Judgeschapter 6
40 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet; and Abi–ezer was gathered after him.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
Samuel, by tradition · Narrative · Judges, the Former Prophets · [The book of Judges](/book/judges) This chapter introduces Gideon, the deliverer whose story takes more space than any other in the book. The writer is unnamed. It was written for farmers who knew what it meant to lose a harvest year after year to raiders from the desert. Listen for a prophet's rebuke that comes before any rescue is sent, which is new in the book. Watch Gideon's questions and doubts, and notice how patiently they are answered. The chapter asks what God starts with when He calls a frightened man, and the first work He gives him is at home.
Context
- Who
- Farming families who had watched a harvest taken more than once
- What
- The seven years of Midianite raids, a prophet's rebuke, and the call of Gideon with the signs he asked for.
- Where
- Ophrah of the Abiezrites in Manasseh, with Midian's camps spread through the valley of Jezreel.
- When
- About 1160 BC on the traditional reckoning, at the end of seven years of Midianite raids.
- Why
- To show how the LORD calls a frightened man and begins with the idolatry in his own family.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Gideon son of Joash the Abiezrite, a farmer from a household that kept an altar to Baal, and an unnamed prophet speaks before the angel of the LORD sits down under the oak at Ophrah and calls him. The time is the seventh year of the raiding, counted by the text from the beginning of the oppression.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The place is a family holding in Manasseh, and Albert Barnes distinguishes this Ophrah from the Ophrah of Benjamin at Joshua 18:23 and reads the oak as a well-known tree still standing when the book was written. The occasion is the cry of verse 6, which brings a prophet with a charge before it brings a deliverer.
A first hearer knew why the raids worked, since domesticated camels come into wide use in this region in this period, and a camel column could cross the eastern desert, strike the settled land at harvest and be gone before a local militia could gather. He knew why Gideon was in a winepress, since grain was threshed on a flat exposed floor on a hilltop and tossed into the wind so the breeze carried off the chaff, while a winepress is a pit cut down into rock for treading grapes.
He knew what stood beside the altar, since a Baal altar with an Asherah pole or living tree next to it is what excavated Canaanite worship sites look like. This one belonged to Gideon's own father, in an Israelite town. And he knew what a fleece does overnight, since an unshorn sheepskin holds moisture longer than bare ground. That is why the second request, dry fleece on wet ground, is the harder of the two.
Significance
Hearers who lived on what they grew understood the seventh stolen harvest. A family could survive one, and by the seventh there was no seed grain, no plough animals and no reserve.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The deliverer is introduced hiding in a pit, greeted as a mighty warrior, and answering that his clan is the weakest and he the least in his father's house. The first hearers were meant to notice that God's opening move was to have one frightened farmer tear down his own father's altar.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
Rashi opens this chapter by tying it back to the song before it, and the note is the one a Christian reader will find strangest and most worth hearing. Every earlier relapse in the book is described with a word meaning they added to their wickedness, because the guilt had accumulated. Here the word is absent, and Rashi explains why. Through the song of Deborah and Barak "they were granted forgiveness for all that they had perpetrated", so the sinning of this chapter begins from nothing (Rashi on Judges 6:1:1). He names his source as Agadas Tehilim, and the tradition behind it holds that one who is rescued by a miracle and then sings is forgiven as a man newly created. He is quoted here from the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, under CC-BY.
The hiding places Israel made in the mountains Rashi takes from Targum Jonathan, and adds a reason for the Hebrew word. They are called glimmerings because a little light was set in them somewhere out of sight (Rashi on Judges 6:2:1). The unnamed prophet of the eighth verse he identifies as Phinehas, on the authority of Seder Olam (Rashi on Judges 6:8:1). That is the same identification he made of the messenger at the opening of the second chapter. A reader following the Jewish reading of this book should notice that one man is being made to stand at both of its rebukes.
The raiders came up with their cattle to graze on the produce (Rashi on Judges 6:5:1). On Gideon himself the notes are short and exact. Joash is an Abiezrite, one of the sons of Abiezer of Gilead of Manasseh (Rashi on Judges 6:11:1). The greeting at the winepress Rashi explains by its cause, that God addressed him as a man of power because He had put the power in him (Rashi on Judges 6:12:1). Gideon's answer he reads as a question rather than a statement, so that the opening word carries if rather than and (Rashi on Judges 6:13:1). At the fourteenth verse he holds that the one who turned to Gideon was God Himself, and that this was granted him for having spoken up for Israel (Rashi on Judges 6:14:1). Gideon's protest about his clan Rashi sharpens into a military figure. The unit of a thousand that he belongs to, under its captain, is the weakest of all the units in Manasseh (Rashi on Judges 6:15:1). The cry at the sight of the angel is read as fear for himself, "What will become of me?" (Rashi on Judges 6:22:1). At the seventeenth verse he settles a vowel, reading the word as that you (Rashi on Judges 6:17:1). At the twenty-fourth verse he settles who named the altar, and holds that Gideon did (Rashi on Judges 6:24:1).
