Judges3chapter 3

Judges 3:7

“Served Baalim and the groves - No groves were ever worshipped, but the deities who were supposed to be resident in them; and in many cases temples and altars were built in groves, and the superstition of consecrating groves and woods to the honor of the deities was a practice very usual with the ancients. Pliny assures us that trees, in old times, served for the temples of the gods. Tacitus reports this custom of the old Germans; Quintus Curtius, of the Indians; and Caesar, and our old writers, mention the same of the Druids in Britain.”

Judges 3:8

“Now Chusarsaton's name is translated as "humiliation." They were delivered, then, to the hands of one who would humiliate them. And it was because they acted wickedly on the heights of the mountains against the Most High that he sent them to their humiliation. But I don't want you to think that it is only in relation to the ancients that divine providence delivers those who were exalted in wickedness for the purpose of humiliating them and that they may be healed by such a wholesome remedy.”

Judges 3:8

“Chushan-rishathaim - Kushan, the wicked or impious; and so the word is rendered by the Chaldee Targum, the Syriac, and the Arabic, wherever it occurs in this chapter. King of Mesopotamia - King of ארם נהרים Aram naharayim, “Syria of the two rivers;” translated Mesopotamia by the Septuagint and Vulgate. It was the district situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, called by the Arabian geographers Maverannaher, “the country beyond the river,” it is now called Diarbek. See the note on Act 2:”

Judges 3:9

“It calls the savior "Othniel," which means "the time of God for me." Through this first Othniel, then, the people were delivered from their humiliating servility and were restored to peace rather than having their longstanding pride and various deeds removed.”

Judges 3:9

“Raised up - Othniel, the son of Kenaz - This noble Hebrew was of the tribe of Judah, and nephew and son-in-law to Caleb, whose praise stands without abatement in the sacred records. Othniel had already signalized his valor in taking Kirjath-sepher, which appears to have been a very hazardous exploit. By his natural valor, experience in war, and the peculiar influence of the Divine Spirit, he was well qualified to inspire his countrymen with courage, and to lead them successfully against their oppressors.”

Judges 3:10

“His hand prevailed - We are not told or what nature this war was, but it was most decisive; and the consequence was an undisturbed peace of forty years, during the whole life of Othniel.”

Judges 3:10

“Came upon him - With extraordinary influence, endowing him with singular wisdom and courage, and stirring him up to this great undertaking. Judged Israel - That is, pleaded and avenged the cause of Israel against their oppressors.”

Judges 3:10

“The Chaldee says, The spirit of prophecy remained on him. He first judged Israel, reproved them, called them to account for their sins, and reformed them, and then went out to war. This was the right method.”

Judges 3:11

“And the land had rest forty years,.... As it should seem from the time of this deliverance; though, according to Ben Gersom and Abarbinel, the eight years' servitude are to be included in them; and Bishop Usher (r) reckons these forty years from the rest first settled in the land by Joshua; but the former sense seems best: and Othniel the son of Kenaz died: not at the end of the forty years; it is not likely he should live so long, but when he died is not certain; Eusebius (s) says he judged Israel fifty years. (r) Anual. Vet.”

Judges 3:11

“The land - means here, as in Jdg 1:2, not the whole land of Canaan, but the part concerned, probably the land of the tribe of Judah. Forty years, here and elsewhere, is (like fourscore years, Jdg 3:30) a round number, perhaps equivalent to a generation.”

Judges 3:12

“The children of Israel did evil - They forgat the Lord and became idolaters, and God made those very people, whom they had imitated in their idolatrous worship, the means of their chastisement. The Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab - The success he had against the Israelites was by the especial appointment and energy of God. He not only abandoned the Israelites, but strengthened the Moabites against them. Eglon is supposed to have been the immediate successor of Balak.”

