Judgeschapter 7
25 verses · Samuel, by tradition · 11th century BC · History
And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.
Introduction
Samuel, by tradition, History, Judges Overview.
Samuel, by tradition · Narrative · Judges, the Former Prophets · [The book of Judges](/book/judges) This chapter tells one night's battle, and it is the book's plainest lesson on where victory comes from. The writer is unnamed. It was written for a people always tempted to count soldiers, horses and allies before they counted on God. Listen for the reason the LORD gives for the way He arranges the battle. Notice how little fighting Israel does and how much waiting and listening there is. Read it slowly, because its small details carry the point.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who counted a victory in numbers of fighting men
- What
- Gideon's army cut to three hundred men and the night attack that routed the camp of Midian.
- Where
- The spring of Harod on the slope of Gilboa above the Midianite camp in the valley, and the Jordan fords to the east.
- When
- About 1160 BC on the traditional reckoning, in a single night that began at the middle watch.
- Why
- To teach that the victory belonged to the LORD, so that Israel could not say its own hand had saved it.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to Gideon, called Jerubbaal in its first verse, and to the three hundred men left with him, with Purah his servant going down into the camp beside him and named nowhere else in Scripture. The time is one night, and the attack falls at the beginning of the middle watch. The place is the shoulder of Gilboa above the plain, where the spring of Harod still runs and a watcher looks straight down onto the ground the camel camp lay on.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The occasion is stated at verse 2, that the army is too large for the victory to be given to it, since Israel would claim the rescue as its own work. A first hearer knew how armies were counted, since a commander's first report was his troop count, so cutting thirty two thousand men to three hundred reverses the ordinary reckoning of ancient warfare. He knew how a night was divided, since Israel kept three watches, and the middle watch put freshly posted sentries in front of a camp at its deepest sleep.
Three companies could then ring that camp and appear to be three whole units. He knew what the equipment meant, since each man carried a ram's horn in one hand and a torch inside a clay jar in the other, so no hand was free for a weapon and the jar hid the flame until the moment it was smashed. One trumpeter signalled for a company in a real assault, so three hundred horns sounding at once told a waking army it was surrounded by many times that number.
And he knew the barley loaf in the enemy's dream for what it was, the bread of people living on what was left after the wheat had been taken.
Significance
The reason given for the reduction is that Israel must not say its own hand has saved it. For first hearers under a standing temptation to trust chariots, alliances and manpower, that sentence was the lesson of the chapter.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
It also gave them a night they could picture: three hundred farmers standing still in the dark holding jars and horns, while the LORD set the enemy's swords against one another.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The classical reading of the three hundred men turns on one point, and it is a point about idolatry rather than about tactics. Rashi, quoted here from the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, New Jersey, under CC-BY, takes the two ways of drinking at the spring as one test with one meaning. Those who went down on their knees and brought their faces to the water are to be set aside "since they are practiced in kneeling before idols" (Rashi on Judges 7:5:1). Those who raised the water in the hand were the men who had not learned that posture (Rashi on Judges 7:6:1). On that reading the army was not reduced at random. It was sifted, and what the sifting found was who had been worshipping Baal in the years the chapter before describes.
Two more of Rashi's notes give the raid a liturgical frame. The trumpets and torches he explains first by their merit. They were carried "to invoke the merit of the giving of the Torah", when the shofar sounded at Sinai and fire came down on the mountain. He then gives the plain explanation beside it. The raid happened at night, the torches were needed for light, and they were hidden in jars to keep them out of sight (Rashi on Judges 7:16:1). At the nineteenth verse he sets out how a watch worked, with sentries posted for the first, middle and last third of the night (Rashi on Judges 7:19:1). On that reckoning the middle watch is a fixed hour rather than a vague one.
The dream in the camp Rashi reads through the written form of one word. The consonants give clear rather than toasted, and he takes the sense from that, that "the generation was cleared of righteous men" (Rashi on Judges 7:13:1). The reward of the barley is the reading he began in the chapter before, where the unleavened cakes fixed the season at Passover and the Omer. At the fifteenth verse he takes the phrase for the telling of the dream from Targum Jonathan as the story of the dream and its interpretation together (Rashi on Judges 7:15:1).
