Judges 6:8

_THAT THE LORD SENT A PROPHET UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, WHICH SAID UNTO THEM, THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL, I BROUGHT YOU UP FROM EGYPT, AND BROUGHT YOU FORTH OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE;_ The Lord sent a prophet. This prophet exercised the pastoral office only. Like the man of God commissioned to reprove Eli (1 Sam. 11:27-29), he was the bearer of a specific message, but not the utterer of prophetic sayings. His function was to rouse the Israelites to a sense of their sin in apostatizing from God. The national calamity is authoritatively traced to their infidelity as the cause....

7-10 They cried to God for a deliverer, and he sent them a prophet to teach them. When God furnishes a land with faithful ministers, it is a token that he has mercy in store for it. He charges them with rebellion against the Lord; he intends to bring them to repentance. Repentance is real when the sinfulness of sin, as disobedience to God, is chiefly lamented....

Verse 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....

A PROPHET - His name is not given. (Compare 1 Kings 13.) This message is somewhat similar to that of the Angel, Judges 2:1. The reference to Exodus 20:2 is plain, and supposes the people to whom the prophet addresses these words to be familiar with the facts recorded in that text....

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 LORD SENT A PROPHET UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL,.... "A man, a prophet" f, as in the Hebrew text, not an angel, but a man; and this not Phinehas, as say some Jewish writers g; for it is not probable he should live so long as more than two hundred years; and had he been living, it is very much he should not have been heard of in the times of the preceding judges, and that he was not made use of before now to reprove the people for their sins; but who the prophet was we have no account now nor hereafter, here or elsewhere. Abarbinel supposes he was raised up for a short time: WHICH SAID UNTO THEM, THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL; he came in the name of the Lord, and using the form and manner of speech the prophets of Israel did, putting them in mind of the true God they had forgot, and who yet was their Lord and God: I BROUGHT YOU UP FROM EGYPT, AND BROUGHT YOU FORTH OUT OF THE...

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

A second writer (probably E) introduces a prophet who reproves Israel for disloyalty and ingratitude to Yahweh their God. The brief speech is a torso. Reflective rather than prophetic, it opens impressively, but ends abruptly, like a sermon without application; and then one of the main traditions begins....

A PROPHET. Hebrew "a man (' _ish,_ App-14.). prophet" GOD. Hebrew. _Elohim._ App-4. FROM EGYPT. Some codices, with Septuagint and Syriac, read "from the land of Egypt". BONDAGE. Hebrew bondmen. Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Adjunct). App-6....

THE LORD SENT A PROPHET UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL— It is probable, that God, at this time, continued other prophets among the Israelites beside the high-priest to put them in mind of their duty, and to call them to repentance when they forsook him. We see an illustrious prophetess in the person of Deborah; which shews, that upon special occasions, at least, God raised up such persons among them....