One note fixes the chapter in the Jewish year. The unleavened cakes Gideon set before the angel Rashi takes as evidence of the date. "We learn that it was Pesach, the day the Omer offering was waved" (Rashi on Judges 6:19:1). He carries the reading forward into the next chapter, where the barley loaf that tumbles into the Midianite camp is given as the reward of that offering, which was made of barley. The classical reading therefore puts the whole of Gideon's call and victory inside the season of Passover.
Ten further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Radak on Judges 6:3:1, 6:4:1, 6:9:1, 6:16:1 and 6:23:1, Metzudat David on Judges 6:10:1, 6:18:1, 6:20:1 and 6:21:1, and Malbim on Judges 6:7:1. Rashi's last kept note in the chapter explains that the bull of the twenty-fifth verse is a young one, since even a day-old animal answers to the word the text uses (Rashi on Judges 6:25:1).
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty-one Midrash and nine Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The seven years of Midian are taken up at Midrash Lekach Tov on Ruth, Introduction 2, Midrash Shmuel 29:1 and Midrash Tehillim 106:8. The raiders who came up with their livestock draw three locators at the third verse. They are Bava Metzia 59a:10, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Metzia 4:9 and Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 19:23:3. The fourth verse draws Ein Yaakov, Bava Metzia 4:10 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 673:3. The cry of Israel draws Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 25:48:4, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Behar 7:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Behar 3:1, and the prophet sent to them draws Shemot Rabbah 38:4 and Seder Olam Rabbah 20:2.
The angel under the oak at Ophrah draws Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayeshev 5, Shemot Rabbah 25:2 and Shemot Rabbah 32:9, and the greeting to Gideon draws Berakhot 54a:9, Berakhot 63a:7 and Bereshit Rabbah 97:3. His question about the wonders draws Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 31:17:1, and the commission Midrash Tanchuma, Shoftim 4:1. His plea of weakness is taken up at Bamidbar Rabbah 14:1, Gittin 89b:2 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 2:24. The promise of God's presence draws Bereshit Rabbah 99:7, Midrash Tanchuma, Shoftim 16:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 10:3.
The offering he brought draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 1:6 and Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 1:11. The fire from the rock draws Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 763:17. The word of peace to him draws Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 1:33 and Sotah 11a:5. The altar named for that peace draws Bamidbar Rabbah 11:7 and Chagigah 12b:12. The pulling down of his father's altar of Baal draws Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:12:2 and Midrash Shmuel 13:2, the bull Temurah 29a:1, and the new name Jerubbaal Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 2:8:2. The fleece closes the chapter at Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Toldot 13 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 19:1. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Judges 6:1:1 to 6:25:1, fourteen notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 6:3:1, 6:4:1, 6:9:1, 6:16:1 and 6:23:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Judges 6:10:1, 6:18:1, 6:20:1 and 6:21:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Judges 6:7:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/judges/6.json, the 40 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 31 Midrash and 9 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Midian strips the land; a prophet before a deliverer
Judges 6:1-3
into the hand of Midian: This is the fifth of the seven times the book says the Israelites "did evil in the sight of the LORD", after 2:11, 3:7, 3:12 and 4:1, with 10:6 and 13:1 to come. Midian descends from Abraham by Keturah at Genesis 25:2, so the raiders are distant kin. Seven years is the book's shortest servitude so far, against eight under Cushan, eighteen under Eglon and twenty under Jabin.
Judges 6:1
“Midian - See Gen 25:2 note. They were remarkable not only for the vast number of their cattle Jdg 6:5; Num 31:32-39, but also for their great wealth in gold and other metal ornaments, showing their connection with a gold country. (Compare Num 31:22, Num 31:50-54, with Jdg 8:24:26.) At this time they were allies of the Amalekites and of the Arabian tribes called collectively “the children of the East” Jdg 6:3. They seem to have extended their settlements to the east of Jordan, and to have belonged to the larger section of Arabs called Ishmaelites Jdg 8:24.”
Albert Barnes notes that the word behind these shelters occurs only here, and he explains it as ravines cut by torrents that Israel made into hiding places. Matthew Henry judges that Israel was a match for Midian in strength, and he traces the hiding to sin, which dispirits men. The plains were given up.
Judges 6:2
“Had it not been for this, we cannot but think Israel a match for the Midianites, and able enough to make head against them; but the heart that departs from God is lost, not only to that which is good, but to that which is great. Sin dispirits men, and makes them sneak into dens and caves.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 6:2
“Made them the dens which are in the mountains - Nothing can give a more distressing description of the state of the Israelites than what is here related. They durst not reside in the plain country, but were obliged to betake themselves to dens and caves of the mountains, and live like wild beasts, and were hunted like them by their adversaries.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:2
“The word rendered “dens” is only found in this passage. It is best explained of ravines hollowed out by torrents, which the Israelites made into hiding-places.”
Adam Clarke identifies the people of the east as the tribes of the Arabian desert, probably Ishmaelites. Three peoples are named together here, the Midianites, the Amalekites and these eastern tribes. They came each time Israel planted.
