God is constantly working with Israel in a failed state throughout the narrative as long as their is repentance. The Mosaic Law often doesn't really make sense applied to the narrative of the Old Testament as people often do things that are capital offense with out being killed. Part of this is that you aren't looking at the Jewish legal system when you read the Mosaic Law in the Torah, but rather you are only looking at one portion of it. Its to be interpreted through the oral rabbinical tradition that was later canonized as the Talmund. I'm not very familiar with the Talmund, but analyzing Old Testament law with out it is missing a lot of the picture.