Judges 8:21

Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, rise thou and fall upon us,.... Since they must die, they chose rather to die by the hand of so great a man and valiant a commander as Gideon, which was more honourable

Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that were on their camels' necks.

As the man is, so is his strength: thou excellest him, as in age and stature, so in strength; and it is more honourable, as well as easy, to dig by the hands of a valiant man.

Judges 8:21 Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man [is, so is] his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that [were] on their camels’ necks.Ver. 21. Rise thou, and fall upon us.] For thou wilt quickly despatch us; and we will die with honour. “ Hoc tamen infaelix miseram solabere mortem, Aeneae magni dextra cadis. ” - Virg. Aeneid., lib. x. For as the man is, so is his strength.] This they speak with an undaunted spirit, as it may seem, which is not always a sign of a good cause, but sometimes of a dedolent and desperate disposition, as we may see in many of Satan’ s martyrs.

(21) Rise thou, and fall upon us.—They deprecated the pain and shame of falling by the irresolute hands of a boy. For as the man . . . his strength.—Deuteronomy 33:25. “As thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Ornaments.—Saharonim, “little moons,” crescent-shaped ornaments of gold and silver, still in common use to decorate animals. Isaiah 3:18, “round tires like the moon.” “Niveo lunata monilia dente” (Stat. Theb. ix. 689). After one of his battles Mohammed found a slain camel adorned with these lunulœ and with strings of emeralds. The Roman senators (for another reason) wore silver crescents on their shoes.

Verse 21. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise, thou, and fall upon us] It was disgraceful to fall by the hands of a child; and the death occasioned by the blows of such a person must be much more lingering and tormenting. Some have even employed children to despatch captives. Civilis, a Roman knight, headed a revolt of the Gauls against Rome, in the year of the city 824. Of him Tacitus says, Hist. lib. iv., c. 61: Ferebatur parvulo filio quosdam captivorum sagittis jaculisque puerilibus figendos obtulisse: "He is said to have given to his little son some prisoners, as butts to be shot at with little darts and arrows." This was for their greater torment and dishonour; and to inure his child to blood! Could any thing like this have been the design of Gideon? The ornaments that were on their camels' necks.] The heads, necks, bodies, and legs of camels, horses, and elephants, are highly ornamented in the eastern countries, and indeed this was common, from the remotest antiquity, in all countries. Virgil refers to it as a thing long before his time, and thus describes the horses given by King Latinus to the ambassadors of AEneas. - AEn. lib. vii., ver. 274. Haec effatus equos numero pater eligit omni. Stabant tercentum nitidi in praesepibus altis: Omnibus extemplo Teucris jubet ordine duci Instratos ostro alipedes pictisque tapetis. Aurea pectoribus demissa monilia pendent: Tecti auro fulvum mandunt sub dentibus aurum. "He said, and order'd steeds to mount the band: In lofty stalls three hundred coursers stand; Their shining sides with crimson cover'd o'er; The sprightly steeds embroider'd trappings wore, With golden chains, refulgent to behold: Gold were their bridles, and they champ'd on gold." PITT. Instead of ornaments, the Septuagint translate τουςμηνισκους, the crescents or half-moons; and this is followed by the Syriac and Arabic. The worship of the moon was very ancient; and, with that of the sun, constituted the earliest idolatry of mankind. We learn from Judges 8:24 that the Ishmaelites, or Arabs, as they are termed by the Targum, Syriac, and Arabic, had golden ear-rings, and probably a crescent in each; for it is well known that the Ishmaelites, and the Arabs who descended from them, were addicted very early to the worship of the moon; and so attached were they to this superstition, that although Mohammed destroyed the idolatrous use of the crescent, yet it was universally borne in their ensigns, and on the tops of their mosques, as well as in various ornaments.

21. The chiefs reply with undaunted spirit like true sons of the desert: as the man is, so is his strength, i.e. a man has a man’s strength (Moore); but the word so is not expressed in the terse Hebrew. crescents] lit. moons, metal ornaments worn not only by the kings but by their camels, Judges 8:26, and by the women of Jerusalem, Isaiah 3:18. The name is not Israelite, nor is it the ordinary word for ‘moon’; it is related to the old Aramaic name of the moon-god (sahar).

The ornaments - See marg. and compare Isaiah 3:18. The custom of adorning the necks of their camels with gold chains and ornaments prevailed among the Arabs so late as the time of Mahomet.

21. As the man… his strength — As the boy is not a man, so he has not the strength to execute this order.