Judges 6:3
“Children of the East - Probably those who inhabited Arabia Deserta, Ishmaelites.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:4-6
The raids are timed to the harvest and leave "neither sheep nor oxen nor donkeys", taking the seed and the plough animals together. Raiders on camels without number outrun any farmer on foot, and the locust image returns at 7:12. Verse 6 is the fourth of six times Israel cries out to the Lord, after 3:9, 3:15 and 4:3, and the one answered first by a prophet.
Judges 6:4
“Encamped against them - Wandering hordes of Midianites, Amalekites, and Ishmaelites came, in the times of harvest and autumn, and carried away their crops, their fruit, and their cattle. And they appear to have come early, encamped in the plains, and watched the crops till they were ready to be carried off. This is frequently the case even to the present day. Till thou come unto Gaza - That is, the whole breadth of the land, from Jordan to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Thus the whole land was ravaged, and the inhabitants deprived of the necessaries of life.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke reads the livestock and tents as the mark of wandering tribes with no fixed home, like the later Bedouin. They moved from place to place for plunder and for pasture for their herds. Israel's fields became their grazing ground.
Judges 6:5
“They came up with their cattle and their tents - All this proves that they were different tribes of wanderers who had no fixed residence; but, like their descendants the Bedouins or wandering Arabs, removed from place to place to get prey for themselves and forage for their cattle.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Matthew Henry connects the poverty to the forty years of rest recorded at 5:31. On his reading, sloth and luxury grew in the quiet years and left Israel an easy prey. The fruitful land itself drew the raiders.
Judges 6:6
“This fruitful land was a great temptation to them; and the sloth and luxury into which the Israelites had sunk by forty years' rest made them and their substance an easy prey to them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Judges 6:7-10
The prophet is unnamed, says nothing of a rescue, and never appears again. His speech follows the angel's at 2:1-3: out of Egypt, delivered from every oppressor, given the land, then charged with disobedience. The charge is exact, "You must not fear the gods of the Amorites", and verse 25 finds an altar to Baal at the house of the man God is about to call.
Judges 6:7
“And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, because of the Midianites.”
Adam Clarke reports a Jewish tradition that this prophet was Phinehas. Clarke himself thinks it more likely he was a teacher raised up for the occasion, one of the witnesses God sent from time to time to his rebellious people. The message opens with the exodus.
Judges 6:8
“The Lord sent a prophet - The Jews say that this was Phinehas; but it is more likely that it was some prophet or teacher raised up by the Lord to warn and instruct them. Such were his witnesses, and they were raised up from time to time to declare the counsel of God to his rebellious people.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The verse speaks of the hands of Egypt, and the chapter keeps returning to that word. Verse 1 gives Israel into the hand of Midian, and verse 14 sends Gideon to save Israel from the hand of Midian. Egypt and Midian are described in the same terms.
the gods of the Amorites: Albert Barnes notes that Joshua 24:15 and 24:18 also use Amorite where Canaanite is more usual. He suggests the prophet spoke to people living in the mountains, where the Amorites mostly dwelt. Verse 2 has Israel hiding in those mountains.
Judges 6:10
“A similar use of the name Amorite, instead of the more usual name Canaanite, occurs in Jos 24:15, Jos 24:18. Perhaps a special reason may be found for the use of Amorite, if the prophet was addressing those who dwelt in the mountains, where the Amorites chiefly dwelt. The idolatries of the Amorites seem, too, to have been preeminently abominable (see 2Ki 21:11; 1Ki 21:26).”
Thou mighty man of valor: in a winepress
Judges 6:11-12
A threshing floor wants open ground and wind, and a winepress is a pit cut into rock, so Gideon threshes in the wrong place to stay out of sight. The angel of the Lord last spoke at 2:1, rebuking the whole nation, and here he sits beside one man. He calls Gideon "mighty man of valor" while he hides food from raiders, before he has done anything.
Judges 6:11
“An oak - “The oak,” indicating it as a well-known tree, still standing in the writer’s days. There was another Ophrah in Benjamin Jos 18:23. This Ophrah was in Manasseh, and was the village of Joash, the head, apparently, of the family of Abiezer, which was one of the families of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh Num 26:30.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:11
“In Ophrah - In Manasseh: there was another Ophrah in Benjamin, Josh. xviii, 23. The Abi-ezrite - Of the posterity of Abiezer. Threshed - Not with oxen, as the manner was, Deut. xxv, 4, but with a staff to prevent discovery.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The Targum renders the greeting as the Word of the LORD is with you, as Adam Clarke reports. Clarke reads mighty man of valor as a title Gideon had earned, since he thinks Gideon had already shown courage on earlier occasions. The chapter itself opens his story at the winepress.
Judges 6:12
“The Lord is with thee - “The Word of the Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor.” - Targum. It appears that Gideon had proved himself, on former occasions, to be a man of courage and personal prowess; and this would naturally excite the confidence of his countrymen. God chooses for his work those instruments which, in the course of his operations in nature and providence, he has qualified for his purpose. The instruments thus chosen are generally unlikely, but they will be ever found the best qualified for the Divine employment.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:13-14
Gideon answers with the history the prophet had just recited and draws the opposite conclusion, "now the LORD has forsaken us". Deuteronomy 31:17 puts the same complaint in Israel's mouth as a covenant warning, so he voices the sentence he lives under. Verse 14 leaves the question aside and sends him, and its last clause carries the answer, "Am I not sending you".
