Judges 6:4

_AND THEY ENCAMPED AGAINST THEM, AND DESTROYED THE INCREASE OF THE EARTH, TILL THOU COME UNTO GAZA, AND LEFT NO SUSTENANCE FOR ISRAEL, NEITHER SHEEP, NOR OX, NOR ASS._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

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 6:4. _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....

Gaza indicates the extreme point south to which they spread their devastations, crossing the Jordan near Bethshan (Scythopolls), and entering by the valley of Jezreel, and sweeping along the whole of the maritime plain or Shephelah....

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 THEY ENCAMPED AGAINST THEM,.... Formed a camp, from whence they sent out parties to plunder the people; or "they were fixing their tents among them,'' as the Vulgate Latin version; and so the Targum, "they dwelt by them,'' or fixed their habitations by them; for they seem not to have come as a regular army, but as a sort of banditti to pillage, and plunder, and destroy the fruits of the earth; and the Midianites and Arabians dwelt in tents chiefly: AND DESTROYED THE INCREASE OF THE EARTH; the corn and grass before they were well ripe, and fit to cut down; this they did, and gave it to their cattle, and the rest they carried off: TILL THOU COME UNTO GAZA; a principality of the Philistines, which lay in the western part of Canaan, on the shore of the Mediterranean sea; so that as these people came out of the east, and entered the eastern part, they went through the whole land fro...

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

_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;...

Gideon of Manasseh and Abimelech Judges 6:1 to Judges 9:57 _Midian Oppresses Israel Judges 6:1-10_ And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. 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 strongholds. 3 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them; 4 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till thou come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass.