Judges 8:7

And Gideon said,.... In answer to the princes of Succoth: therefore when the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand; of which he made no doubt, having the promise of God that he would

And Gideon said, Therefore when the LORD hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.

With the thorns which grow abundantly in the neighbouring wilderness; I will chastise or beat your naked bodies with thorny rods, even unto death. Or, I will lay you down upon thorns on the ground, and bring the cartwheel upon you, which will both tear your flesh, and bruise you to death.

Judges 8:7 And Gideon said, Therefore when the LORD hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.Ver. 7. Then I will tear your flesh.] Heb., I will thresh your flesh with the thorns. The Chaldee hath it, upon thorns; q.d., will whip you to death repetitis ictibus, by stroke upon stroke with thorns or thistles of very sharp prickles. And this he threateneth to do, not out of passion, but on premeditation, as a just severity towards such treacherous wretches.

(7) And Gideon said.—Notice in this verse the mixture of heroic faith and barbarous severity. It was this courage and faith (Hebrews 11:32) which ennobled Gideon and made him an example for all time. The ruthlessness of the punishment which he threatened to inflict belongs to the wild times in which he lived, and the very partial spiritual enlightenment of an imperfect dispensation (Matthew 5:21; Matthew 19:8; Acts 17:30). It is no more to be held up for approval or imitation than his subsequent degeneracy; while, at the same time, Gideon must, of course, be only judged by such light as he had. I will tear your flesh.—Rather, as in the margin, I will thresh (LXX., aloηso, which is better than the other reading, kataxano, “will card”; Vulg., conteram). It has usually been supposed that they were scourged with thorns, which would be terrible enough; but the verb here used is stronger, and seems to imply that they were “put under harrows” after thorns and briers had been scattered over them. That Gideon should inflict a retribution so awful cannot be surprising if we remember that David seems to have done the same (2 Samuel 12:31; 1 Chronicles 20:3; Amos 1:3). In this case, however, the torture was more terrible, because it was inflicted not on aliens, but on Israelites. It must be borne in mind that every man is largely influenced by the spirit of the age in which he lives, and that in the East to this day there is (1) far greater indifference than there is in Europe to the value of human life, and (2) far greater insensibility to the infliction of pain; so that the mere mention of punishments inflicted, even in this century, by such men as Djezzar and Mehemet Ali makes the blood run cold. It was only by slow degrees that (as we can trace in the writings of their prophets and historians) the Jews learnt that deeper sense of humanity which it was certainly the object of many precepts of the Mosaic Law to inspire. The defections of Succoth and Penuel were even worse than that indifference of Meroz which had called forth the bitter curse of Jdg 5:23. With the thorns of the wilderness.—These thorns (kotsim) are again mentioned in Hosea 10:8. Rabbi Tanchum could not explain what plant was meant. It is not impossible (as Kimchi suggests) that the form of the punishment was suggested by another wild play on words; for Succoth (ρֻ ?λּ ?εֹ ?ϊ), though it means “booths,” suggests the idea of “thorns” (ρλεϊ), Briers.—This word, barkanim, which the LXX. merely transliterate, occurs nowhere else. The Rabbis rightly understood it of thorny plants which grow among stones. Some modern Hebraists explain it to mean harrows formed of flints, deriving it from an obsolete word, barkan, “lightning” (see on Judges 4:6), and so meaning “pyrites.” In that case we must suppose that the elders were laid on some open area, and harrows set with flints driven over them.

Verse 7. I will tear your flesh] What this punishment consisted in I cannot say; it must mean a severe punishment: as if he had said, I will thresh your flesh with briers and thorns, as corn is threshed out with threshing instruments; or, Ye shall be trodden down under the feet of my victorious army, as the corn is trodden out with the feet of the ox. Succoth was beyond Jordan, in the tribe of Gad. Penuel was also in the same tribe, and not far distant from Succoth.

7. I will tear] thresh as marg. In the East threshing is done by treading (e.g. Isaiah 28:28), which is what the verb here means; Gideon promises to trample their flesh together with thorns of the desert and briers, i.e. to lay them naked on a bed of thorns and tread them down; so Targ. But the text reads awkwardly; for together with the LXX has a different preposition, with as in Judges 8:16 (‘with them’); this somewhat alters the meaning of Gideon’s threat, see on Judges 8:16. The word rendered briers (so Verss.) occurs only here, and its exact sense is unknown; a plant like the teasel may be intended. Thorny bushes abound in the sub-tropical Ghôr where Succoth lay.

7. I will tear your flesh — I will thresh your flesh, that is, beat and lacerate, even unto death. Thorns — Which grew strong in the desert, and afforded a whip with which the keenest torment could be inflicted.