Judges 6:13
“The extreme bitterness of the national sufferings under the Midianite occupation breaks out in Gideon’s language. The Angel’s words, suitable to times of prosperity, seemed to be a mockery, when it was evident the Lord was not with them. (Compare Deu 31:17.)”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:13
“Gideon, in replying, addresses him at first in a style equivalent (in Hebrew) to "sir," but afterwards gives to him the name usually applied to God. an oak--Hebrew, "the oak"--as famous in after-times.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Adam Clarke asks what strength is meant and answers from verse 12: the strength Gideon has is the LORD who is with him. The speaker here is called the LORD, where verse 12 said the angel of the LORD. The two titles alternate through the scene.
Judges 6:14
“Go in this thy might - What does the angel mean? He had just stated that Jehovah was with him; and he now says, Go in This thy might, i.e., in the might of Jehovah, who is with thee.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:15-16
The objection follows Moses at Exodus 3:11, and the reply, "Surely I will be with you", is the reply Moses got. Saul says nearly the same of his family at 1 Samuel 9:21, and the choice of the smallest house runs on to David. Commentators read "as one man" as Israel striking as one body or Midian falling as one man, and the Hebrew carries both.
Judges 6:15
“My family - Hebrew. my thousand: for the tribes were distributed into several thousands, whereof each thousand had his peculiar governor. Is poor - That is, weak and contemptible.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Adam Clarke gives two senses of as one man. Gideon will overcome the whole host as surely as if he fought a single opponent, or he will destroy them to the last man. The promise answers his plea in verse 15 that his clan is the weakest in Manasseh.
Judges 6:16
“Thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man - Thou shalt as surely conquer all their host as if thou hadst but one man to contend with; or, Thou shalt destroy them to a man.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:17-19
He asks for a sign well before the fleece of verses 36 to 40, and it is given without comment. His gift, "an ephah of flour" and a young goat, costs real food when verse 4 says no sustenance was left. Abraham sets a meal before three men at Genesis 18:6, and the Hebrew word for the offering is the one used of the grain offering.
Judges 6:17
“That thou - That it is thou, an angel or messenger sent from God, that appears to me, and discourseth with me. Or, a sign of that which thou talkest with me; that is, that thou wilt by me smite the Midianites.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 6:17
“A sign - If the Angel ate of Gideon’s present it would be a conclusive proof of the reality of the vision. (Compare Joh 21:9-13; Luk 24:37-43; Act 10:41.) It would also be a token of God’s goodwill to Gideon. Compare Gen 18:3.”
Judges 6:17
“He resembles Moses also in the desire for a sign; and in both cases it was the rarity of revelations in such periods of general corruption that made them so desirous of having the fullest conviction of being addressed by a heavenly messenger. The request was reasonable, and it was graciously granted [Jud 6:18].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Adam Clarke thinks Gideon already took the stranger for a divine person, yet the meal he prepares looks like hospitality for a respected guest. The LORD agrees to wait until he returns.
Judges 6:18
“And bring forth my present - My minchah; generally an offering of bread, wine, oil, flour, and such like. It seems from this that Gideon supposed the person to whom he spoke to be a Divine person. Nevertheless, what he prepared and brought out appears to be intended simply as an entertainment to refresh a respectable stranger.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes explains the unleavened bread as quicker to bake, and he compares Genesis 19:3. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the broth as food for the moment and the basket as a supply for the traveller's road. The meal was sized for a traveller.
Judges 6:19
“Unleavened cakes - As being much more quickly baked (compare Gen 19:3) (and as connected with the meat offering). An ephah, containing 3 measures, was the quantity of flour commonly used at one baking Gen 18:6; Exo 16:16. Presented it - A word especially, though not exclusively, proper for offerings to God. See Amo 5:25, where the same word is rendered offered.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:19
“The flesh seems to have been roasted, which is done by cutting it into kobab, that is, into small pieces, fixed on a skewer, and put before the fire. The broth was for immediate use; the other, brought in a hand-basket was intended to be a future supply to the traveller.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Judges 6:20-21
Flesh laid on bare rock with the broth poured over it has stopped being supper and become an offering. Then "fire flared from the rock", the mark of an accepted sacrifice at Leviticus 9:24 and 1 Kings 18:38, and the angel at Manoah's altar goes up in the flame at 13:20. The angel touches the food with his staff and vanishes, so it is burned instead of eaten.
Judges 6:20
“Pour out the broth - Libations were a very ancient form of offering (compare Gen 35:14). The drink offerings of wine under the Levitical law were poured upon the altar Exo 30:9. The pouring of the broth upon the rock was evidently of the nature of a libation. It might also, like the water poured by Elijah upon his sacrifice, make the miracle of the fire that consumed the sacrifice more apparent. (Compare 1Ki 18:33.)”
Adam Clarke reads the staff as part of the angel's appearance as a traveller. He adds that the angel vanished and the conversation went on, with God speaking to Gideon by inward inspiration or by an audible voice. Verse 23 continues the conversation.