His shorter notes fill in the ground. The hill of Moreh is a ridge overlooking the plain, and the name is explained from a word for instructing or signalling, because watchers there could signal down into the valley (Rashi on Judges 7:1:1). The word for boasting he glosses in old French (Rashi on Judges 7:2:1), and the word for morning in Aramaic (Rashi on Judges 7:3:1). The Midianites lay stationed in the valley (Rashi on Judges 7:12:1). Gideon's order to watch him means to watch his actions and copy them (Rashi on Judges 7:17:1). He took one division and a hundred men with him (Rashi on Judges 7:18:1). The blast that followed is read as the signal to withdraw and flee (Rashi on Judges 7:21:1). The waters Ephraim was told to seize are those between Aram and Canaanite ground (Rashi on Judges 7:24:1).
Ten further notes stand on this chapter with no English text in the corpus and are cited here unquoted. They are Radak on Judges 7:4:1, 7:8:1, 7:20:1 and 7:22:1, Metzudat David on Judges 7:7:1, 7:10:1, 7:11:1 and 7:14:1, and Malbim on Judges 7:9:1 and 7:23:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-three rabbinic locators on this chapter, seventeen Midrash and six Talmud, and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. This is the lightest chapter of the ten for rabbinic material, and the locators gather at two places. The sending home of the fearful is taken up at Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin 1:10:6, and the sifting at the water at Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Toldot 19:1 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Toldot 13. The word that came to Gideon by night draws Eikhah Rabbah 1:23 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 17:1, and his going down with Purah his servant draws Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 42:23:1 and Shemot Rabbah 25:2. The camp lying thick as locusts draws Shemot Rabbah 27:6.
The barley loaf is the first of the two heavy places, with seven locators. Four of them are Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayeshev 41, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 28:12:1, Pesikta DeRav Kahana 8:4 and Pesikta Rabbati 18:1. The other three are Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version II 6:2, Vayikra Rabbah 28:6 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 643:17. The middle watch is the second, also with seven: Berakhot 3b:11, Eikhah Rabbah 2:22, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 1:1:26 and 1:1:27, Jerusalem Talmud Eruvin 1:10:5, Midrash Shmuel 23:9 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Shelosha v'Arba'ah 1:33. Several of those sit in the discussions of the watches of the night that open tractate Berakhot, where the hour of this raid is used to fix the hours of prayer. The taking of Oreb and Zeeb closes the chapter at Chullin 5a:4. 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 7:1:1 to 7:24:1, fourteen notes, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Judges 7:4:1, 7:8:1, 7:20:1 and 7:22:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Judges 7:7:1, 7:10:1, 7:11:1 and 7:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Judges 7:9:1 and 7:23:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/judges/7.json, the 23 rabbinic locators of this chapter, 17 Midrash and 6 Talmud.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Thirty-two thousand cut down to three hundred
Judges 7:1-3
The name Jerubbaal, given at 6:32 when Gideon pulled down his father's altar, sends Israel's leader into the field under a name that argues with Baal. Harod means trembling, and verse 3 sends home the "fearful and trembling", "twenty-two thousand of them". The proclamation carries out Deuteronomy 20:8, where the law told the officers to send the fearful home before a battle.
Judges 7:1
“The well of Harod - i. e. of trembling, evidently so called from the people who were afraid Jdg 7:3. It is identified with great probability with Ain Jalud, a spacious pool at the foot of Gilboa; (by Conder, with Ain el Jem’ain (the spring of the two troops)). Moreh was, probably, the little Hermon, the Jebel ed-Duhy of the Arabs, which encloses the plain two or three miles north of Gilboa, which shuts it in on the south.”
Adam Clarke says the reduction speaks to both armies. Israel would gain confidence and Midian would learn fear, since both would see that the victory came from God. The danger the LORD names is a boast made against himself.
Judges 7:2
“The people that are with thee are too many - Had he led up a numerous host against his enemies, the excellence of the power by which they were discomfited might have appeared to be of man and not of God. By the manner in which this whole transaction was conducted, both the Israelites and Midianites must see that the thing was of God. This would inspire the Israelites with confidence, and the Midianites with fear.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Albert Barnes notes that no Mount Gilead is known in this area, and he records two answers: the reading may be Gilboa, or the words may be a proclamation form used in Manasseh. Origen of Alexandria applies the verse to Christ, who calls to war only those who will take up the cross. More than two in three men left.
