Judges 2:17

they went a whoring after other gods As notoriously after the death of Gideon Judges 8:33 (cf. Judges 8:27). This figurative expression occurs in the Pent., and especially in the prophets Hos. and Ezek., to denote forcibly Israel's unfaithfulness to Jehovah. As prostitution was a common feature of Semitic cults, the words may have been used originally in a literal sense, and afterwards metaphorically.

their fathers i.e. Joshua and his contemporaries, Judges 2:7.

This verse interrupts the connexion between Judges 2:16; Judges 2:18, and the phraseology and thought are not so distinctly Deuteronomic as the rest of the passage. The verse "seems to be the exclamation of a reader rather than the reflexion of a compiler" (Lagrange).