bochim: place of Israel's weeping at the Angel's rebuke (Judges 2:1-5)."
"Opens the book of Judges; sets the frame for the incomplete-obedience cycle."
"Warning: incomplete obedience produces thorns-in-the-side consequences."