Judges 7:3
Does not the leader of our army, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, call out now to his soldiers and say, Whoever is "fearful and anxious of heart," let him not come to war with me? For this is also what he says in the Gospels in other words but with the same meaning: "Whoever does not take his own cross and come after me is not worthy of me," and again: "Whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · HOMILIES ON JUDGES 9.1patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:3
“The proclamation was in accordance with the Law (see the marginal reference). No mountain of the name of Gilead is known in this locality, and it has been conjectured that the right reading is Gilboa. Others think that this may be a form of proclamation customary in Manasseh.”
Judges 7:4-6
Verse 2 has already given the reason for both tests, so the cutting down is the work itself, and the text never says what the drinking showed. Albert Barnes reads the lappers as watchful men with their eyes on the enemy, and John Gill finds it hard to tell whether the act showed weakness or courage. A third reading sees only a way of setting apart a number.
Judges 7:4
“Try - The word used for refining metals by separating the dross from the pure ore. They who threw themselves on the ground and drank freely were the more self-indulgent; while they who, remembering the near presence of the enemy, slaked their thirst with moderation, and without being off their guard for an instant, were the true soldiers of the army of God.”
Adam Clarke notes that the Hebrew verb for lapping imitates the sound a dog makes when it drinks. The LORD names the test, and Gideon's part is only to separate the two groups. The water does the sorting.
Judges 7:5
“Every one that lappeth of the water - as a dog - The original word ילק yalok is precisely the sound which a dog makes when he is drinking.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke pictures the two postures: most knelt and put their mouths to the water, while three hundred stooped and lifted water to their mouths in the hollow of their hands. Verse 6 adds the hands to the dog of verse 5. The smaller group is kept.
Judges 7:6
“The number of them that lapped - From this account it appears that some of the people went down on their knees, and putting their mouths to the water, sucked up what they needed; the others stooped down, and taking up water in the hollow of their hands, applied it to their mouth.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 7:7-8
Thirty-two thousand is implied when twenty-two thousand leave and ten thousand remain, so three hundred is under one man in a hundred. The three hundred keep the provisions and the rams' horns, handed out eight verses before any reader learns their use. Verse 8 ends with "the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley", where verse 1 put it, so only the army has moved.
Judges 7:7
“And the Lord said unto Gideon, by the three hundred men that lapped I will save and deliver the Midianites into thine hand,.... It is hard to say what character this action of the three hundred is expressive of, whether of weakness or of courage.”
Albert Barnes explains that the three hundred took the horns from the men sent home, so each of them had a horn and a jar. Matthew Henry reads what follows as God supplying recruits for Gideon's faith in place of recruits for his army. The army shrinks and the equipment stays.
Judges 7:8
“So the people took victuals in their hands and their trumpets,.... That is, the three hundred took victuals of those that departed, as much as was necessary for them, and also their trumpets, being directed thereunto by Gideon, no doubt; perhaps they took all the trumpets they had; however, as many as would furnish every man with one.”
3 more voices on this verse
Judges 7:8
“So the people took victuals - The three hundred men that he reserved took the victuals necessary for the day’s expenditure, while the others were dismissed to their tents and their houses as they thought proper.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 7:8
“The sense is, “And they (the three hundred) took the victuals and trumpets of the people (all the people of Jdg 7:7) into their hands.” so that each of the three hundred should have a trumpet and a pitcher.”
Judges 7:8
“Gideon's army being diminished as we have found it was, he must either fight by faith or not at all; God therefore here provides recruits for his faith, instead of recruits for his forces. He furnishes him with a good foundation to build his faith upon.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A barley loaf tumbling through an enemy's dream
Judges 7:9-11
Verse 10 puts the condition before Gideon speaks, "But if you are afraid to do so", so the strengthening comes as an offer. In chapter 6 he had asked for confirmation three times, at 6:21, 6:37 and 6:39, and a fourth now comes unasked. Verse 3 had sent the fearful home, and the man left in command is met at the point of the same fear.