Judges 6:21
“The angel - put forth the end of the staff - He appeared like a traveler with a staff in his hand; this he put forth, and having touched the flesh, fire rose out of the rock and consumed it. Here was the most evident proof of supernatural agency. Then the angel - departed out of his sight - Though the angel vanished out of his sight, yet God continued to converse with him either by secret inspiration in his own heart, or by an audible voice.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:22-24
His alarm rests on Exodus 33:20, that no one may see God and live, and Manoah voices the same fear at 13:22. The answer opens "Peace be with you", and the altar takes its name from it, "The LORD Is Peace", rendered either the Lord is peace or the Lord send peace. The words "To this day" tell the writer's readers where to go and look.
Judges 6:22
“Alas, O Lord God! for because I have seen - This is an elliptical sentence, a natural expression of the distressed state of Gideon’s mind: as if he had said, Have mercy on me, O Lord God! else I shall die; because I have seen an angel of Jehovah face to face. We have frequently seen that it was a prevalent sentiment, as well before as under the law, that if any man saw God, or his representative angel he must surely die. On this account Gideon is alarmed, and prays for his life.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
John Wesley takes peace in its full sense, every blessing Gideon needed for himself and for the work ahead. Adam Clarke holds that he is spared because God made the disclosure himself. The fear of verse 22 is answered in three clauses.
Judges 6:23
“Said unto him - Perhaps by an audible voice. Peace be to thee - Thou shalt receive no hurt by this vision; but only peace, that is, all the blessings needful for thy own happiness, and for the present work.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:23
“Fear not: thou shalt not die - Here the discovery is made by God himself: Gideon is not curiously prying into forbidden mysteries, therefore he shall not die.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke hears in the greeting of verse 23 both a wish and a prediction that Gideon's campaign would prosper. He also thinks this may be the altar ordered at verse 26, mentioned here ahead of its building. Verse 26 puts that altar on the stronghold.
Judges 6:24
“Gideon built an altar - and called it Jehovah-shalom - The words יהוה שלום Yehovah shalom signify The Lord is my peace, or The peace of Jehovah; and this name he gave the altar, in reference to what God had said, Jdg 6:23, Peace be unto thee, שלום לך shalom lecha, “Peace to thee;” which implied, not only a wish, but a prediction of the prosperous issue of the enterprise in which he was about to engage. It is likely that this is the altar which is mentioned in Jdg 6:26, and is spoken of here merely by anticipation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The altar of Baal thrown down by night
Judges 6:25-27
His father's altar to Baal and the Asherah pole stand at Ophrah, so what verse 10 charged against the nation stands in the called man's yard. Deuteronomy 7:5 and 12:3 had commanded this act, so his first order is an old, unkept one. The bull is seven years old as Midian's rule has run seven years, and fear of "his father’s household" sends him out by night.
Judges 6:25
“Then the man, instructed and fore-knowing what was to be, observes the heavenly mysteries, and therefore, according to the warning, slew the bullock destined by his father to idols, and himself offered to God another bullock seven years old. By doing which he most plainly showed that after the coming of the Lord all Gentile sacrifices should be done away, and that only the sacrifice of the Lord's passion should be offered for the redemption of the people.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Holy Spirit, Book 1patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Judges 6:25
“Even - Rather, as in the margin, and. Two bullocks are spoken of. The labor of both would be required for pulling down and removing the altar of Baal, and for bringing the materials for building the altar of Yahweh. The grove by it - Rather, “the idol upon it,” the Asherah, the wooden image of Astarte Jdg 3:7.”
Judges 6:25
“The former, we may suppose, he was to offer for himself, the latter for the sins of the people whom he was to deliver. It was requisite he should thus make peace with God, before he made war on Midian. Till sin be pardoned through the great sacrifice, no good is to be expected.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Wesley raises the difficulty that Gideon was a layman offering away from the appointed place of sacrifice. He holds that God may set aside his own institutions and that the call itself gave Gideon authority. The Asherah pole becomes the firewood.
Judges 6:26
“Ordered place - That is, in a plain and smooth part of the rock, where an altar may be conveniently built. And offer - Gideon was no priest, nor was this the appointed place of sacrifice; but God can dispense with his own institutions, though we may not; and his call gave Gideon sufficient authority.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the men of the city: Albert Barnes suggests that the men of the city, named beside Gideon's household, may have been a remnant of the Canaanite population who championed Baal. Ten servants carried out the work. Gideon obeyed in full and hid only the hour.
Judges 6:27
“The mention of the “men of the city” by the side of Gideon’s “father’s household” suggests the probability of their being a remnant of the Canaanite population, and the special patrons of Baal-worship.”
Judges 6:28-30
Ophrah, a town of Manasseh, wakes ready to prosecute a man for obeying Deuteronomy. The men ask who did it and, having "investigated thoroughly", get a name, so the night work was known by daylight. Their demand, "Bring out your son", with death to follow, is the sentence Deuteronomy 13:6-10 lays on one who draws Israel after other gods, aimed at the man who pulled one down.
