Judges 7:22

And the three hundred men blew the trumpets,.... Kept blowing them to continue and increase the terror of the enemy, and still held the lamps in their hands, and stood as torch bearers to light the

And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the LORD, and of Gideon.

They slew one another, either because they suspected treachery, and so fell upon those they first met with; which they might more easily do, because they consisted of several nations, as may be gathered from , and Josephus affirms; or because the darkness of the night made them unable to distinguish friends from foes; or because the suddenness of the thing struck them with horror and amazement; or because God infatuated them, as he hath done many others. Compare . Abel-meholah; of which see 19:16.

Judges 7:22 And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man’ s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, [and] to the border of Abelmeholah, unto Tabbath. Ver. 22. And the Lord set every man’ s sword against his fellow.] For being smitten by God with a spirit of giddiness, they took their friends for their foes: and, like those terrigenae fratres, they slaughtered one another in the place. See the like, 1 Samuel 14:15-20 2 Chronicles 20:23. And the host fled to Bethshittah, &c.] Places unknown to us out of Scripture, save only Abelmeholah, which was in the half tribe of Manasseh within Canaan, and so, likely, were the rest. But whithersoever they fled, in running from death they ran to it. This Abelmeholah was afterwards the habitation of the prophet Elisha.

(22) Blew the trumpets.—They continued to blow incessantly, to add to the panic. The Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow.—We have an exact parallel to this in the mutual slaughter of the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites, when stricken with a similar panic before the army of Jehoshaphat, in 2 Chronicles 20:21-22; and on a smaller scale in the camp of the Philistines at Gibeah (1 Samuel 14). The tremendous tragedy of their flight can only be appreciated by the vivid impression which it made on the national imagination (Isaiah 9:4; Isaiah 10:26). In Psalms 83:13-14, it is compared to the whirling flight of dry weeds before a rush of flame and wind, recalling the Arab imprecation, “May you be whirled like the akukb (‘wild artichoke,’ ‘a wheel,’ ‘a rolling thing’) before the wind, until you are caught in the thorns or plunged into the sea” (Thomson, Land and Book, Judges 36). Beth-shittah.—It should be rather, Beth hash-shit-tah, “the house of the acacia”—a place named from the trees which are still abundant in that neighbourhood, just as we have such names as Burntash, Seven-oaks, Nine Elms, &c. (Comp. Abel-Shittim, Numbers 33:49; Joshua 21.) If Beth hash-shittah was the village Shultah, with which Robinson (Bibl. Reg., 3:219) identifies it, some of the host must have fled northwards. It is improbable that it was another name for Beth-shean, though the LXX. have Bethsead in some MSS. It is, however, by no means unlikely that some of the marauders would fly towards the fords of the Jordan near Bethshean (comp. Jos. Antt. v. 6, § 5), as others fled south to the fords near Succoth, which lay to the south of the Jabbok. In.—Rather, towards, as in the margin. Zererath.—Rather, Zererah. This is omitted in the Vulgate; the LXX. have the extraordinary reading Tagaragatha, or in some MSS. “and he led them.” The final th is no part of the name, but the mode of connecting the name with the particle of motion. Zererath is not again mentioned, but the distinction between the Hebrew letters r (ø) and d (ã) is so slight that the reading Zeredath may here be correct; and if so, it may be the Zeredath in Ephraim, which was the birthplace of Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:26), and the Zaretan of Jos 3:16, 1 Kings 7:46, which is sixteen miles north of Jericho. To the border.—Literally, as in the margin, to the lip, or brink, as in Genesis 22:17; Exodus 4:30. It does not, however, necessarily prove that Abel-meholah was on the edge of the Jordan valley. Abel-meholah.—“The meadow of the dance.” It was in Ephraim, and was the native place of Elisha (1 Kings 19:16; see, too, 1 Kings 4:12). Eusebius and Jerome place it ten miles south of Bethshean, at Wady Maleb. Abel means “a moist, grassy meadow.” Unto Tabbath.—Literally, upon Tabbath. The name seems to mean “famous,” but the site is unknown, unless it be the remarkable bank called Tubukhat Fahil,

Verse 22. Fled to Beth-shittah] This is no where else mentioned in Scripture. Zererath] This and Tabbath are nowhere else to be found. Abel-meholah] This was the birth-place of the prophet Elisha, 1Kg 19:16. It was beyond Jordan, in the tribe of Manasseh, 1Kg 4:12. The Zartanah, mentioned in this last quoted verse, was probably the same as Zererath. Its situation corresponds well with Abel-meholah.

22. The Midianites, roused suddenly from sleep, gave the alarm and tried to fly (Judges 7:21); now, believing themselves to be completely surrounded, and cumbered by their tents and cattle, they turn their swords against one another (cf. 1 Samuel 14:20, 2 Kings 3:23), and the flight becomes general. For and against all the host read in all the host, LXX, Peshitto The Midianites no doubt fled down the valley eastwards, and made for the Jordan fords, but the places named as marking the course of the flight cannot be identified with certainty. The accumulation of names (note the double as far as) is perhaps due to the fusion of two narratives. Beth-shittah (‘house of the acacia’) has been identified with the present Shiṭ ?ṭ ?βh, 6 m. E. of Zer‘ξn (Jezreel), but this is too near the site of the camp. Zerηrah is perhaps to be read Zerηdah (with many MSS.) 1 Kings 11:26, which is generally identified with Zarĕ ?than, 2 Chronicles 4:17 compared with 1 Kings 7:46; this will bring the place considerably to the south, near to Adam (Joshua 3:16) = the ford Dβmiyeh. But the identification is not certain, for in 1 Kings 4:12 Zarĕ ?than is beside Beth-shean, the modern Bηsβn, and below Jezreel; the two names are perhaps confused, possibly the northern was Zerηdah, the southern Zarĕ ?than. Abel-meholah (1 Kings 4:12; 1 Kings 19:16) is identified by Eusebius, Onom. Sacr., 227, 35 with Bethmaiĕ ?la, a village in the Jordan valley, 10 Roman miles from Scythopolis (= Beth-shean). The lip of Abel-meholah (see marg.) was no doubt the cliff where the valley ended in a steep descent to the river. Tabbath is quite unknown.

Beth-shittah - - “House of the acacias,” the same trees which gave their name to “Shittim” Numbers 33:49 in the plains of Maab, and which grew plentifully also, in the peninsula of Sinai Exodus 25:5

22. Every man’s sword against his fellow — Midianite slaughtered Midianite, so that the sword of the enemy did service for the Lord and for Gideon. Beth-shittah — Possibly the modern Shutta, between Jezreel and the Jordan.