Judges 7:9
“A word of promise to assure him of the success, which otherwise seemed very improbable: I have delivered it into thy hand; it is all thy own. This word of the Lord came to him the same night, when he was (we may suppose) greatly agitated and full of care how he should come off; in the multitude of his thoughts within him these comforts did delight his soul.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:9
“I have delivered it into thine hand - I have determined to do it, and it is as sure as if it were done.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Verse 9 sends Gideon down against the camp, and verse 10 offers a second way down, to the camp with Purah beside him. The promise of verse 9 stands in both cases, since the camp is already delivered into his hand. He is given company for his fear.
Albert Barnes connects the word for armed men with the word rendered harnessed at Exodus 13:18. He takes its most probable meaning as arrayed in divisions or ranks. Gideon and Purah reach the outposts of that ordered camp.
Judges 7:11
“The armed men - The word is rendered harnessed in Exo 13:18 (see the note). The most probable meaning of the word is arrayed in divisions or ranks.”
Judges 7:12-14
Barley was the poor man's grain and the food of beasts, and 6:11 had Gideon hiding his wheat from them, so the "loaf of barley bread" is the cheapest bread a stripped country could bake. The comfort comes from a Midianite who names him and says "God has delivered Midian and the whole camp into his hand", so the outcome is stated in the enemy camp first.
Albert Barnes reads the barley loaf as a Midianite term of contempt for Israel. He takes the tent as the tent of the king of Midian or of the captain of the host. The despised loaf overturns the chief tent.
Judges 7:13
“A cake of barley bread - i. e. such a cake as could hardly be eaten by men, it was so vile: a term expressive of the contempt of the Midianites for the people of Israel. A tent - The tent, meaning, probably, the tent of the king of Midian, or of the captain of the host.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:13
“The circumstance of the cake, too, was very significant. Barley was usually the food of the poor, and of beasts; but most probably, from the widespread destruction of the crops by the invaders, multitudes must have been reduced to poor and scanty fare.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
John Wesley notes that God gave meaningful dreams to heathens more than once, and that some of them could interpret dreams by divine direction, as this man does. The interpreter even knows Gideon's father's name.
Judges 7:14
“His fellow answered, &c. - As there are many examples of significant dreams, given by God to Heathens, so some of them had the gift of interpreting dreams; which they sometimes did by divine direction as in this case.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 7:15-16
Gideon "bowed in worship" inside the enemy's lines on a stranger's dream, his first recorded worship since the altar at 6:24. Each man holds a horn and a jar with a torch inside, which fills both hands, and the three hundred draw no sword in the chapter. Matthew Henry sets the broken jars beside the treasure in clay jars of 2 Corinthians 4:7, and that link is his.
Judges 7:15
“How he gave God the glory of it; he worshipped immediately, bowed his head, or, it may be, lifted up his eyes and hands, and in a short ejaculation thanked God for the victory he was now sure of, and for this encouragement to expect it. Wherever we are, we may speak to God, and worship him, and find a way open heavenward.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:15
“I think it will not be amiss if we consider at greater length this war of the Madianites, which was intentionally introduced by the Prophet in comparison with the coming of the Lord. For in the book of Judges Gedeon is described as having fought against the Madianites. When he was bringing forth the multitude of the army to war, he was ordered by a Divine admonition, to remove from the conflict of battle all whom on coming to the water he beheld drinking the water with bended knees.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book 30, Section 73patristic
Trumpets, pitchers, torches, and a rout in the dark
divided the three hundred men into three companies: Adam Clarke holds that Gideon rightly planned the attack, since God often wills natural means even in a miracle, as with the washing in the Jordan and at Siloam. Ambrose of Milan reads the jars as bodies of clay that lose their fear when they burn with the Spirit's grace. Three companies let three hundred surround the camp.
Judges 7:16
“For the same reason was it that when Gideon was about to overcome the Midianites, he commanded three hundred men to take pitchers, and to hold lighted torches inside the pitchers, and trumpets in their right hands. Our predecessors have preserved the explanation received from the apostles, that the pitchers are our bodies, fashioned of clay, which do not know fear if they burn with the fervor of the grace of the Spirit, and bear witness to the passion of the Lord Jesus with a loud confession of the voice.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On the Holy Spirit 1.143-46patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:16
“He divided the three hundred men - Though the victory was to be from the Lord, yet he knew that he ought to use prudential means; and those which he employed on this occasion were the best calculated to answer the end. If he had not used these means, it is not likely that God would have delivered the Midianites into his hands. Sometimes, even in working a miracle, God will have natural means used: Go, dip thyself seven times in Jordan. Go, wash in the pool Siloam.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 7:17-18
The plan is imitation, "Watch me and do as I do", with no signal beyond the man in front. The Midianite had said "the sword of Gideon", and Gideon's cry puts another name before his own, "For the LORD and for Gideon". Verse 2 cut the army lest Israel say "My own hand has saved me", and the shout still carries a man's name after God's.