Judges 6:28
“The second bullock was offered - It appears that the second bullock was offered because it was just seven years old, Jdg 6:25, being calved about the time that the Midianitish oppression began; and it was now to be slain to indicate that their slavery should end with its life. The young bullock, Jdg 6:25, is supposed to have been offered for a peace-offering; the bullock of seven years old, for a burnt-offering.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke thinks the town settled on Gideon quickly because they knew he had kept away from their worship of Baal. The answer names his father. Verse 30 takes the demand straight to Joash.
Judges 6:29
“Gideon the son of Joash hath done this thing - They fixed on him the more readily because they knew he had not joined with them in their idolatrous worship.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:29
“And they said one to another, who hath done this thing?....”
Adam Clarke traces the town's anger to the sensual rites of Baal worship, in which many had a stake. He holds that such rites drew more worshippers than the LORD because they suited fallen human nature. The charge lists both acts, the altar and the pole.
Judges 6:30
“The men of the city said - They all felt an interest in the continuance of rites in which they had often many sensual gratifications. Baal and Ashtaroth would have more worshippers than the true God, because their rites were more adapted to the fallen nature of man.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 6:31-32
Joash answers with a point of law, "If Baal is a god, let him contend for himself". Elijah presses the same argument at 1 Kings 18:27, and Isaiah 41:23 lays it as a challenge on the idols themselves. The name Jerubbaal, "Let Baal contend with him", outlasts Gideon: 2 Samuel 11:21 calls him Jerubbesheth, swapping Baal for the word for shame, as Ishbaal becomes Ishbosheth.
Judges 6:31
“From the boldness of Joash in defending his son, it is likely that the majority of the Abi-ezrites sided with him against “the men of the city,” and already felt drawn toward Gideon as their national and religious leader Jdg 6:34. Joash appears as the chief magistrate of Ophrah. Will ye plead ...? will ye save? - The emphasis is upon ye, as much as to say, What business is it of yours?”
John Wesley calls it a probable conjecture that Jerombalus, a priest of Jao named by the ancient writer Sanchoniathon, was this same Jerubbaal. Adam Clarke rejects the link and judges the Sanchoniatho history a probable forgery by Porphyry. The name was given on the day of the altar.
Judges 6:32
“He called him Jerubbaal - That is, Let Baal contend; changed, 2Sa 11:21, into Jerubbesheth, he shall contend against confusion or shame; thus changing baal, lord, into bosheth, confusion or ignominy. Some think that Jerubbaal was the same with Jerombalus, who, according to Sanchoniatho and Porphyry, was a priest of Jevo. But the history of Sanchoniatho is probably a forgery of Porphyry himself, and worthy of no credit.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:32
“Jerub-baal - That is, Let Baal plead. It is a probable conjecture, that that Jerombalus, whom Sanchoniathon, (one of the most ancient of all the Heathen writers) speaks of as a priest of Jao, (a corruption of Jehovah) and to whom he was indebted for a great deal of knowledge, was this Jerub-baal.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The fleece, wet and then dry
Judges 6:33-35
Jezreel is the grain valley of the north, so the raiders camp on the harvest. Verse 34 is the second of seven times the book says the Spirit of the Lord came upon a man, after Othniel at 3:10, and the Hebrew verb means putting on a garment. His own clan, whose altar he had torn down, answers first, then the northern tribes Deborah had summoned.
Judges 6:33
“A fresh invasion, and the last, of Midianites Amalekites, and Arabs (see Jdg 6:3). But the Israelites, instead of hiding in dens and caves, and tamely leaving all their substance as pIunder to the invaders, now rally around their leader.”
the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon: Albert Barnes notes that the verb here differs from the one used of Othniel, Jephthah and Samson. John Wesley reads the clothing two ways, a robe that honours Gideon and a coat of mail that defends him. His first act is to blow the ram's horn.
Judges 6:34
“The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon - See the margin. The word contains a striking thought. It is different from that used in the case of Othniel Jdg 3:10, Jephthah Jdg 11:29, and Samson Jdg 13:25; Jdg 14:6, Jdg 14:19.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 6:34
“The spirit came - Inspiring him with extraordinary wisdom, and courage, and zeal to vindicate God's honour, and his country's liberty. The Hebrew is, The Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon; clothed him as a robe, to put honour upon him; clothed him as a coat of mail to put a defense upon him. Those are well clad that are thus clothed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Albert Barnes observes that Asher, which stayed in its harbors under Jabin at 5:17, now comes, perhaps stung by Deborah's rebuke. He accounts for the absence of Issachar by the Midianite camp pitched in the heart of its land. Verse 33 places that camp in the Valley of Jezreel.
Judges 6:35
“His own tribe, Manasseh, and the three northern tribes of Asher, Zebulon, and Naphtali hastened to join him. Issachar was probably unable to do so, because the Midianites were encamped in the heart of their country. Asher no longer “abode in his breaches,” as in the time of Jabin Jdg 6:17, perhaps ashamed of their former backwardness, and stung by the rebuke of Deborah; perhaps, too, from feeling the Midianite yoke much more galling than that of Jabin.”
Judges 6:36-38
The fleece is asked after the fire from the rock and after the Spirit came upon him, and he repeats "as You have said", seeking confirmation of a promise he holds. A fleece left out overnight draws dew on its own, so the first sign is the easier one. The account adds no approval and no rebuke, and Matthew Henry reads it as weak faith borne with.
Judges 6:36
“Some one perhaps will enquire whether he does not seem to have been wanting in faith, seeing that after being instructed by many signs he asked still more. But how can he seem to have asked as if doubting or wanting in faith, who was speaking in mysteries? He was not then doubtful, but careful that we should not doubt. For how could he be doubtful whose prayer was effectual?”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Holy Spirit, Book 1patristic
Albert Barnes notes that threshing floors lay under the open air and were usually circular. Verse 11 had Gideon threshing wheat inside a winepress to hide it from the Midianites. The sign is set in the open.
Judges 6:37
“The threshing floors were and still are under the open air, and usually circular. The second sign Jdg 6:40, would be more convincing than the former, because it is the nature of fleeces to attract and retain moisture.”
The measure given, a bowlful of water, records how heavily the dew lay on the wool while the ground stayed dry. Gideon wrings it out the next morning. He asks for the reverse at verse 39 all the same.
Judges 6:39-40
His plea, "Do not be angry with me; let me speak one more time", stands close to Abraham pressing his request at Genesis 18:30-32. The second test, a dry fleece on wet ground, is the harder one, since a night's weather cannot produce it. God does it without a word, and at 7:10-11 offers a further sign unasked, sending Gideon down in the dark to hear the enemy.
Judges 6:39
“On the ground - Which was more preternatural than the former instance, because if there be any moisture, such bodies as fleeces of wool are likely to drink it up.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Gill reads the second sign as a picture. In the first the favour rested on Gideon alone, and in the second the dew covered all the ground, so all Israel would share in the deliverance wrought by him.
Judges 6:40
“And God did so that night,.... The night following, the night being the season in which the dew falls: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground; and this might signify, that not Gideon only, as before, should partake of the divine favour, but all the Israelites, who would share in the salvation wrought by him.”
How this psalm is built
The form: A call narrative, in the pattern of a commission, an objection and a sign, set inside the cycle formula and followed by a night action and two further signs, as Gill classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The formula that opens the cycle | Verse 1 carries the fifth of the seven times the book says Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, after 2:11, 3:7, 3:12 and 4:1, with 10:6 and 13:1 still to come. Verse 6 is the fourth of the six cries to the LORD in the book, after 3:9, 3:15 and 4:3. Seven years is the shortest servitude the book has recorded, against eight under Cushan-rishathaim, eighteen under Eglon and twenty under Jabin.The site's published exposition note on Judges 6:1 to 3, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 6, catchword "into the hand of Midian", citing Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, and Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863. | Judges 6:1, Judges 6:6 |
| The same history told twice to opposite ends | The unnamed prophet at verses 8 and 9 recites the deliverance from Egypt, the driving out of the oppressors and the gift of the land, and closes with the charge that the voice was not obeyed. Gideon at verse 13 recites the same history and draws the opposite conclusion out of it, that the LORD has abandoned us. Deuteronomy 31:17 puts those very words in Israel's mouth as part of the covenant warning, so the complaint quotes the sentence he is living under.The site's published exposition note on Judges 6:13 to 14, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 6, catchword "if the Lord be with us", citing Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710, and Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863. | Judges 6:8, Judges 6:9, Judges 6:13 |
| The commission, the objection and the answer | Verse 14 takes up none of Gideon's question and sends him regardless, and the last clause carries the whole answer, have I not sent you. The objection at verse 15 takes the shape Moses used at Exodus 3:11, and the reply at verse 16 is the reply Moses received, I will be with you. Saul says nearly the same of himself at 1 Samuel 9:21. John Wesley reads the sending as a command and a commission given in that sentence.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 6:15. | Judges 6:14, Judges 6:15, Judges 6:16 |
| The name that answers the charge | Joash answers the town with a point of law rather than a defence of his son, that a god who can be robbed of his own altar is able to bring his own suit. The new name Jerubbaal means let Baal contend, as Adam Clarke renders it, and it outlasts the man. Second Samuel 11:21 calls him Jerubbesheth, swapping the Baal element for the word for shame, which is the same swap that turns Ishbaal into Ishbosheth.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1810 to 1826, on Judges 6:32. | Judges 6:31, Judges 6:32 |
| The sign asked, and asked again | Three signs stand in this chapter and a fourth follows in the next. Gideon asks for a sign at verse 17 and fire comes out of the rock at verse 21. He asks at verses 36 to 38 for dew on the fleece and dry ground, and at verses 39 and 40 for the reverse, prefacing the second with a request that God's anger not burn against him, which stands close to Abraham pressing his request at Genesis 18:30 to 32. At 7:10 and 11 God offers a further sign that was never asked for.The site's published exposition note on Judges 6:39 to 40, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 6, catchword "not thine anger be hot", citing John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710. | Judges 6:17, Judges 6:36, Judges 6:39 |
The structure of the chapter in the book's argument
19 more paragraphs on the patterns
The site's published guide for this book carries the fourth cycle as Gideon, also called Jerubbaal, at 6:1 to 8:35, against Midian, Amalek and the children of the east, with seven years of oppression at 6:1 and forty years of rest at 8:28, which the guide records as the book's last rest notice. The guide also records the flaw: he doubts repeatedly, tests God twice by the fleece, and ends by making an ephod that became a snare to him and his household at 8:27.