Judges 3:13

“The children of Ammon (Bent-Ammon), almost always so spoken of from their ancestor Ben-ammi Gen 19:38, seem to be under the leadership of the king of Moab, as do also the Amlekites: this is perhaps the strengthening spoken of in Jdg 3:12. In Judg. 6 the combination is Midianites, Amalekites, and children of the East, or Arab tribes. In the narrative of Jephthah’s judgeship, the Ammonites alone are mentioned; but with a reference to the Moabites, and as if they were one people Jdg 11:”

Judges 3:13

“Here he fixed his camp, for the fertility of that soil, and because of its nearness to the passage over Jordan, which was most commodious both for the conjunction of his own forces which lay on both sides of Jordan; to prevent the conjunction of the Israelites in Canaan with their brethren beyond Jordan; and to secure his retreat into his own country.”

Judges 3:14

“So the children of Israel served Eglon king of Moab eighteen years. Ten years longer than they served the king of Mesopotamia, Jdg 3:8, as a severer correction of them for their relapse into idolatry.”

Judges 3:15

“But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer - The very same words as are used at Jdg 3:9. See, too, Jdg 2:16, Jdg 2:18, and Neh 9:27. Ehud “the Benjamite” was of the family or house of Gera 2Sa 16:5, the son of Bela, Benjamin’s first-born, born before Jacob’s descent into Egypt Gen 46:21, and then included among “the sons of Benjamin.” The genealogy in 1Ch 8:6 intimates that Ehud (apparently written Abihud in Jdg 3:3) became the head of a separate house. Left-handed - See the margin.”

Judges 3:15

“But the original word is rendered in some versions "both-handed," a view countenanced by 1Ch 12:2. by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab--the yearly tribute, which, according to Eastern fashion, would be borne with ostentatious ceremony and offered (Jud 3:18) by several messengers.”

Judges 3:15

“The present is called mincha in the original, which is the word used in the law for the offerings that were presented to God to obtain his favour; these the children of Israel had not offered in their season to the God that loved them; and now, to punish them for their neglect, they are laid under a necessity of bringing their offerings to a heathen prince that hated them.”

Judges 3:16

“A dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length - The word גמד gomed, which we translate cubit, is of very doubtful signification. As the root seems to signify contracted, it probably means an instrument made for the purpose shorter than usual, and something like the Italian stiletto. The Septuagint translate it by σπιθαμη, a span, and most of the versions understand it in the same sense. Upon his right thigh - Because he was left-handed.”

Judges 3:16

“Ehud made him a dagger . . . and he did gird it . . . upon his right thigh--The sword was usually worn on the left side; so that Ehud's was the more likely to escape detection.”

Judges 3:17

“Eglon was a very fat man - The איש בריא ish bari of the text is translated by the Septuagint ανηρ αστειος σφοδρα, a very beautiful or polite man, and in the Syriac, a very rude man. It probably means what we call lusty or corpulent.”

Judges 3:18

“Made an end to offer the present - Presents, tribute, etc., in the eastern countries were offered with very great ceremony; and to make the more parade several persons, ordinarily slaves, sumptuously dressed, and in considerable number, were employed to carry what would not be a burden even to one. This appears to have been the case in the present instance.”

Judges 3:19

“Gilgal was in the immediate neighborhood of Jericho Jdg 2:1, where doubtless Eglon held his court at this time Jdg 3:13. Quarries - Some take the original of this word in its common meaning of carved images or idols (see the margin).”

Judges 3:20

“He was sitting in a summer parlor - Besides the platforms, says Dr. Shaw, which were upon the ancient houses of the East, and which are found there to this day, it is probable that heretofore, as well as at present, most of the great houses had a smaller one annexed, which seldom consisted of more than one or two rooms and a terrace. Others, built as they frequently are above the porch or gateway, have, if we except the ground-floor, all the conveniences belonging to the house, properly so called.”

