Judges 8:21

_THEN ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA SAID, RISE THOU, AND FALL UPON US: FOR AS THE MAN IS, SO IS HIS STRENGTH. AND GIDEON AROSE, AND SLEW ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA, AND TOOK AWAY THE ORNAMENTS THAT WERE ON THEIR CAMELS' NECKS._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

18-21 The kings of Midian must be reckoned with. As they confessed themselves guilty of murder, Gideon acted as the avenger of blood, being the next of kin to the persons slain. Little did they think to have heard of this so long after; but murder seldom goes unpunished in this life. Sins long forgotten by man, must be accounted for to God. What poor consolation in death from the hope of suffering less pain, and of dying with less disgrace than some others! yet many are more anxious on these accounts, than concerning the future judgment, and what will follow....

Verse Judges 8:21. _THEN ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA SAID, RISE, THOU, AND FALL_ _UPON US_] It was disgraceful to fall by the hands of a _child_; and the death occasioned by the blows of such a person must be much more lingering and tormenting. Some have even employed children to despatch captives. _Civilis_, a Roman knight, headed a revolt of the Gauls against Rome, in the year of the city 824. Of him _Tacitus_ says, _Hist_. lib. iv., c. 61: _Ferebatur parvulo filio quosdam_ _captivorum sagittis jaculisque puerilibus figendos obtulisse_: "He is said to have given to his little son some prisoners, as butts to be shot at with little darts and arrows." This was for their greater torment and dishonour; and to inure his child to blood! Could any thing like this have been the design of Gideon? _THE ORNAMENTS THAT_ WERE...

THE ORNAMENTS - See marg. and compare Isaiah 3:18. The custom of adorning the necks of their camels with gold chains and ornaments prevailed among the Arabs so late as the time of Mahomet....

EXPOSITION JUDGES 8:13 BEFORE THE SUN WAS UP. There is a wonderful diversity in the renderings of this verse. Some of the old versions and Jewish Rabbis interpret it _before sunset. _Many of the best Jewish commentators, however, understand the phrase as the A.V. does—"Before the going up of the sun," _i.e._ before sunrise; supposing Gideon's attack on the Midianitish camp to have been a night attack, and Succoth to have been so near to Karkor that he was able to reach it by sunrise. But others say that the word here rendered _sun_ (_heres_)_ _is only used in poetry, and that the word rendered _up_ is never used of sunrise, but, as, in the phrase "the going up of Akrabbim" (Judges 1:36), of an ascent up a hill. They th

THEN ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA SAID, RISE THOU AND FALL UPON US,.... Since they must die, they chose rather to die by the hand of so great a man and valiant a commander as Gideon, which was more honourable than to die by the hand of a youth: FOR AS THE MAN IS, SO IS HIS STRENGTH; signifying, that as he was a stout able man, he had strength sufficient to dispatch them at once, which his son had not, and therefore they must have died a lingering and painful death: wherefore as they consulted their honour, so their ease, in desiring to die by the hand of Gideon: AND GIDEON AROSE, AND SLEW ZEBAH AND ZALMUNNA; nor was it unusual in those early times for great personages, as judges and generals, to be executioners of others, as were Samuel and Benaiah, 1 Samuel 15:33 AND TOOK AWAY THE ORNAMENTS THAT WERE ON THEIR CAMELS' NECKS; t

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

ORNAMENTS. crescent-shaped ornaments used still on necks of horses and camels....

_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 ...