Judges 1:7

And Adonibezek said,.... To the men of Judah, after his thumbs and toes were cut off, his conscience accusing him for what he had done to others, and being obliged to acknowledge he was righteously

And Adonibezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.

Threescore and ten kings; which is not strange in those times and places; for these might be either, first, kings successively, and so there might be divers of those kings in one place, and so in others; or, secondly, contemporary kings. For it is well known that anciently each ruler of a city, or great town, was called a king, and had kingly power in that place; and many such kings we meet with in Canaan; and it is probable that some years before kings were more numerous there, till the greater devoured many of the less. Having their thumbs cut off, that so their hands might be unable to manage weapons of war. Gathered their meat under my table; an act of barbarous inhumanity thus to insult over the miserable, joined with abominable luxury. God hath requited me: he acknowledgeth the providence and vindictive justice of God, which also Pharaoh did, and others too, without any true sense of piety. They brought him; they carried him in triumph, as a monument of God’ s righteous vengeance. To Jerusalem; it being the metropolis of the nation.

7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Ver. 7. Giving themselves over] In scortationem effusae, wearying and wearing themselves out with that beastly sin, εκπορνευσασαιεκεπιτασιν habet; as did Proculus, Messalina, and Lais, who died in the act of uncleanness. (απεθανεβινουμενη, Athen. xiii.) The word here used signifies, saith Aretius, Scortationi immori, et contabescere illius desiderio, To waste and consume with that cursed concupiscence. Such a one was that filthy lecher mentioned by Luther, who desired no other heaven than to live always here, and be carried from one stews to another. He died between a couple of notorious strumpets. And going after strange flesh] Are set forth] Gr. προκεινται, are thrown forth. For an example] Herodotus saith the like of the destruction of Troy, that the ruins and rubbish thereof are set forth for an example of this rule, τωνμεγαλωναδικηματωνμεγαλαιεισικαιαιτιμωριαιπαρατουΘεου, that God greatly punisheth great offences.

(7) Threescore and ten kings.—The number might seem incredible, were it not that the title “king” was freely given to every petty Emir, and even to village Sheykhs. The “seventy” kings may have been the rulers of the towns which Adoni-bezek had taken in extending the territory of Bezek. Josephus says seventy-two kings (Antt. v. 2, § 2), and this common variation is found in some MSS. of the LXX. The Persians treated their Greek captives in this way (Curtius, v. 5,6). Mutilation in the East was so common that it was hardly accounted cruel (Xen. Anab. i. 9-13). Cutting off the hand or foot was the prescribed Mohammedan punishment for theft in British India (Mill, iii. 447), and many mutilated persons are still to be seen in Northern Scinde (see Grote’s Greece, xii. 235). Gathered their meat under my table.—The words “their meat” are wanting in the original. Adoni-bezek, with cruel insolence, treated these subject Sheykhs like dogs “which eat of the fragments that fall from the table of their lords” (Matthew 15:27). Posidonius says that the king of Parthia used to fling food to his courtiers, who seized it like dogs (Athen. 4:152). The existence of these feuds among the Canaanites would render the task of the Israelites more easy. As I have done, so God hath requited me.—Comp. Judges 8:19; 1 Samuel 15:33, “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women;” Judges 15:11, “As they (the Philistines) did unto me, so have 1 (Samson) done unto them;” Jeremiah 51:56, “The Lord God of recompences shall surely requite thee;” Exodus 18:11, “For the thing wherein they sinned came upon them.” (See Matthew 7:2; Galatians 6:7; James 2:13.) The word used for God is Elohim. In Greek theology this punishment of like by like is called “the retribution of Neoptolemus,” who murdered Priam at an altar, and was himself murdered at an altar (Pausan. v. 17, 3). The fate of Phalaris, burnt in his own brazen bull (Ovid, De Art. Am. i. 653), and of Dionysius (Ælian, Var. Hist. ix. 8), were also prominent illustrations of the law. We must not suppose that this Canaanite prince worshipped Jehovah, but only that he recognised generally that a Divine retribution had overtaken him. It is one of the commonest facts of history that “Even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of the poisoned chalice To our own lips.” This truth, “that wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished,” is magnificently, if somewhat fancifully, worked out in Wisdom 11, 17, 18 They brought him to Jerusalem.—Rabbi Tanchum, author of the celebrated traditional Midrash (or “exposition”), says that this notice must be prospective, i.e., it must refer to a time subsequent to the conquest of Jerusalem mentioned in the next verse. It may, however, merely mean that they kept him with them in their camp when they advanced to the siege of Jerusalem; or the “they” may refer to his own people.

