Judges 6

3 the Midianites came up. These Midianites were principally wandering herdmen of the Eastern deserts, like the Bedouin Arabs of the present day. Many of them were probably descended from Abraham and Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2; 1 Chron. i. 32); but they seem to have been intermixed with Ishmaelites (Gen. xxxvii. 25, 28) and Amalekites (3).

4 unto Gaza. Across the whole breadth of the land.

5. Grasshoppers. “Locusts.”

11. Ophrah. Ophrah is thought by Conder and Sir G. A. Smith to be the modern Ferata, a little to the S.W. of Shechem (Nabious).

threshed wheat. The Hebrew denotes “threshed wheat with a flail.” This would require less room than the ordinary treading out by cattle, and be more likely to escape notice.

12. The Lord is with thee. Once more note the force of the original, “The Eternal is with thee.”

15 my family is poor. Literally, “poorest.”

22. O Lord God. “Adonai Jahveh” (My Lord the Eternal).

25 the second bullock of seven years old. Perhaps this was the youngest above the age of three years (the proper age for sacrifice) left by the invaders. But some render the passage, “Take a bullock, the steer which is thy father’s, and a bullock, the second of seven years, and destroy,” etc. Thus there would be two bullocks used in removing the materials of the altar and the Asherah-idol, the second of which was sacrificed (26, 28).

cut down the grove. See note on iii. 7.

26 in the ordered place. Or, “in the orderly manner” (R.V.); i.e., doing all in the method prescribed for sacrifice.

30 that he may die. Treating as a capital offence an effort to suppress practices which their own Divine law had made punishable with death.

32 he called him. Rather, “he was called."—Jerubbaai. “Let Baal fight” or “Baal fights.”

34. Abi-ezer was gathered after him. Gideon’s bold defiance of the heathen gods seems to have encouraged the people to trust to his leadership: see next verse.

36. Gideon said, etc. Gideon was prudent as well as bold. He fully trusted God’s promise; but desired to be certain that the promise had been really given.

38 a bowl full. The sign was not in the quantity of dew, which was not extraordinary, but in its partial distribution. This was the more remarkable in the second case (ver. 40), as the fleece would, in the ordinary course of things, have retained the dew more than the ground.