Judges 3:21

“He saved the oppressed by destroying the oppressors, when the measure of their iniquity was full and the set time to favour Israel had come. (1.) He put to death Eglon the king of Moab; I say, put him to death, not murdered or assassinated him, but as a judge, or minister of divine justice, executed the judgments of God upon him, as an implacable enemy to God and Israel.”

Judges 3:21

“But it will by no means justify any now in doing the like. No such commissions are now given, and to pretend to them is to blaspheme God, and made him patronize the worst of villanies. Christ bade Peter sheathe the sword, and we find not that he bade him draw it again. [5.] Providence wonderfully favoured his escape, when he had done the execution.”

Judges 3:22

“The haft also went in after the blade - As the instrument was very short, and Eglon very corpulent, this might readily take place. And the dirt came out - This is variously understood: either the contents of the bowels issued through the wound, or he had an evacuation in the natural way through the fright and anguish.”

Judges 3:24

“He covereth his feet - He has lain down on his sofa in order to sleep; when this was done they dropped their slippers, lifted up their feet, and covered them with their long loose garments. But the versions, in general, seem to understand it as implying a certain natural act.”

Judges 3:24

“Covereth his feet - This phrase is used only here, and 1 Sam. xxiv, 3. A late judicious interpreter expounds it, of composing himself to take a little sleep, as was very usual to do in the day- time in those hot countries. And when they did so in cool places, such as this summer parlor unquestionably was, they used to cover their feet.”

Judges 3:25

“A key - literally, “an opener.” Probably a wooden instrument with which they either lifted up the latch within, or drew back the wooden bar or bolt. The chief officer of Eglon’s household probably had a second key (compare Isa 22:15, Isa 22:20-22; Isa 37:2).”

Judges 3:26

“Passed beyond the quarries - Beyond the pesilim, which appear to have been the Moabitish borders, where they had set up those hewn stones as landmarks, or sacred boundary stones.”

Judges 3:27

“And it came to pass, when he was come, That is, to Seirath, Jdg 3:26, in the tribe of Ephraim: that be blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim; which being an high mountain, the sound of the trumpet was heard afar off; and if Ehud's design was known to the Israelites, what he intended to do, this might be the token agreed on, should he succeed, to call them together, see Jer 31:6, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount, and he before them; being there assembled together, and which might be the place before appointed for their rendezvous, and where and when he took the command of them, and went before them as their general.”

Judges 3:28

“Took the fords of Jordan - It is very likely that the Moabites, who were on the western side of Jordan, hearing of the death of Eglon, were panic-struck, and endeavored to escape over Jordan at the fords near Jericho, when Ehud blew his trumpet in the mountains of Ephraim, and thus to get into the land of the Moabites, which lay on the east of Jordan; but Ehud and his men, seizing the only pass by which they could make their escape, slew ten thousand of them in their attempt to cross at those fords.”

Judges 3:29

“All lusty, and all men of valor - Picked, chosen troops, which Eglon kept among the Israelites to reduce and overawe them.”

Judges 3:30

“The land had rest fourscore years - This is usually reckoned from the deliverance under Othniel, that being a term from which they dated every transaction, as in other cases they dated from the exodus, from the building of Solomon’s temple, etc., and as other nations did from particular events: the Romans, from the building of the city; the Mohammedans, from the Hijreh, or flight of Mohammed to Medina; the Christians, from the birth of Christ, etc., etc. But see the preface, and the different chronological schemes there mentioned.”

Judges 3:30

“Fourscore years - Chiefly that part of it which lay east of Jordan: for the other side of the country, which lay southwest, was even then infested by the Philistines.”

Judges 3:31

“From this verse and Jdg 5:6 we may gather that Shamgar was contemporary with Jael, and that he only procured a temporary and partial deliverance for Israel by his exploit. He may have been of the tribe of Judah. An ox goad - An instrument of wood about eight feet long, armed with an iron spike or point at one end, with which to spur the ox at plow, and with an iron scraper at the other end with which to detach the earth from the plowshare when it became encumbered with it.”