Verse 7. Threescore and ten kinds] Chieftains, heads of tribes, or military officers. For the word king cannot be taken here in its proper and usual sense. Having their thumbs and their great toes cut off] That this was an ancient mode of treating enemies we learn from AElian, who tells us, Var. Hist. l. ii., c. 9, that "the Athenians, at the instigation of Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, made a decree that all the inhabitants of the island of AEgina should have the thumb cut off from the right hand, so that they might ever after be disabled from holding a spear, yet might handle an oar." This is considered by AElian an act of great cruelty; and he wishes to Minerva, the guardian of the city, to Jupiter Eleutherius, and all the gods of Greece, that the Athenians had never done such things. It was a custom among those Romans who did not like a military life, to cut off their own thumbs, that they might not be capable of serving in the army. Sometimes the parents cut off the thumbs of their children, that they might not be called into the army. According to Suetonius, in Vit. August., c. 24, a Roman knight, who had cut off the thumbs of his two sons to prevent them from being called to a military life was, by the order of Augustus, publicly sold, both he and his property. These are the words of Suetonius: Equitem Romanum, quod duobus filis adolescentibus, causa detractandi sacramenti, pollices amputasset, ipsum bonaque subjecit hastae. Calmet remarks that the Italian language has preserved a term, poltrone, which signifies one whose thumb is cut off, to designate a soldier destitute of courage and valour. We use poltroon to signify a dastardly fellow, without considering the import of the original. There have been found frequent instances of persons maiming themselves, that they might be incapacitated for military duty. I have heard an instance in which a knavish soldier discharged his gun through his hand, that he might be discharged from his regiment. The cutting off of the thumbs was probably designed for a double purpose: 1. To incapacitate them for war; and, 2. To brand them as cowards. Gathered their meat under my table] I think this was a proverbial mode of expression, to signify reduction to the meanest servitude; for it is not at all likely that seventy kings, many of whom must have been contemporaries, were placed under the table of the king of Bezek, and there fed; as in the houses of poor persons the dogs are fed with crumbs and offal, under the table of their owners. So God hath requited me.] The king of Bezek seems to have had the knowledge of the true God, and a proper notion of a Divine providence. He now feels himself reduced to that state to which he had cruelly reduced others. Those acts in him were acts of tyrannous cruelty; the act towards him was an act of retributive justice.

7. Threescore and ten kings] Seventy is a round number; the sheikhs of the Canaanite towns were numerous, and they were continually fighting. Adoni-zedek was evidently a powerful and important chief among them, as is also implied by Joshua 10:1 ff. His words are not so much a savage boast as an acknowledgment of the irony of fate, and of the divine justice of the lex talionis. gathered their meat] used to pick up scraps, like dogs (St Matthew 15:27; Odyss. xvii. 309), while the master sat on the ground, or, as in Saul’s time, on a seat by the wall, 1 Samuel 20:25. The captives were not, of course, actually under the table, which was a low stand supporting a round wooden or metal tray for the food. And they brought him to Jerusalem] The subject is naturally the same as in Judges 1:6, i.e. the men of Judah, implying that Jerusalem was already in their hands; but Judges 1:21 (see Joshua 15:63) expressly states that this was not the case. Though the context does not favour such a construction, the subject may be taken as indefinite, ‘men brought him,’ ‘he was brought,’ i.e. by his servants. According to Joshua 10 Adoni-zedek was king of Jerusalem; his title may have been omitted in Judges 1:5, as noted above. In the original narrative Judges 1:7 was probably followed by Judges 1:19; Judges 1:21 (corrected), which continue the history of Judah, and therefore should precede the accounts of the subordinate clans (Judges 1:10-17; Judges 1:20). After Jerusalem (Judges 1:21), the next important place to be attacked would be Hebron (Judges 1:10).

Threescore and ten kings - We may infer from this number of conquered kings, that the intestine wars of the Canaanites were among the causes which, under God’s Providence, weakened their resistance to the Israelites.

7. Threescore and ten kings — The chief of every petty village was styled a king. This accounts for the number of maimed wretches who scrambled or cravenly begged for the crumbs beneath this brutal conqueror’s table.