Matthew Henry

Then he took the elders of the city, and using the thorns and briers of the wilderness, he disciplined the men of Succoth.

“The correction he gave them was intended, not for destruction, but wholesome discipline, to make them wiser and better for the future.”

Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, “Get up and kill us yourself, for as the man is, so is his strength.”

“Either they mean it of themselves (they were men of such strength as called for a better hand than that young man's to overpower quickly) or of Gideon, "Thou art at thy full strength; he has not yet come to it; therefore be thou the…”

God sent a spirit of animosity between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem and caused them to treat Abimelech deceitfully,

“Their own lusts were evil spirits; they are devils in men's own hearts; from them come wars and fightings. These God gave them up to, and so might be said to send the evil spirits between them.”

Meanwhile, Gaal son of Ebed came with his brothers and crossed into Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem put their confidence in him.

“This Gaal is said to be the son of Ebed, which signifies a servant, perhaps denoting the meanness of his extraction. As Abimelech was by the mother's side, so he by the father's, the son of a servant.”

Then Gaal son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him?

“(2.) Of his good father likewise, Gideon: Is not he the son of Jerubbaal? So he calls him, perhaps in an impious indignation at his name and memory for throwing down the altar of Baal, turning that to his reproach which was his praise.”

When Abimelech came to attack the tower, he approached its entrance to set it on fire.

“Those who have escaped and succeeded well in one desperate attempt are apt to think the like attempt another time not desperate. This instance was long after quoted to show how dangerous it is to come near the call of a besieged city, 2 Sam.”

After the time of Abimelech, a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose up to save Israel.

“It signifies a worm, yet, being the name of his ancestor, he was not ashamed of it. Though he was of Issachar, yet, when he was raised up to the government, he came and dwelt in Mount Ephraim, which was more in the heart of…”

Tola was followed by Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel twenty-two years.

“Jair bore the name of a very famous man of the same tribe who in Moses's time was very active in reducing this country, Num. xxxii.”

who that very year harassed and oppressed the Israelites, and did so for eighteen years to all the Israelites on the other side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land…

“Others make them to commence at the death of Jair, which seems the more probable because that part of Israel which was most infested by the Ammonites was Gilead, Jair's own country, which we cannot suppose to have suffered so much while he was living…”

“We have sinned,” the Israelites said to the LORD. “Deal with us as You see fit; but please deliver us today!”

“Note, True penitents dare and will refer themselves to God to correct them as he thinks fit, knowing that their sin is highly malignant in its deserts, and that God is not rigorous or extreme in his demands.”

Some time later, when the Ammonites fought against Israel

“Probably this was the same invasion with that mentioned, ch. x. 17 , when the children of Ammon were gathered together and encamped in or against Gilead.”

Jephthah replied to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me and expel me from my father’s house?

“They had thrust God out by their idolatries, yet in their distress begged his help; he told them how justly he might have rejected them, and yet graciously delivered them.”

For three hundred years Israel has lived in Heshbon, Aroer, and their villages, as well as all the cities along the banks of the Arnon.

“So that, supposing their title had not been clear at the first (which yet he had proved it was), yet, no claim having been made for so many generations, the entry of the children of Ammon, without doubt, was barred for ever.”

I have not sinned against you, but you have done me wrong by waging war against me. May the LORD, the Judge, decide today between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”

“With this solemn reference of the matter to the Judge of heaven and earth he designs either to deter the Ammonites from proceeding and oblige them to retire, when they saw the right of the cause was against them, or to justify himself in subduing…”

Jephthah made this vow to the LORD: “If indeed You will deliver the Ammonites into my hand,

“The matter of such a singular vow ( Lev. xxvii. 2 ) must be something that has a plain and direct tendency either to the advancement of God's glory, and the interests of his kingdom among men, or to the furtherance of ourselves in his…”

She also said to her father, “Let me do this one thing: Let me wander for two months through the mountains with my friends and mourn my virginity.”

“Besides, had she only been confined to a single life, she needed not to have desired these two months to bewail it in: she had her whole life before her to do that, if she saw cause.”

Now there was a man from Zorah named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, whose wife was barren and had no children.

“Dan signifies a judge or judgment, Gen. xxx. And probably it was with an eye to Samson that dying Jacob foretold, Dan shall judge his people, that is, "he shall produce a judge for his people, though one of the sons of the handmaids, as…”

The woman ran quickly to tell her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has reappeared!” So Manoah got up and followed his wife.

“"Oh," says she, overjoyed, "my dear love, thy prayers are answered--yonder is the man of God, come to make us another visit--he that came the other day," or, as some read it, this day, for other is not in the original, and it is probable…”

But his wife replied, “If the LORD had intended to kill us, He would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering from our hands, nor would He…

“Had he thought fit to kill us, (1.) He would not have accepted our sacrifice, and signified to us his acceptance of it by turning it to ashes, Ps. xx.”

(Now his father and mother did not know this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to move against the Philistines; for at that time the Philistines were…

“It was not a thing evil in itself for him to marry a Philistine. It was forbidden because of the danger of receiving hurt by idolaters; where there was not only no danger of that kind, but an opportunity hoped for of doing that hurt…”

But they said to him, “We have come down to arrest you and hand you over to the Philistines.”

“That, by being delivered up to the Philistine, he might have an opportunity of making a slaughter among them.”

He found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men.

“But he was to be a type of him that trod the wine-press alone. Samson celebrating his own victory, since the men of Judah would not do even that for him.”

Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey I have piled them into heaps. With the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men.”

“The same word in Hebrew ( chamor ) signifies both an ass and a heap, so that this is an elegant paronomasia, and represents the Philistines falling as tamely as asses.”

Then she called out, “Samson, the Philistines are here!” When Samson awoke from his sleep, he thought, “I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.”

“He soon found in himself some change, we have reason to think so, and yet wist not that the Lord had departed from him: he did not consider that this was the reason of the change.”

Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze shackles and forced to grind grain in the prison.

“If we sleep in the lap of our lusts, we shall certainly wake in the hands of the Philistines. It is probable they had promised Delilah not to kill him, but they took an effectual course to disable him.”