Judges 7:17
“Look on me - For though two hundred of his men were placed on other sides of the camp; yet they were so disposed, that some persons, set as watchmen, might see what was done, and give notice to the rest to follow the example.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:17
“Such is the word of command which our Lord Jesus, the captain of our salvation, gives his soldiers; for he has left us an example, with a charge to follow it: As I do, so shall you do.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Adam Clarke notes that the word sword is missing here in the Hebrew and appears at verse 20, though the Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic versions and eight manuscripts carry it here. John Wesley explains Gideon's own name in the cry as policy, since his name had grown feared. Verse 14 shows that fear at work.
Judges 7:18
“The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon - The word חרב chereb, “sword,” is not found in this verse, though it is necessarily implied, and is found in Jdg 7:20. But it is found in this place in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, and in eight of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS. The reading appears to be genuine.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:18
“Of Gideon - He mentions his own name, together with God's, not out of arrogance, as if he would equal himself with God; but from prudent policy, because his name was grown formidable to them, and so was likely to further his design.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Judges 7:19-21
the beginning of the middle: The middle watch begins near midnight, just after the guard changed, so the sentries were the least settled and the camp was asleep. Israel divided the night into three watches, which is why Exodus 14:24 can speak of the morning watch. The three hundred break their jars, then "Each Israelite took his position around the camp" while Midian fled, the posture Moses called for at Exodus 14:13.
Judges 7:19
“The middle watch - The old Jewish division of the night was three watches of four hours each. They are alluded to in Exo 14:24; 1Sa 11:11; Psa 63:6; Psa 90:4; Psa 119:148; Psa 130:6; Lam 2:19. After the Jews fell under the power of the Romans, they used the Roman division of four watches of three hours each Mat 14:25; Mar 13:35. “The beginning” of the watch would be about eleven o’clock at night.”
The cry of verse 18 now adds a sword. Adam Clarke pictures three hundred torches flaring at once on half-woken eyes, with the horns and the shout around them. Gregory the Dialogist reads the horns as preaching, the torches as miracles and the jars as frail bodies.
Judges 7:20
“Blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers - How astonishing must the effect be, in a dark night, of the sudden glare of three hundred torches, darting their splendor, in the same instant, on the half-awakened eyes of the terrified Midianites, accompanied with the clangour of three hundred trumpets, alternately mingled with the thundering shout of חרב ליהוה ולגדעון chereb layhovah ulegidon, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!””
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:20
“They go forth therefore to battle with trumpets, with lamps, and with pitchers. This, as we have said, was an unusual order of battle. They sounded with the trumpets, and the pitchers were held in their left hands. But lamps were placed within the pitchers; but, when the pitchers were broken, the lamps appeared, and by their flashing light the affrighted enemies are put to flight. By the trumpets is designated therefore the loud voice of preachers, by the lamps the brightness of their miracles, by the pitchers the frailness of their bodies.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job 30.25patristic
Albert Barnes explains why standing still was enough. The ring of torches suggested a great host all around, and in their own dark camp the Midianites took friends for enemies and fleeing men for pursuers. Verse 22 records the result.
Judges 7:21
“The effect to the Midianites would be, that they were surrounded by a mighty host. Their own camp being in darkness, as soon as the confusion of flight began they would mistake friends for foes, and fleers for pursuers.”
Judges 7:22-23
The only sword work in the chapter is Midian's own, as at 1 Samuel 14:20 with the Philistines and 2 Chronicles 20:23 with Ammon and Moab. Verse 23 names Naphtali, Asher and Manasseh, three of the four summoned at 6:35, so the men sent home return for the pursuit. The battle is won by three hundred and the chase is worked by the nation.
