Judges 6:2

_AND THE HAND OF MIDIAN PREVAILED AGAINST ISRAEL: AND BECAUSE OF THE MIDIANITES THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MADE THEM THE DENS WHICH ARE IN THE MOUNTAINS, AND CAVES, AND STRONG HOLDS._ Because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains ... Palestine is a mountainous country, and, from the limestone character of its rocks, abounds in caverns, natural and artificial. Of the former instances occur frequently in the sacred history (Genesis 19:30; Genesis 23:9; Genesis 25:9; Joshua 10:16; 1 Samuel 22:1

1-6 Israel's sin was renewed, and Israel's troubles were repeated. Let all that sin expect to suffer. The Israelites hid themselves in dens and caves; such was the effect of a guilty conscience. Sin dispirits men. The invaders left no food for Israel, except what was taken into the caves. They prepared that for Baal with which God should have been served, now God justly sends an enemy to take it away in the season thereof....

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....

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....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 6:1 MIDIAN. In Numbers 22:7 we read of the Midianites as allied with the Moabites in their hostility to the children of Israel, and we find them willing agents of Balaam s iniquitous counsels (Numbers 25:6, Numbers 25:17, Numbers 25:18; Numbers 31:7, Numbers 31:8), and suffering a terrible chastisement from the Israelites in

AND THE HAND OF MIDIAN PREVAILED AGAINST ISRAEL,.... They were too strong for them, and overcame them, and brought them into subjection to them, and no wonder, when the Lord delivered them into their hand: AND BECAUSE OF THE MIDIANITES; because of their usage of them, their manner of coming upon them yearly, and pillaging and plundering their substance, as after related: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL MADE THEM DENS WHICH ARE IN THE MOUNTAINS; the word for "dens" has the signification of light in it, and are so called either by an antiphrasis, because they were dark, or, as Kimchi thinks, because they had a window at the top of them, which let in the light a but Ben Gersom conjectures they were torches, which gave a great light, and when they that held them saw from the mountains the Midianites, by these torches they made a signal to the Israelites to take care and hide themselves and their su...

4. FOURTH DECLENSION: UNDER MIDIAN AND GIDEON, TOLA AND JAIR CHAPTER 6 _ 1. Israel's suffering from Midian (Judges 6:1)_ 2. Their repentance and the divine answer (Judges 6:7) 3. Gideon, the deliverer, chosen (Judges 6:11) 4. The restored worship (Judges 6:25) 5. The gathering for the conflict (Judges 6:33) 6. The sign of the fleece (Judges 6:36) After Deborah and Barak the land had fifty years' rest, and when again they did

THE DEPREDATIONS OF THE MIDIANITES. D, whose phrases occur in Judges 6:1 f., Judges 6:6, sees in the ebb and flow of Israel's fortune an index of their moral and spiritual condition. National suffering he regards as the punishment of national sin; the hand of Midian is in a sense the hand of God; yet, while he blames, he cannot help sympathising. Judges 6:2. Dens, caves, and mountain fastnesses were the only refuges for peaceful citizens, fleeing in terror from hearth and home (_cf._ 1 Samuel 13:6; Hebrews 11:38). The invaders swarmed like locusts, which

AND. the....

_The Midianite oppression_ 1 _._The Deuteronomic editor introduces a fresh subject in his accustomed manner: cf. Judges 2:11; Judges 2:14; Judges 3:7; Judges 4:1. _Midian_ The Midianites had their homes on the E. of the -Arâbah; see Genesis 25:6. At times they are found as far N. as Moab (Genesis 36:35; Numbers 22:4;...