This chapter is where the book's deliverers change shape. Othniel was a decorated soldier and Ehud acted alone with a plan already made. Gideon is found hiding food, argues with his commission, and needs three signs before he moves. The site's published theology for the book reads the cycle as a spiral rather than a circle, in which the deliverers decline along the same line as the nation.
The Spirit of the LORD comes upon Gideon at verse 34, the second of the seven times the book says it, after Othniel at 3:10 and ahead of Jephthah at 11:29 and Samson at 13:25, 14:6, 14:19 and 15:14. Albert Barnes marks that the word here differs from the word used of the others. The Hebrew verb is the word for putting on a garment, used again of Amasai at 1 Chronicles 12:18 and of Zechariah at 2 Chronicles 24:20, and the site's published guide calls it an idiom stronger than came upon.
The first men to answer the trumpet are his own clan, the household whose altar he had torn down. Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali are the northern tribes Deborah had summoned at 4:10 and 5:18, so the same country furnishes the levy twice.
The offering and the fire
The present Gideon brings at verse 19 costs him real food. An ephah of flour is a large measure and a young goat is a costly animal in a year when verse 4 says nothing was left alive. Genesis 18:6 has Abraham setting cakes and a dressed calf before three men at his tent door.
The instruction at verse 20 turns a meal into an offering, since meat laid on bare rock with the broth poured over it has stopped being supper. Fire out of the rock is the mark of an accepted sacrifice at Leviticus 9:24 and at 1 Kings 18:38, and the angel who comes to Manoah at Judges 13:20 goes up in the flame of the altar in the same manner.
Gideon's alarm at verse 22 rests on Exodus 33:20, that no one may see God and live, and Manoah reaches for the same words at 13:22. The answer, peace to you, is what the altar takes its name from. Adam Clarke renders Jehovah-shalom as the LORD is my peace or the peace of Jehovah, and Albert Barnes sets the naming beside Abraham at Genesis 22:14 and Moses at Exodus 17:15. The line that the altar stands in Ophrah to this day is the writer telling his own readers where they could go and look at it.
The witnesses
The one place in Judges where the site's published dossier records a manuscript question falls in this chapter. The dossier names 4QJudg-a from Qumran Cave 4, a small Hebrew fragment of about the first century BC covering part of Judges 6, which runs straight from 6:6 to 6:11 without the prophet's speech at 6:7 to 10 that the Masoretic Text carries. Julio Trebolle Barrera, who published it, read the fragment as evidence of a shorter earlier form of the Gideon account. Others read it as an ordinary scribal skip in one copy. The dossier states that the fragment is short and that both explanations remain on the table.
The same dossier records that Greek Judges survives in two substantially different text-forms, represented by Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus, and that Alfred Rahlfs printed them on facing halves of the page in his Septuaginta, 1935, rather than choosing between them. The divergence is wider in this book than in most of the Old Testament.
The historical value
The camel raids of verses 3 to 5 belong to the period the book assumes. The site's published dossier for Judges carries the Iron Age I hill-country villages of the central highlands, about 1200 to 1000 BC, hundreds of small unwalled villages with four-room houses, collar-rim storage jars and terracing, which the dossier calls the material world of a decentralized tribal Israel. Unwalled villages with stored grain and no standing army is the exact target the raids of this chapter describe.
Jezreel at verse 33 is the grain valley of the north, so the raiders pitch on the harvest itself. It is the same valley whose fortress towns Manasseh failed to clear at 1:27 and where the battle of chapters 4 and 5 was fought.
The Baal altar and the Asherah pole beside it at verse 25 are the furniture of a cult known from its own literature. The dossier carries the Ugaritic tablets from Ras Shamra, about 1400 to 1200 BC, which give El, Asherah, Baal and Anath in their own words.
Where the chapter reaches
Joash's argument at verse 31 is the argument Elijah presses at 1 Kings 18:27 and the challenge Isaiah 41:23 lays on the idols themselves. John Wesley records a conjecture that the Jerombalus named by Sanchoniathon as a priest is this man under a Greek spelling.
Gideon is one of the four men Hebrews 11:32 takes out of this book by name, listed among those who through faith conquered kingdoms and gained strength from weakness. The site's published theology reads his refusal of the crown at 8:23 as the pattern that leaves Israel needing a king who rules as the LORD's own.
The site's published Christ section reads the figure under the oak at Ophrah with the visitor at Zorah in chapter 13, and the argument over both stands behind the door on Christophany.
Keep studying
Studies5
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, on Judges 6:15; The site's published exposition note on Judges 6:4 to 6, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 6, catchword "destroyed the increase of the earth", citing Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710 and The site's published guide for the book of Judges, src/components/book/guides/judges/JudgesGuide.tsx, the cycle table.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.