Judges 7:22
“Fled to Beth-shittah - This is no where else mentioned in Scripture. Zererath - This and Tabbath are nowhere else to be found. Abel-meholah - This was the birth-place of the prophet Elisha, 1Ki 19:16. It was beyond Jordan, in the tribe of Manasseh, 1Ki 4:12. The Zartanah, mentioned in this last quoted verse, was probably the same as Zererath. Its situation corresponds well with Abel-meholah.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Adam Clarke thinks these were men Gideon had sent home the day before, who set out as soon as they heard of the rout. They follow a flight that verse 22 traces as far as the border of Abel-meholah. Ephraim follows at verse 24.
Judges 7:23
“The men of Israel gathered - It is very likely that these were some persons whom Gideon had sent home the day before, who now hearing that the Midianites were routed, went immediately in pursuit.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Judges 7:24-25
Ephraim is called after the fighting, and 8:1 opens with that tribe complaining of exactly this. Seizing "the waters of the Jordan" shuts the escape route, as Ehud did at 3:28. Oreb means raven and Zeeb wolf, the rock and the winepress keep their names from what happened there, and Isaiah 10:26 and Psalm 83:11 recall the day, the psalm asking God to do it again.
Judges 7:24
“Take before them the waters unto Beth-barah - This is probably the same place as that mentioned Joh 1:28, where the Hebrews forded Jordan under the direction of Joshua. To this place the Midianites directed their flight that they might escape into their own country; and here, being met by the Ephraimites, they appear to have been totally overthrown, and their two generals taken.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the heads of Oreb and Zeeb: John Gill suggests the names raven and wolf were nicknames for greed and cruelty, or names the princes or their fathers took to frighten others, as Roman families were called Corvini. The heads reach Gideon on the other side of the Jordan.
Judges 7:25
“And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb,.... The one signifies a "raven", and the other a "wolf"; which were either nicknames given them because of their voraciousness and cruelty, or which they took themselves, or their ancestors before them, to make themselves terrible to others; so the Romans had the families of the Corvini, &c. and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb; perhaps they found him in a cave of the rock, and dragging him out slew him, from whence the rock afterwards had its name.”
1 more voice on this verse
Judges 7:25
“They who were glorying in their army, whose king was the Assyrian and who used to boast "I will scale the heavens," not only fell down to earth but on the ground became dung."Make their nobles." What nobles? Those who fight against your people. "Like Oreb and Zeeb; all their chiefs like Zebah and Zalmunna." I suppose you have read in the book of Judges the story of Gideon, who is also called Jerubbaal, how he outwitted those four kings while fighting for the people of God and put an end to them.”
Jerome · written before 420 · HOMILIES ON THE PSALMS 15 (PS 82)patristic
How this psalm is built
The form: A battle narrative built on a reduction, in which the army is cut down twice, a sign is given unasked, and the fighting is done by the enemy against itself, as Barnes classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| The army counted down | The chapter keeps a running total. Thirty two thousand stand at the well of Harod, twenty two thousand go home afraid at verse 3, ten thousand remain, and three hundred are kept at verse 7. Three hundred is under one man in a hundred of what Gideon started with. Verse 8 closes by putting the camp of Midian below him in the valley, which is where verse 1 put them, so the ground has not moved and only the army has.The site's published exposition note on Judges 7:7 to 8, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 7, catchword "the three hundred men that", 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 7:3, Judges 7:7, Judges 7:8 |
| The reason given before the tests and again after them | Verse 2 states the reason for both reductions before either is made, that the people are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, and that Israel would claim the victory as its own. The shout at verse 18 answers the same concern by putting the sword of the LORD in front of the sword of Gideon. The cutting down is the work rather than an obstacle to it.The site's published exposition note on Judges 7:4 to 6, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 7, catchword "people are yet too many", citing Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869, and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763. | Judges 7:2, Judges 7:18 |
| The name that argues with Baal | Verse 1 opens with Jerubbaal, the name given at 6:32 after Gideon pulled down his father's altar, which carries the sense of let Baal contend against him. The man who leads Israel against Midian goes into the field under a name that argues with Baal. The well is Harod, which means trembling, and it is named for what happens three verses later when twenty two thousand men go home afraid.The site's published exposition note on Judges 7:1 to 3, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 7, catchword "Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon", citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, and Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869. | Judges 7:1, Judges 7:3 |
| The plan that is only imitation | Gideon's orders at verses 17 and 18 are look at me and do likewise, with no signal in them beyond watching the man in front. The same three actions are then repeated by every man: blow the trumpet, break the jar, hold up the torch and shout. Verse 21 says they stood every man in his place, which is the posture Moses called for at Exodus 14:13.The site's published exposition note on Judges 7:17 to 18, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 7, catchword "on me, and do likewise", citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1708 to 1710. | Judges 7:17, Judges 7:18, Judges 7:20, Judges 7:21 |
| The outcome spoken in the enemy's camp | The comfort Gideon is sent down to hear is spoken by a Midianite. One man tells a dream of a barley loaf tumbling into the camp and another interprets it by name, saying that God has delivered Midian and the whole camp into the hand of Gideon son of Joash. The result of the battle is stated in the enemy's own lines before anyone in Israel says it.The site's published exposition note on Judges 7:12 to 14, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 7, catchword "in the valley like grasshoppers", citing Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, and Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869. | Judges 7:13, Judges 7:14 |
The structure of the chapter in the book's argument
15 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter is the centre of the fourth cycle. The site's published guide for this book carries Gideon 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 last rest notice in the book.
