Judges 8:10

_NOW ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA WERE IN KARKOR, AND THEIR HOSTS WITH THEM, ABOUT FIFTEEN THOUSAND MEN, ALL THAT WERE LEFT OF ALL THE HOSTS OF THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST: FOR THERE FELL AN HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND MEN THAT DREW SWORD._ Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor - a town on the eastern confines of Gad. The wreck of the Midianite army halted there....

4-12 Gideon's men were faint, yet pursuing; fatigued with what they had done, yet eager to do more against their enemies. It is many a time the true Christian's case, fainting, and yet pursuing. The world knows but little of the persevering and successful struggle the real believer maintains with his sinful heart. But he betakes himself to that Divine strength, in the faith of which he began his conflict, and by the supply of which alone he can finish it in triumph....

Verse Judges 8:10. _ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA WERE IN KARKOR_] If this were a _place_, it is nowhere else mentioned in Scripture. Some contend that קרקר _karkor_ signifies _rest_; and thus the Vulgate understood it: Zebah and Zalmunna _requiescebant, rested_, with all their army. And this seems the most likely, for it is said, Judges 8:11, that Gideon smote the host, for the host was _secure_....

Zebah and Zalmunna seem to have fled nearly due east to Karkor, which was probably an enclosure of some kind (perhaps a walled sheepfold, compare Numbers 31:32 note). Its site is unknown; but it was near Nobah, in the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead Numbers 32:40, and Jogbehah was in the tribe of Gad Numbers 32:34. Gideon, perhaps taking a circuit so as to come upon them from the east, fell suddenly upon them, apparently at night, surprised them, and smote them....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 8:4 CAME TO JORDAN. The narrative goes back to Judges 7:24, to follow up the personal history of Gideon, from which the writer had been diverted to relate the result of Gideon's message to the Ephraimites, which is told in Judges 7:24 and Judges 7:25, and Judges 8:1 (see Judges 7:25, note; Judges 2:1, note)....

NOW ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA WERE IN KARKOR..... Jerom u under this word says, there was in his time a castle called Carcuria, a day's journey from Petra, which was the metropolis of Idumea; but whether the same with this is not clear: AND THEIR HOST WITH THEM, ABOUT FIFTEEN THOUSAND MEN; to which number Gideon and his three hundred men were very unequal; and yet, faint and weary as they were, closely pursued them, attacked and conquered them. Josephus w very wrongly makes this number to be about 18,000: ALL THAT WERE LEFT OF THE HOSTS OF THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST; the Arabians, who with the Amalekites joined the Midianites in this expedition; and perhaps the remainder of the army chiefly consisted of Arabians, the others having mostly suffered in the valley of Jezreel, and at the fords of Jordan: FOR THERE FELL AN HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND MEN THAT DREW SWORD; besides infirm men, women, a...

CHAPTER 8 INTERNAL STRIFE, GIDEON'S FAILURE AND END _ 1. The strife (Judges 8:1)_ 2. The complete deliverance (Judges 8:10) 3. Gideon's failure and end (Judges 8:22) 4. Israel's failure after Gideon (Judges 8:33) Internal strife follows. The two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, were slain (Judges 7:25). Oreb means “raven” and Zeeb means “wolf.” Oreb, the raven, is slain on the rock and Zeeb, the wolf, at the winepress. The raven, the bird which represents darkness and evil, is the type of corruption; the wolf is the destroyer o

THE PURSUIT ON THE EAST OF JORDAN. This section is not continuous with the preceding one. The men of Israel, who were gathered together after the battle (Judges 7:23), and the Ephraimites, who were so eager to prove what they could do, are heard of no more. Gideon is again alone with his 300 (Judges 8:4); the men of Succoth and Penuel, ignorant of any battle or rout, think his campaign against the Midianites a hopeless affair; and when he at length reaches the enemy he finds them secure, apparently having neither been, nor expecting to be, disturbed (11). Plainly we have here a different tradition. Judges 8:4. For faint and (not - yet-') pursuing the LXX has faint and hungry, which suits the next verse, where there is a request

HOSTS. camps. CHILDREN. Hebrew sons....

_The pursuit on the east of Jordan_ This section is clearly not the continuation of the verses which immediately precede (see p. 68); if its antecedents are to be found in the foregoing narrative at all, we may suppose that after the panic and flight described in Judges 7:16-22, the main body of the Midianites escaped across the Jordan, and with their camels (Judges 8:21_; Judges 8:26_) easily outstripped their pursuers, insomuch that the men of Succoth and Penuel (Judges 8:6_; Judges 8:8_), and they themselves ...