What this chapter contributes to the book's argument is the arithmetic. Verse 2 says the army is too large for God to use, which reverses every ordinary military reckoning, and the account then removes ninety nine of every hundred men. The figure that remains is the figure a reader remembers, and the victory is won without a sword drawn on Israel's side.
The chapter also sets up chapter 8. Ephraim is called after the fighting rather than before it at verse 24, and 8:1 opens with that tribe complaining about exactly this. Holding the waters and the fords of the Jordan shuts the escape route, which is the tactic Ehud used at 3:28 and the ground the men of Gilead hold at 12:5.
The shout at verse 18 is worth reading twice. The Midianite at verse 14 had called it the sword of Gideon, and the cry Gideon gives his men puts another name in front of his own, the sword of the LORD and of Gideon. Verse 2 had said the army was cut down so that Israel could not say its own hand had saved it, and the shout still carries a man's name while naming God first.
What the enemy did to itself
The only sword work in the chapter is Midian's own. Verse 22 says the LORD set every man's sword against his companion throughout the camp. The same thing is recorded at 1 Samuel 14:20, when the Philistine host turns on itself, and at 2 Chronicles 20:23, when Ammon and Moab destroy each other.
The tribes named at verse 23 are Naphtali, Asher and Manasseh, three of the four Gideon had summoned at 6:35, so the men sent home at verses 3 and 7 come back for the pursuit. The battle is won by three hundred and the chase is worked by the nation.
The figure at verse 12 is turned around from Numbers 13:33, where the spies said that in their own sight they were like grasshoppers before the giants. Here it is the enemy who fills the valley like locusts, and the small party is Israel's.
The historical value
The camels without number at verse 12 belong with the raids of 6:3 to 5. The site's published dossier for Judges describes the world of Iron Age I as hundreds of small unwalled highland villages with stored grain and no standing army, which is the society that could be stripped at harvest by mounted raiders and could raise only a levy in answer.
The valley in which Midian camps is the valley of Jezreel, named at 6:33, the grain valley of the north and the same ground whose fortress towns Manasseh failed to clear at 1:27.
Where the chapter reaches
The day at the rock of Oreb became a fixed point in Israel's memory. Isaiah 10:26 reaches back to it as the pattern of how the LORD will strike an oppressor, and Psalm 83:11 names both Oreb and Zeeb in a prayer asking God to do the same thing again. Oreb means raven and Zeeb means wolf, and the rock and the winepress carry their names afterward from what happened at them.
Hebrews 11:32 to 34 names Gideon among those who through faith conquered kingdoms, gained strength from weakness and became mighty in battle, which is the New Testament's own summary of what this chapter records.
Matthew Henry sets the breaking of the jars beside the treasure in earthen vessels of 2 Corinthians 4:7. That is his reading rather than a link the New Testament makes, and it is named here as his.
Keep studying
Studies6
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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
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Judges 7:4; The site's published exposition note on Judges 7:1 to 3, The store's `verse_notes` for Judges 7, catchword "Then Jerubbaal, who is Gideon", citing Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1863, and Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, 1832 to 1869 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; Ambrose of Milan, On the Holy Spirit 1.143-46; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job 30.25; 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; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON JUDGES 9.1.